BY ALPHABETICAL TOPIC
Happy Marketing!
5 months ago
Free SEO Advice
Looking for Free SEO Advice? Read the following posts on a variety of topics. Want more SEO advice? Go straight to the source by emailing contactus@designseo.ca to setup an in-person consultation.ABCs of Search Engine Optimization (January 2013)
A Quick Guide to Search Engine Submissions (April 2012)
Explaining SEO to Clients: The Fishing Metaphor (November 2010)
How to get Quality Links and higher Conversion Rates (April 2012)
How to Hire Link Building Services (August 2011)
How to Market your Books on Twitter (March 2021)
Marketing Tactics for the Holiday Season (December 2010)
Niche Topic Advertising: Toronto Personal Trainers (January 2013)
Online Reputation Management (February 2016)
Search Engine Click Thru Rates (June 2011)
SEM Glossary (June 2011)
SEO Buzzwords (December 2011)
SEO Reading List for the Beginner (June 2011)
SEO Winners and Losers 2011 (June 2011)
Smart Use of Sub-Domains to Boost Your SEO Potential (August 2011)
Subdomains Vs. Folders: Which is better? (April 2012)
Quality Website Design: The Mustang Vs the Lemon (July 2011)
The Importance of Local Website Design & SEO in Toronto (July 2011)
The Importance of Non-Reciprocal Links (July 2011)
The Laughable Expectations of Non SEO People (February 2012)
The SEO Checklist (June 2011)
The SEO Value of WebRing: An Untapped Goldmine (June 2011)
Viral Video Marketing (February 2012)
What is Better for SEO? Desktop, Laptop or Tablet? PC or Mac? (June 2011)
Spamming Comments on Blogs don't work by the way...
So I just deleted (moderated) over 100 spam comments on SEO Toronto, deleting all of them except one.
The only legitimate comment (that was not spam) was a guy who said "hi" on the following blog post:
https://seoto.blogspot.com/2014/02/social-media-experts-funny.html
So out of 108 comments, only one of them was a real genuine comment. The other 107 were all spam comments, largely from my idiotic competitors in the SEO industry, and including a few which were "Toronto SEO" specific, which means that they were my direct competitors here in Toronto.
Why does that make a difference?
Well, I only work locally for clients I meet IN PERSON. This is more difficult these days with COVID, but whatever. The principle is the same. Unless I can shake my client's hand then I am not interested in having them as a client.
So it bothers me that once in awhile I have to delete spammy comments from my blogs, but to be fair I only moderate an individual blog's comments once every 2-3 years, and I have the setting set to Moderation Required for the comments to even appear. This means that anyone dumb enough to post spam comments never gets their comment to see the intended audience and any links in the comments never gets to benefit their business.
Hence why spamming comments on random blogs doesn't actually help anyone's business with respect to SEO. In order to get the comment approved you really need to get the owner of the blog to LIKE your comment and choose to approve it. Which isn't going to happen if it is remotely spammy.
HOT TIP
This is why commenting on a friend's blog actually makes more sense.
If you post comments on the blog of a friend or colleague (someone you know personally) they won't mind so much if you include a link in your comment, and presumably you actually put more time and effort into writing your comment and making it personal.
Then the person seeing the comment is a friend, is friendly to your cause/business, and is highly likely to approve your comment.
Most blogs these days have Moderation Required before any comments get seen by an audience. Any blogs that don't have that setting turned on will likely be riddled with hundreds (or thousands) of comments from people, which means any links in the comments section will be diluted and basically useless with respect to SEO.
Commenting on a friend or colleague's blog however is really many times more effective because it is 99.99% guaranteed that your friend will approve the comment, assuming you only leave 1 comment that isn't "spammy" and is a genuine comment. Leaving a dozen very spammy comments is likely to just annoy your friend and still get deleted.
Want more SEO Advice? Just ask a question in the comments or visit http://www.designseo.ca/SEO-Advice.html
It might take me 2-3 years to read your comment and answer it, but at least you will be posting genuine comments instead of spam.
Consult a SEO Expert for $40 per hour
So I am raising my SEO Consultation rate to $40 CDN per hour. (Which you may have noticed if you see the section above or below where is says something like the following:
It used to be $35 per hour, which is the rate I started using back in January 2014, but in the past 7 years we've had this thing called "inflation" and I have decided to raise my rates.
The inflation rate in Canada per year during that time period was the following:
- 2014 - 1.91%
- 2015 - 1.13%
- 2016 - 1.43%
- 2017 - 1.60%
- 2018 - 2.27%
- 2019 - 1.95%
- 2020 - 2.30%*
* The 2020 number is an estimate from the Bank of Canada, and was expected to be worse due to COVID, but the price of oil dropped in 2020 due to lower fuel consumption and thus offset the higher costs of food and other commodities due to COVID. Exact numbers for Canada's inflation rate have not been released yet for 2020.
Okay so because inflation works a bit like compound interest, what it means is that the cost of living goes up with each year compounding the problem. If people don't raise their hourly wages once per year or once every so many years it is effectively like they are taking a pay cut each year and those pay cuts become cumulative.
If my previous hourly rate of $35 per hour for consulting work was to keep up with the previous year's inflation rate then it would look like this:
- 2015 - $35.67
- 2016 - $36.07
- 2017 - $36.59
- 2018 - $37.17
- 2019 - $38.02
- 2020 - $38.76
- 2021 - $39.65
And now you see why I have decided to raise my consulting rate to $40 CDN per hour, effective as of January 15th 2021.
So as you can see it is time for me to raise my rates. Whatever I was charging in 2014 is now 7 years out of date due to inflation.
Call it the upside to running my own business. I get to decide when I get to give myself a wage increase. Not my "boss". Not the government deciding when to increase the minimum wage. Me. I decide that my time is worth more.
And if you don't think your time is worth more too I invite you to check out the following graphic which compares the US Minimum Wage when Adjusted for Inflation.
Based on the chart the best time to be working a minimum wage job in the USA was 1968.
Americans who work minimum wage jobs are effectively earning less now than they were in 2009, 1968 or various other points in history.
And if I deserve a wage increase, why not YOU?
The companies that employ minimum wage earners can certainly afford to pay more, and any money spent through wages goes right back into boosting the economy. The more money people have to spend then the more money they are going to spend.
I also support a two-tier approach to minimum wage.
- Teenagers under the age of 18 - $15/hour.
- Adults, 18 years or older - $18/hour.
Why? Because adults have more expenses. Adults have rent/mortgages to pay and/or college tuition/university debt. Adults have kids to worry about. Car loans, fuel costs, electricity bills, etc.
That is one of the other thing's that has changed for myself personally. I have a son now. My bills are bigger than they used to be. My wife and I are browsing houses on real estate websites and eyeing the mortgage rate.
And I know from previous experience when I raised my consulting fee from $30/hour in 2013 to $35/hour in January 2014 that I didn't lose a single client, nor do I expect to lose any clients now either.
People get it.
People know that this is how inflation works. The cost of living goes up then so does the cost of employing people also needs to go up. People understand how this works because it affects them too.
"We're all in this together" is a phrase that has been used many times with respect to COVID, but it also applies to the economy. We're all in this economy together. If the price of wages doesn't go up to match inflation then the economy stagnates as people stop spending so much because they don't have enough money to spend more.
If the price of wages doesn't go up to match inflation then the economy stagnates as people stop spending so much because they don't have enough money to spend more.
What are the Most Cost Effective types of Online Advertising?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): While not directly advertising, investing in SEO can be highly cost-effective in the long run. Optimizing your website and content for search engines helps improve organic rankings, leading to increased visibility and traffic without paying for clicks or impressions.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising: PPC advertising, such as Google Ads and Bing Ads, allows you to pay only when a user clicks on your ad. This model ensures that you pay for actual engagement and can be cost-effective if campaigns are well-optimized. Proper keyword research, targeting, ad relevance, and bid management are essential for maximizing ROI.
Social Media Advertising: Platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn offer cost-effective advertising options. You can target specific demographics, interests, and behaviors to reach your desired audience. Social media ads often provide good value for money, allowing you to set budget caps and pay based on clicks, impressions, or other engagement metrics. (We do not recommend Facebook however, as that has proven to be ineffective.)
Display Advertising: Display ads appear on websites, typically as banners or graphics. Platforms like Google Display Network offer affordable ad placement on a wide range of websites. Careful targeting and optimization can help you reach your target audience effectively, resulting in cost-effective brand exposure and conversions.
Retargeting/Remarketing Ads: Retargeting allows you to show ads specifically to users who have previously visited your website or shown interest in your products/services. These ads can be highly effective since they target users who are already familiar with your brand, resulting in better conversion rates. Retargeting platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads offer cost-effective solutions.
Content Marketing: Content marketing involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and informative content to attract and engage your target audience. By producing high-quality blog posts, videos, infographics, or eBooks, you can increase brand visibility, build trust, and drive organic traffic at a relatively low cost.
Influencer Marketing: Collaborating with influencers who have a significant following in your niche can be cost-effective compared to traditional advertising. Influencers can promote your products/services through their channels, reaching their engaged audience. Finding relevant micro-influencers can be particularly cost-effective while maintaining targeted reach.
How to get 1000+ Wattpad Followers = Follow + Followback
Wattpad is a social media website for writers to share their short stories, poetry and even novels. You can even sell your writing on there by becoming a "Wattpad Star", but to fulfill the criteria needed you need to do several things: You need to post two finished stories that each have over 50,000 words, and you should probably have at least 1000 followers.
So how do you get 1000+ followers on Wattpad?
It is tricky if you are just starting out as a writer and you don't have any existing fan base.
During the past 3 months I have determined that Wattpad follows a similar Follow/Followback culture to Instagram and Twitter, which implies that if you want lots of followers you really want to be following other writers (especially writers with less than 1k followers) as they are the most likely to give a Followback.
On Twitter it is very easy to reach 5k followers. You just follow 5000 writers (often during #writerslift) and then unfollow anyone who didn't followback with 7 days. Then repeat.
Same thing on Instagram. Follow 7500 people. You can easily follow 100 people per day, over 75 days, until you reach the 7500 limit. Then unfollow anyone who didn't followback. Repeat the process.
On Wattpad it is basically the same thing, but there is a 1k cap, and there is also a bigger delay because some people don't login to Wattpad regularly. So you really want to be following writers who are regulars/have multiple works/posted recently, because it is those people who are the most active who are the most likely to give the precious Followback.
Repeating this process I estimate a person should be able to gain 100-200 followers per week, and they should only need to login 3 times per week (Mon-Wed-Fri) for roughly an hour for a period of 5-10 weeks until they reach 1k followers.
After they reach 1000+ followers the social benefits of having 1000+ followers should kick in and the writer can focus more on writing.
The writer can get those two 50,000 stories done (basically two pulp fiction length novels) and should be able to apply to get the Wattpad Star status. For reference it should only take 1 month to write a pulp fiction novel if a person is a full time professional writer.
Thus it is in theory possible for a full time professional writer to get that Wattpad Star status in about 2.5 months, and it should only take them about 30 hours of following/unfollowing other writers spread over a period of 10 weeks, and the actual time requirements for writing their pulp fiction length books.
After reaching the 1000+ followers mark the writer really needs to focus on producing quality writing in order to build a following of readers. This means posting regularly and often.
But on the plus side, if they have already gained Wattpad Star status they can now sell their stories.
Or use their Wattpad account to promote their Amazon author page. Or their Twitter page, their Facebook page, their YouTube page, etc.
Writers really need to be on top of their social media accounts these days. Even authors who go the traditional route of getting a publisher need to build their social media presence. Publishers expect it of authors to be doing it.
Don't believe me?
Just look at Margaret Atwood's Wattpad page:
wattpad.com/user/MargaretAtwood
It isn't like Margaret Atwood isn't already a world famous successful writer. It is just that in order to get more sales even successful authors like Atwood are expected to be spending a few hours per week promoting their social media presence. Don't believe me? Just look at how busy her Twitter page is:
How much should a webite be charging for guest post advertising?
Well, it depends on the website and its popularity / domain authority.
Domain Authority
If we only measured by domain authority you should expect to be charging the following:
DA, Price Per Post (PPP)
90 - $200 USD per post.
80 - $150 USD per post.
70 - $120 USD per post.
60 - $100 USD per post.
50 - $80 USD per post.
40 - $60 USD per post.
30 - $40 USD per post.
20 - $30 USD per post.
10 - $20 USD per post.
0 - $15 USD per post.
Basically it all comes down to supply and demand, but also it is a matter of paying a minimum wage to a website that is just starting out and has a Domain Authority of 9 or less. A website might currently have a DA of 5 for example, but the makers of the website still expect to get paid for any advertising on their site.
Popularity
Domain Authority doesn't always equal popularity.
Eg. It is possible to have a website which is very popular, but has a low domain authority because not many websites are linking to it. It could be popular for other reasons.
As such popular websites will typically charge more for advertising because it is a seller's market.
Thus the numbers listed above which are based upon Domain Authority should be seen as a base price for a site with the corresponding Domain Authority. Popular websites could be charging a lot more depending upon the demand.
Rounding Up or Down
Chances are likely your website has an odd number for its DA. In this case we recommend rounding down, at least in the beginning. As your site becomes more popular and you get lots of advertisers then you can start rounding up if you start to feel you have too many people asking for advertising. (Yes, there is such a thing as too much advertising. It gets annoying eventually.
You will also discover your Domain Authority changes over time, especially if you are making an active effort to build links and increase your audience.
Why USD?
USD is basically industry standard for accepting payments in North America (and to a lesser extend the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand). You are free to charge a different currency, but you should be checking the exchange rate regularly to make certain you are on par with the correct amount.
Cheapskates
There are always going to be people who are too cheap to pay full price. Unless you are actually desperate for money we don't recommend giving any discounts to these jerks. They can go elsewhere. Especially the cheapskates who want free advertising and don't want to pay anything. Don't waste your time on anyone expecting free advertising.
Gambling / Casinos
Gambling websites have a lot of money to throw around. Don't be afraid to charge a casino / online gambling website 50% more, double or even triple your normal asking price.
Guest Posts vs Custom Posts
Usually the person submitting the guest post is the person writing it. If they are asking you to write it then you need to add an extra fee for a custom written post. We recommend charging $10 to $15 for each 250 words.
Thus a 500 word custom post on a DA 30 website should cost $60 to $70 USD. If you value your time and/or your site is very popular then you might be charging significantly more than that.
Remember when writing a custom post that you are rounding down the price. You could write 700 words, but only charge the person for 500 words.
What to do about people who don't pay in a timely manner?
Remove the advertising. Depending on your blog interface or website you can just revert the guest post to a draft. Then send an email notifying them that you removed the advertising pending payment. Maybe it slipped their mind. Maybe they changed their mind.
Either way you should never be giving away free advertising. You are running a business, not a charity.
Click Thru Rates for Amazon Advertising + Book Publishing
People selling products (in particular books) on Amazon have the option to pay Amazon to advertise their books in order to get more sales.
This is a win-win for Amazon as they then get paid more money regardless, from people buying the books (depending on the book Amazon is typically taking 30 to 70% of the profit from book sales), and they get paid for the advertising itself.
The Click Thru Rate varies on the product and the advertising campaign.
Click Thru Rates
It is even possible for targeted advertising campaigns to get a CTR of 2 to 3% (or higher), but this is comparatively rare and requires some experimentation on the part of the user.
The Conversion Rate for sales is typically between 9 and 9.5%. Thus 100 clicks typically leads to roughly 9.25 sales. Again, this can vary on the item being sold.
If you were paying perhaps $50 per 1000 views (also known as CPM Advertising), and attaining a good click thru rate of 0.5% that equates to only 50 people clicking on your advertising. Ergo, you are paying $1 per click.
Now $1 per click may not sound too great or too bad, depending on what you are selling. What is bad is the conversion rate of 9%.
Thus you are spending $11 to just to get 1 sale. If you are making at least $12 of profit off each sale then it is fine to be doing that, but for book sales you are probably not making that much.
Eg. The maximum sale price of an ebook is normally $9.99 and you get 70% of that. If you set the price to $10 or higher then Amazon takes 70% and you only get 30%.
Thus in that scenario you could be spending $11 just to make $7.
Fortunately there is a hitch to this whole idea.
Amazon doesn't actually do CPM advertising...
No, they only use PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising.
And the "Suggested Bid" according to Amazon is between $0.61 and $1.80 USD.
So that does create a bit more flexibility, but the upper number of $1.80 suggests that there is a lot of bidding going on.
You could potentially bid 65 cents per click, paying $650 to get 1000 clicks. In theory, assuming someone else doesn't outbid you for the keywords you are advertising to.
If 9% are converted into sales, you are looking at 90 sales. So you are paying $7.22 per sale.
For $9.99 ebooks making a $7 per sale, good luck with that conversion rate. You would be literally losing 22 cents per sale on the amount of advertising required to get 1 sale.
If you bid lower, say $0.61 per click the math works a bit easier. You are now spending $6.77 to get 1 sale worth $7. Finally you are making money, but again you are still taking a financial risk and gamble that you will even get sales.
Which begs the Question: Why do Click Thru Rates Matter?
If a click thru rate and a conversion rate of a particular product is too low Amazon will reject it for being too low quality and will run different advertising instead which converts more sales, which leads to Amazon making more money.
A good click thru rate and a good conversion rate means more money for both you and Amazon. A bad one means Amazon's algorithms may decide to ignore your bids because you are either:
A) Not bidding enough to make it worth their while.
B) Not selling enough to make it worth their while.
The Rigged System
Amazon's PPC system is for suckers. It is for people who don't know how to advertise their books any other way and are willing to throw money at the problem.
Amazon's advertising system is really geared towards brand name publishers and authors who can go over the $9.99 limit for ebooks. When they are selling an ebook for $16.99 or a similar higher price they can go over the spending limits of their self-published counterparts and still make a decent profit, and their higher price point means they are taking less financial risk during the process.
Plus even if people don't buy the book (the 91% of people who were just browsing) they also create brand name recognition. The next time that 91% of people are in a book store and see a paperback copy of the book they might be more likely to buy it or at least pick it up to look at it.
Isn't There A Better Way To Advertise?
Actually, yes there is. Third Party Advertising on other websites with links to your books on Amazon or other book seller websites.
Consider this.
Imagine putting an advertisement/article about your book on a third party website that does book reviews, and the site in question offers this service for $40 for a permanent article about your book.
If your book gets 100 people clicking on the link per year from the 3rd party website, and only 9% of them buy the book, then you are making a profit. At $7 profit per sale you are looking at $63 per year in profits from 9 sales.
Good, now multiple that by advertising on perhaps 100 blogs/websites/etc that similarly post book reviews/articles/etc. Yes, it will cost you $4000, but if you manage to get 10,000 clicks on the links from those articles then you should make $6300 per year.
Even if you were not getting the 100 clicks per year from the website, you will still make your money back over time because the articles are permanent. It is really more of an issue of being patient.
Some websites might be more popular than others and garner more clicks for your books, but overall you are building yourself as a brand and you could even benefit from word of mouth if other people see your books, buy them, and then write blog posts, articles, Tweet on Twitter and other social media posts.
Now you don't necessarily have to build up these volume of 100 websites/blogs talking about your books in a single year. You could do 20 per year ($800 per year) over a period of 5 years and your results would be slower, but you would save money.
Is There A Cheaper Way?
Yes, of course there is. But it is more time intensive.
It involves you building your own website/blog and building an audience.
Likewise it is recommended you build a Twitter audience, and perhaps a Facebook one too. The Twitter audience is more beneficial because studies have shown that Twitter users have a tendency to be more literate, more educated, and more likely to buy ebooks/paperbacks. Facebook users in comparison don't read as much, but Twitter is ideal for authors as a platform.
The other big thing that is becoming popular for authors is YouTube. Video is increasingly the best way to reach more people and a broad audience. It is estimated that 85% of all internet content being consumed by 2023 will be video. If you are only producing text on your website/etc then you are limiting yourself to a smaller percentage of people.
So in a nutshell you should be:
Don't worry if you don't get huge numbers on Twitter or YouTube right away. There is a learning curve involved with these platforms, but the trick to succeeding is to keep trying. Social Media is effectively an "If you build it they will come (eventually)" type of platform.
Traditional Publishers like Authors on Social Media
There is a bonus benefit to having an active Twitter/YouTube accounts promoting your books. Traditional publishers notice these things. If you someday go to a publisher and try to sell them a book, if they are interested in you then they will no doubt Google you. If you are already famous on Twitter/YouTube/etc then they are more likely to take you seriously.
Traditional publishers also now expect authors to have Twitter/YouTube accounts promoting their books. If you don't have one already the publisher is going to be pushing you start one and get out there and start promoting yourself. If you are resistant to the idea then you may find they are resistant to publishing more books from you, unless you somehow manage to write a bestseller or if your book sells out its original print run and they decide to print more. In which case you are more likely to sell out the print run if you are active on social media.
Never underestimate the reader's ability to buy books from someone they talked to briefly on social media.
Also don't think that older writers are not on social media. They are. Margaret Atwood. Stephen King. Many of these older authors are very active on Twitter and YouTube.
Hot Tip - Avoid talking about politics or controversial issues on social media. J. K. Rowling for example (of Harry Potter fame) has really ruined her career by talking about her transphobia on Twitter and writing a series of transphobic books under a pseudonym. So yes, definitely avoid certain topics if you want to get more book sales.
The Old Adage is Still True
If you want something to be quick and quality don't expect it to be cheap.
If you want something to be cheap, don't expect it to be quick and quality.
Amazon's PPC Advertising is good and fast, promising quick results and sales, but it is very expensive.
Third Party Advertising is cheaper and still good, but it is slower and it may take years for you to see your strong returns on your investment.
Building your own website and social media audience is very time consuming, but it is one of the cheaper options and still a good way to build a fan base.
Probably the cheapest (but least quality way) is to do nothing and just publish your books and hope people somehow magical find your books when you do zero advertising. Good luck with that. Have fun having zero sales, because is literally what you should expect to happen.
Conclusions / What You Should Be Doing
If I had to list what authors should be doing it is the following (in order):
1. Build a website.
2. Build a Twitter following.
3. Build a YouTube channel.
4. Third Party Websites.
5. Find a traditional publisher.
It is the dream of every writer to find a traditional publisher and sell lots of their books. It is possible you might skip straight to #5, but doing the first 4 things will certainly boost your chances if you can write a successful self-published book (or a whole bunch of them) and then try to convince a publisher to gamble on your genius.
This is a win-win for Amazon as they then get paid more money regardless, from people buying the books (depending on the book Amazon is typically taking 30 to 70% of the profit from book sales), and they get paid for the advertising itself.
The Click Thru Rate varies on the product and the advertising campaign.
Click Thru Rates
- Poor, 0.3% or lower.
- Average, 0.4%.
- Good, 0.5% or higher.
It is even possible for targeted advertising campaigns to get a CTR of 2 to 3% (or higher), but this is comparatively rare and requires some experimentation on the part of the user.
The Conversion Rate for sales is typically between 9 and 9.5%. Thus 100 clicks typically leads to roughly 9.25 sales. Again, this can vary on the item being sold.
If you were paying perhaps $50 per 1000 views (also known as CPM Advertising), and attaining a good click thru rate of 0.5% that equates to only 50 people clicking on your advertising. Ergo, you are paying $1 per click.
Now $1 per click may not sound too great or too bad, depending on what you are selling. What is bad is the conversion rate of 9%.
Thus you are spending $11 to just to get 1 sale. If you are making at least $12 of profit off each sale then it is fine to be doing that, but for book sales you are probably not making that much.
Eg. The maximum sale price of an ebook is normally $9.99 and you get 70% of that. If you set the price to $10 or higher then Amazon takes 70% and you only get 30%.
Thus in that scenario you could be spending $11 just to make $7.
Fortunately there is a hitch to this whole idea.
Amazon doesn't actually do CPM advertising...
No, they only use PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising.
And the "Suggested Bid" according to Amazon is between $0.61 and $1.80 USD.
So that does create a bit more flexibility, but the upper number of $1.80 suggests that there is a lot of bidding going on.
You could potentially bid 65 cents per click, paying $650 to get 1000 clicks. In theory, assuming someone else doesn't outbid you for the keywords you are advertising to.
If 9% are converted into sales, you are looking at 90 sales. So you are paying $7.22 per sale.
For $9.99 ebooks making a $7 per sale, good luck with that conversion rate. You would be literally losing 22 cents per sale on the amount of advertising required to get 1 sale.
If you bid lower, say $0.61 per click the math works a bit easier. You are now spending $6.77 to get 1 sale worth $7. Finally you are making money, but again you are still taking a financial risk and gamble that you will even get sales.
Which begs the Question: Why do Click Thru Rates Matter?
If a click thru rate and a conversion rate of a particular product is too low Amazon will reject it for being too low quality and will run different advertising instead which converts more sales, which leads to Amazon making more money.
A good click thru rate and a good conversion rate means more money for both you and Amazon. A bad one means Amazon's algorithms may decide to ignore your bids because you are either:
A) Not bidding enough to make it worth their while.
B) Not selling enough to make it worth their while.
The Rigged System
Amazon's PPC system is for suckers. It is for people who don't know how to advertise their books any other way and are willing to throw money at the problem.
Amazon's advertising system is really geared towards brand name publishers and authors who can go over the $9.99 limit for ebooks. When they are selling an ebook for $16.99 or a similar higher price they can go over the spending limits of their self-published counterparts and still make a decent profit, and their higher price point means they are taking less financial risk during the process.
Plus even if people don't buy the book (the 91% of people who were just browsing) they also create brand name recognition. The next time that 91% of people are in a book store and see a paperback copy of the book they might be more likely to buy it or at least pick it up to look at it.
Isn't There A Better Way To Advertise?
Actually, yes there is. Third Party Advertising on other websites with links to your books on Amazon or other book seller websites.
Consider this.
Imagine putting an advertisement/article about your book on a third party website that does book reviews, and the site in question offers this service for $40 for a permanent article about your book.
If your book gets 100 people clicking on the link per year from the 3rd party website, and only 9% of them buy the book, then you are making a profit. At $7 profit per sale you are looking at $63 per year in profits from 9 sales.
Good, now multiple that by advertising on perhaps 100 blogs/websites/etc that similarly post book reviews/articles/etc. Yes, it will cost you $4000, but if you manage to get 10,000 clicks on the links from those articles then you should make $6300 per year.
Even if you were not getting the 100 clicks per year from the website, you will still make your money back over time because the articles are permanent. It is really more of an issue of being patient.
Some websites might be more popular than others and garner more clicks for your books, but overall you are building yourself as a brand and you could even benefit from word of mouth if other people see your books, buy them, and then write blog posts, articles, Tweet on Twitter and other social media posts.
Now you don't necessarily have to build up these volume of 100 websites/blogs talking about your books in a single year. You could do 20 per year ($800 per year) over a period of 5 years and your results would be slower, but you would save money.
Is There A Cheaper Way?
Yes, of course there is. But it is more time intensive.
It involves you building your own website/blog and building an audience.
Likewise it is recommended you build a Twitter audience, and perhaps a Facebook one too. The Twitter audience is more beneficial because studies have shown that Twitter users have a tendency to be more literate, more educated, and more likely to buy ebooks/paperbacks. Facebook users in comparison don't read as much, but Twitter is ideal for authors as a platform.
The other big thing that is becoming popular for authors is YouTube. Video is increasingly the best way to reach more people and a broad audience. It is estimated that 85% of all internet content being consumed by 2023 will be video. If you are only producing text on your website/etc then you are limiting yourself to a smaller percentage of people.
So in a nutshell you should be:
- Making a website + blog for your writing.
- Making a Twitter account and build an audience of 5000+ people. 10,000 or more would be better, but it is possible to get 5000 Twitter followers in less than 6 months.
- Building a YouTube channel for the future.
Don't worry if you don't get huge numbers on Twitter or YouTube right away. There is a learning curve involved with these platforms, but the trick to succeeding is to keep trying. Social Media is effectively an "If you build it they will come (eventually)" type of platform.
Traditional Publishers like Authors on Social Media
There is a bonus benefit to having an active Twitter/YouTube accounts promoting your books. Traditional publishers notice these things. If you someday go to a publisher and try to sell them a book, if they are interested in you then they will no doubt Google you. If you are already famous on Twitter/YouTube/etc then they are more likely to take you seriously.
Traditional publishers also now expect authors to have Twitter/YouTube accounts promoting their books. If you don't have one already the publisher is going to be pushing you start one and get out there and start promoting yourself. If you are resistant to the idea then you may find they are resistant to publishing more books from you, unless you somehow manage to write a bestseller or if your book sells out its original print run and they decide to print more. In which case you are more likely to sell out the print run if you are active on social media.
Never underestimate the reader's ability to buy books from someone they talked to briefly on social media.
Also don't think that older writers are not on social media. They are. Margaret Atwood. Stephen King. Many of these older authors are very active on Twitter and YouTube.
Hot Tip - Avoid talking about politics or controversial issues on social media. J. K. Rowling for example (of Harry Potter fame) has really ruined her career by talking about her transphobia on Twitter and writing a series of transphobic books under a pseudonym. So yes, definitely avoid certain topics if you want to get more book sales.
If you want something to be quick and quality don't expect it to be cheap.
If you want something to be cheap, don't expect it to be quick and quality.
Amazon's PPC Advertising is good and fast, promising quick results and sales, but it is very expensive.
Third Party Advertising is cheaper and still good, but it is slower and it may take years for you to see your strong returns on your investment.
Building your own website and social media audience is very time consuming, but it is one of the cheaper options and still a good way to build a fan base.
Probably the cheapest (but least quality way) is to do nothing and just publish your books and hope people somehow magical find your books when you do zero advertising. Good luck with that. Have fun having zero sales, because is literally what you should expect to happen.
Conclusions / What You Should Be Doing
If I had to list what authors should be doing it is the following (in order):
1. Build a website.
2. Build a Twitter following.
3. Build a YouTube channel.
4. Third Party Websites.
5. Find a traditional publisher.
It is the dream of every writer to find a traditional publisher and sell lots of their books. It is possible you might skip straight to #5, but doing the first 4 things will certainly boost your chances if you can write a successful self-published book (or a whole bunch of them) and then try to convince a publisher to gamble on your genius.
5 Reasons Why Twitter is Superior to Facebook when it comes to Marketing
WHY?
Ah, the all important question.
Let me illustrate the reasons why by using a simple list of Pros and Cons:
Pros and Cons of Marketing on Facebook Vs Twitter
#1. Better Reach
Pro - You get your own business page or account on Facebook or Twitter for free.
Con - People have to actively Like your Facebook page to see your posts in their feed. On Twitter people can see your posts if they simply see it while looking for specific hashtags. They don't need to follow you to see it. Yes your Facebook page is free, but how does it reach people?
#2. Facebook Spam
Pro - On Facebook you can join various groups dedicated to specific topics.
Con - If you post advertising or spam in those groups they typically kick you out and block you.
#3. Twitter Advertising
Pro - You can post things promoting your products or services on Twitter and most people won't care.
Con - People can potentially unfollow you if they think your Twitter feed is too spammy, but depending on the topic they probably won't care. Eg. If you are a mystery novelist and post an ad for your newest mystery novel then that is really expected to be there and nobody is going to complain about it. Hot Tip - Avoid making your Twitter feed look spammy by using every 2nd tweet to interact with colleagues in the same field. Eg. If you're a mystery novelist, talk to other mystery novelists and interact with them.
#4. More Interactions
Pro - People can interact on both platforms fairly easily.
Con - If you ask someone to Like your Facebook page it is considered to be an annoyance. On Twitter however if you Follow someone many people will give you a Followback. If they don't give you the Followback you can later change your mind and Unfollow them.
#5. Building an Audience
Pro - On both platforms it is possible to just sit back and hope people find your Facebook Page or Twitter account interesting enough to Like or Follow it.
Con - Building an audience on Facebook however is problematic as the platform feels more invasive for people and they are less likely to Like (and actively Follow) your Facebook Page. On Twitter however the Follow/Followback system makes it very easy for people to build a growing audience as it follows a "Scratch My Back and I will Scratch Yours" approach.
Conclusions
Generally speaking Twitter is the easiest and most efficient solution for most companies and people running a business to promote their brand, products or services.
We may write another post similar to this one in the future. "5 More Reasons..." There are other ways Twitter beats Facebook in terms of marketing with respect to audience engagement, visibility to the news media, the ability to interact with celebrities, the use of memes, and much more.
BONUS TOPIC - WHAT ABOUT YOUTUBE?
YouTube does have potential to be better than Twitter for marketing purposes, but it also requires a lot more work and sophistication to create a really good YouTube channel. You need to have or develop some serious film-making skills to make a super popular YouTube channel, and building an audience on YouTube is extremely time consuming before you start to see any results.
Twitter in comparison is relatively low tech and doesn't require as much effort to make a popular Twitter feed. Thus for certain fields, like mystery novelists, Twitter actually makes more sense because it is geared towards writers as opposed to be film-making buffs.
Ah, the all important question.
Let me illustrate the reasons why by using a simple list of Pros and Cons:
Pros and Cons of Marketing on Facebook Vs Twitter
#1. Better Reach
Pro - You get your own business page or account on Facebook or Twitter for free.
Con - People have to actively Like your Facebook page to see your posts in their feed. On Twitter people can see your posts if they simply see it while looking for specific hashtags. They don't need to follow you to see it. Yes your Facebook page is free, but how does it reach people?
#2. Facebook Spam
Pro - On Facebook you can join various groups dedicated to specific topics.
Con - If you post advertising or spam in those groups they typically kick you out and block you.
#3. Twitter Advertising
Pro - You can post things promoting your products or services on Twitter and most people won't care.
Con - People can potentially unfollow you if they think your Twitter feed is too spammy, but depending on the topic they probably won't care. Eg. If you are a mystery novelist and post an ad for your newest mystery novel then that is really expected to be there and nobody is going to complain about it. Hot Tip - Avoid making your Twitter feed look spammy by using every 2nd tweet to interact with colleagues in the same field. Eg. If you're a mystery novelist, talk to other mystery novelists and interact with them.
#4. More Interactions
Pro - People can interact on both platforms fairly easily.
Con - If you ask someone to Like your Facebook page it is considered to be an annoyance. On Twitter however if you Follow someone many people will give you a Followback. If they don't give you the Followback you can later change your mind and Unfollow them.
#5. Building an Audience
Pro - On both platforms it is possible to just sit back and hope people find your Facebook Page or Twitter account interesting enough to Like or Follow it.
Con - Building an audience on Facebook however is problematic as the platform feels more invasive for people and they are less likely to Like (and actively Follow) your Facebook Page. On Twitter however the Follow/Followback system makes it very easy for people to build a growing audience as it follows a "Scratch My Back and I will Scratch Yours" approach.
Conclusions
Generally speaking Twitter is the easiest and most efficient solution for most companies and people running a business to promote their brand, products or services.
We may write another post similar to this one in the future. "5 More Reasons..." There are other ways Twitter beats Facebook in terms of marketing with respect to audience engagement, visibility to the news media, the ability to interact with celebrities, the use of memes, and much more.
BONUS TOPIC - WHAT ABOUT YOUTUBE?
YouTube does have potential to be better than Twitter for marketing purposes, but it also requires a lot more work and sophistication to create a really good YouTube channel. You need to have or develop some serious film-making skills to make a super popular YouTube channel, and building an audience on YouTube is extremely time consuming before you start to see any results.
Twitter in comparison is relatively low tech and doesn't require as much effort to make a popular Twitter feed. Thus for certain fields, like mystery novelists, Twitter actually makes more sense because it is geared towards writers as opposed to be film-making buffs.
Advertising in Newspapers versus Free Press Coverage
Cost of Advertising: Advertising in newspapers typically involves significant costs. Newspapers charge for ad space based on factors such as the size of the ad, its placement, and the circulation of the publication. Depending on the size and reach of the newspaper, the expenses can be substantial, especially for small or budget-conscious businesses.
Limited Reach and Targeting: While newspapers have a loyal readership, their reach may be limited compared to digital channels. The audience is typically confined to the local or regional area where the newspaper circulates. This can restrict targeting opportunities for businesses seeking a broader or more specific audience.
Declining Readership: With the rise of digital media, readership of print newspapers has declined over the years. Many people now consume news and information online through websites, social media, and other digital platforms. As a result, the potential audience for newspaper advertisements has become smaller, reducing their effectiveness.
Short Lifespan and Limited Engagement: Newspaper ads have a relatively short lifespan. Once a new edition is published, the older one becomes obsolete. Compared to digital ads or other forms of marketing, newspaper ads may not have the same longevity or continuous exposure to potential customers. Additionally, readers often skim through or skip over ads, leading to limited engagement.
On the other hand, getting free press or media coverage through newspapers and magazines can offer several advantages:
Credibility and Trust: When a company or its products/services are featured in news articles or editorial content, it often carries more credibility and trust compared to paid advertisements. Readers tend to view such coverage as unbiased and reliable, which can positively influence their perception of the company.
Expanded Reach and Targeting: Media coverage can provide broader exposure beyond the limitations of paid advertising. Depending on the reach and readership of the newspaper or magazine, the coverage can introduce the company to a larger and more diverse audience. It can also help reach specific target markets, especially if the publication focuses on a particular industry or niche.
Third-Party Validation: Media coverage acts as a form of third-party validation for the company. When a newspaper or magazine features a company positively, it implies that the company has something noteworthy or valuable to offer. This can enhance brand reputation and attract potential customers who trust the recommendations or opinions provided by the media outlet.
Cost-Effective: Compared to paid advertising, media coverage obtained through public relations efforts can be more cost-effective. While it requires investment in PR activities such as press releases, media pitches, and building relationships with journalists, the overall cost can be lower than paid advertising in newspapers.
To leverage the benefits of media coverage, companies should focus on developing relationships with journalists, creating newsworthy stories, and proactively engaging in public relations efforts. By effectively positioning their products, services, or industry expertise, businesses can increase the likelihood of gaining valuable free press from newspapers, magazines, and other media outlets, leading to enhanced brand exposure and credibility.
The Facebook Ad Experiment = Failure
The results?
804 people saw the ad.
29 people "engaged" with the ad.
- 22 Post Likes.
- 1 Post Share.
- 6 people clicked on the image.
- 0 Page Likes.
- 0 Comments.
Zero additional book sales during the time period the ad was up.
Now that the experiment is over it really feels like I was paying 50 cents per Post Like.
Less than 3% of people who saw the ad clicked Like.
Now I do agree that if I was to do this experiment over again I would change things.
#1. I would have included a larger amount of text in the ad itself.
#2. More links in the ad to increase the visible opportunities for people to engage with the ad and click the links.
#3. I would have chosen a different image to promote, something that is more visibly appealing and also more quickly delivers the message of what the book is about.
I would also be tempted in the future to only promote a Facebook post which is ALREADY popular and has more viral potential.
Maybe.
Just maybe if I had to done those things prior to conducting the experiment perhaps there would be more Likes, more Shares, and maybe even a few book sales.
But how many more Likes?
Double, triple?
And there would still be no guarantee of any book sales.
I would have just as much luck promoting the post by Sharing it to various Facebook groups which are thematically on the same topic as the book - a practice which is FREE.
And then there is the time consumption.
I would say I spent 3 hours in the past 10 days monitoring this ad, getting and deleting annoying Facebook Receipts in my email, and the actual time it took to setup the ad in the first place.
And since I value my time at $35 per hour, I have now spent $105 worth of my time conducting an experiment that cost $11. So I am out $116 worth of time and money.
This officially makes Facebook Advertising a complete waste of both time and money.
It would have been faster, more efficient and free to just share the post to 3-5 Facebook groups and I would have gained approximately the same number of Likes.
And Likes are essentially worth nothing unless you can find a way to get sales from new customers.
So some people argue there is no such thing as a failed experiment. You either prove that something is true or it is false. In this case we have proven that Facebook Advertising is a waste of money, and for the time and effort involved, it is quantifiably worse than simply sharing the post for the free.
Also I did some research recently and according to my sources if a person wants to be a "Social Media Influencer" they need to be posting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc at least 80 times per week. Not all at once either. They need to space it out to roughly 1 new post almost every 80 minutes you are awake. 11 to 12 posts per day, minimum.
Who has time to do that? People who are obsessed with social media and don't have much of a life, that is who.
So becoming a Social Media Influencer does take a lot of time and effort. You would need to be posting every 80 minutes in an effort to promote yourself, your products, your services, your website, etc.
And there would no doubt be a social cost in making all that effort. So say nothing of lack of sleep, stress and other problems.
So does it make sense to do it yourself? No. Not really. Time wise it makes more sense to pay someone else to do it. And then see how many sales you get during the first week, to see if it is worthwhile.
But in the case of Facebook... when you consider the time it takes to setup an ad, monitor the results... it doesn't make much sense. In that scenario it makes more sense to just share posts than to advertise posts.
In summary...
Facebook Advertising is a complete waste of your money and your time.
The Book Sales Marketing Catch-22
So here is the thing about the online book sales industry, specifically ebooks. If you are unknown author with no reputation, you really need to advertise in order to overcome one serious disadvantage.
Now you might think "Wait, that is 4 things!"
Except it isn't. This is a Catch-22 situation. That makes it a singular problem.
Authors who self-publish are stuck with the current system. They post ebooks on Amazon Kindle (and/or Kobo), and then nobody reads your books unless they buy them, and nobody buys your books until they read a review, and nobody reviews your books unless they already read it. It is the old 3-way catch 22.
To make matters worse, nobody knows who you are so they are really taking a chance at wasting their money when they buy your book. And even if a random person does take that chance, there is no guarantee they will post a review.
So how do you get out of this situation you are in?
#1. Paperback Publishing
It would help if you were actually published by a conventional publisher. Having physical books to sell certainly would help. You could do book signings at local bookstores. If your books later become more successful you could travel to various English speaking countries and do book signings overseas. If you became really successful (like George R. R. Martin or J. K. Rowling) you could even end up doing book signings in non-English countries because your books have been translated into other languages.
But lets not get ahead of ourselves here. Getting a conventional publisher to even sit up and take notice of you is a difficult task by itself. So for the remainder lets assume you are happy with online publishing instead.
#2. Self-Marketing
You really need to advertise and market your work. For many writers this means they are self-marketing, which is often poorly done and it will feel very defeatist if they spend a lot of time marketing themselves but don't get any actual sales. eg. Lets say they only promoted themselves on Facebook and Twitter, didn't really know what they were doing, and ultimately just wasted their time on social media.
If you do decide to do Self-Marketing, you should really track the number of hours spent doing this and calculate a "wage to yourself". eg. $15 per hour, to give yourself an idea of how much time you are spending by giving that time a monetary value.
#3. Hire Someone Else
You should seriously consider hiring someone else to do your marketing for you. eg. designSEO.ca. This saves you time personally which is better spent writing or spending time with your family, and it allows you to know that your marketing is being done by a professional. Now this doesn't mean you should cease self-marketing, by all means you can and should continue to self-market if you have extra time to do so.
All of this ultimately means you should decide what kind of budget you want to spend on advertising. See below.
#4. Annual Marketing Budget
Your annual marketing budget should be tied to your sales, but since you have zero sales during the first year you have to make a gamble. All advertising is effectively gambling. So what is a good amount to start with?
Well, lets answer this question by asking yourself: "How much money would I hope to make in my first year of advertising my work?"
If your answer was $2000, you should probably set a budget of $666.66. For the sake of even numbers we shall say $660. Roughly one third of your hopeful payout during the next year.
$660 should be more than enough to get 22 good quality links on various websites, at a rate of $30 per link. For best results the links should be accompanied by honest book reviews (hopefully also positive book reviews). You really should not be paying for a book review / advertising that is anything less than 4 stars out of 5.
Notice also that this method of budgeting scales based upon your income in the future. If you are making $200,000 per year, you could in theory spend $66,660 on advertising the following year... but by then you probably don't need to. You could spend perhaps $20,000 to to $50,000 per year on advertising and be quite content with your results. You might eventually cease advertising entirely, relying entirely upon the fact that you now have some name recognition.
#5. Judging your Results
If you manage to make anywhere from $650 to $2000 (or more) then your marketing campaign was technically a success. You might have only roughly broke even if you got less than $660, but the marketing campaign is technically working. The 2nd year you might make $1300 or more and the 3rd year you might make $1950 or more. So while that isn't the amount you hoped for, it is still technically progress as you build name recognition online.
If you made $200 to $650 then clearly the advertising is working, but not as effectively as you might have thought. You need to retune your advertising to make it more effective. This doesn't mean you should stop completely, it simply means you need to figure out what is turning away customers. Is your book cover depressing? Is your plot boring? Something is wrong and you need to rethink and retune.
If you made less than $200, something is definitely wrong. Rethink everything. Take a hard look at everything, ask other people what they think you might be doing wrong, and take their advice seriously.
#6. Evaluate your Marketing Strategy vs Success
Even if you are succeeding in your goals, you should also pause to reevaluate what is working and what is not once per year. You may have learned new ways to market more effectively and then implement them. If you have hired someone else to do your marketing for you, then this is a good time to sit down with them and have a friendly chat about the best ways to make improvements.
Notes
Book sales are not the only industry that can benefit from this style of budget marketing. For example, if you were a professional painter and making $30,000 per year, you might consider spending $3000 per year on marketing your work.
The difference is that a painter wouldn't be spending that $3000 on online marketing, they would instead be spending it on gallery shows. Having an one week gallery show might cost $600 to $1000, so depending on what they are doing they might be having 3 to 5 shows per year based on that budget.
The more gallery shows the artist has, the more famous they become - assuming their paintings are good - and consequently the more sales they get, and the higher prices they can command. The beauty of gallery shows is that buyers go there, look at art, can see the physical art piece, and if they really like it then they purchase it. Some art collectors will even purchase art pieces as investments, knowing that if an artist is more famous that they can resell the art piece later on for a hefty profit.
The names of the artists below aren't particularly famous, but their paintings are still priced at $8,300 and $12,000. So even lesser known artists can command some serious prices.
- Nobody knows who you are.
- Nobody has read your books.
- Nobody has reviewed your books.
- Nobody is buying your books.
Now you might think "Wait, that is 4 things!"
Except it isn't. This is a Catch-22 situation. That makes it a singular problem.
Authors who self-publish are stuck with the current system. They post ebooks on Amazon Kindle (and/or Kobo), and then nobody reads your books unless they buy them, and nobody buys your books until they read a review, and nobody reviews your books unless they already read it. It is the old 3-way catch 22.
To make matters worse, nobody knows who you are so they are really taking a chance at wasting their money when they buy your book. And even if a random person does take that chance, there is no guarantee they will post a review.
So how do you get out of this situation you are in?
#1. Paperback Publishing
It would help if you were actually published by a conventional publisher. Having physical books to sell certainly would help. You could do book signings at local bookstores. If your books later become more successful you could travel to various English speaking countries and do book signings overseas. If you became really successful (like George R. R. Martin or J. K. Rowling) you could even end up doing book signings in non-English countries because your books have been translated into other languages.
But lets not get ahead of ourselves here. Getting a conventional publisher to even sit up and take notice of you is a difficult task by itself. So for the remainder lets assume you are happy with online publishing instead.
#2. Self-Marketing
You really need to advertise and market your work. For many writers this means they are self-marketing, which is often poorly done and it will feel very defeatist if they spend a lot of time marketing themselves but don't get any actual sales. eg. Lets say they only promoted themselves on Facebook and Twitter, didn't really know what they were doing, and ultimately just wasted their time on social media.
If you do decide to do Self-Marketing, you should really track the number of hours spent doing this and calculate a "wage to yourself". eg. $15 per hour, to give yourself an idea of how much time you are spending by giving that time a monetary value.
#3. Hire Someone Else
You should seriously consider hiring someone else to do your marketing for you. eg. designSEO.ca. This saves you time personally which is better spent writing or spending time with your family, and it allows you to know that your marketing is being done by a professional. Now this doesn't mean you should cease self-marketing, by all means you can and should continue to self-market if you have extra time to do so.
All of this ultimately means you should decide what kind of budget you want to spend on advertising. See below.
#4. Annual Marketing Budget
Your annual marketing budget should be tied to your sales, but since you have zero sales during the first year you have to make a gamble. All advertising is effectively gambling. So what is a good amount to start with?
Well, lets answer this question by asking yourself: "How much money would I hope to make in my first year of advertising my work?"
If your answer was $2000, you should probably set a budget of $666.66. For the sake of even numbers we shall say $660. Roughly one third of your hopeful payout during the next year.
$660 should be more than enough to get 22 good quality links on various websites, at a rate of $30 per link. For best results the links should be accompanied by honest book reviews (hopefully also positive book reviews). You really should not be paying for a book review / advertising that is anything less than 4 stars out of 5.
Notice also that this method of budgeting scales based upon your income in the future. If you are making $200,000 per year, you could in theory spend $66,660 on advertising the following year... but by then you probably don't need to. You could spend perhaps $20,000 to to $50,000 per year on advertising and be quite content with your results. You might eventually cease advertising entirely, relying entirely upon the fact that you now have some name recognition.
#5. Judging your Results
If you manage to make anywhere from $650 to $2000 (or more) then your marketing campaign was technically a success. You might have only roughly broke even if you got less than $660, but the marketing campaign is technically working. The 2nd year you might make $1300 or more and the 3rd year you might make $1950 or more. So while that isn't the amount you hoped for, it is still technically progress as you build name recognition online.
If you made $200 to $650 then clearly the advertising is working, but not as effectively as you might have thought. You need to retune your advertising to make it more effective. This doesn't mean you should stop completely, it simply means you need to figure out what is turning away customers. Is your book cover depressing? Is your plot boring? Something is wrong and you need to rethink and retune.
If you made less than $200, something is definitely wrong. Rethink everything. Take a hard look at everything, ask other people what they think you might be doing wrong, and take their advice seriously.
#6. Evaluate your Marketing Strategy vs Success
Even if you are succeeding in your goals, you should also pause to reevaluate what is working and what is not once per year. You may have learned new ways to market more effectively and then implement them. If you have hired someone else to do your marketing for you, then this is a good time to sit down with them and have a friendly chat about the best ways to make improvements.
Notes
Book sales are not the only industry that can benefit from this style of budget marketing. For example, if you were a professional painter and making $30,000 per year, you might consider spending $3000 per year on marketing your work.
The difference is that a painter wouldn't be spending that $3000 on online marketing, they would instead be spending it on gallery shows. Having an one week gallery show might cost $600 to $1000, so depending on what they are doing they might be having 3 to 5 shows per year based on that budget.
The more gallery shows the artist has, the more famous they become - assuming their paintings are good - and consequently the more sales they get, and the higher prices they can command. The beauty of gallery shows is that buyers go there, look at art, can see the physical art piece, and if they really like it then they purchase it. Some art collectors will even purchase art pieces as investments, knowing that if an artist is more famous that they can resell the art piece later on for a hefty profit.
The names of the artists below aren't particularly famous, but their paintings are still priced at $8,300 and $12,000. So even lesser known artists can command some serious prices.
 |
| Duane Nickerson's painting for $8300. |
 |
| Jennifer Walton's painting for $12,000. |
 |
| Michael Snow's poster - Not for sale. I included this for fun because Michael Snow is actually very famous. His works are usually in museums. This is just a poster however. |
Canadian Organized Crime Vs Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation
This is actually an older post from 2014 which was published on a different source. A source that is no more, as the website it was published on has been deleted.
I am therefore reposting it here.
Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation
Did you know that amongst the many activities run by organized crime, one of them is running spam and scam operations?
That means if you get spam from a local source and it looks fishy then it probably is the mafia that is running the scam. eg. If you receive a fake email from the Bank of Montreal asking you to login in to your Bank of Montreal account via a third party website, that website is probably owned directly or indirectly by a member of the Montreal Mafia.
In other words the Rizzuto family. Or people working for them.
Those scammy emails that are pretending to be from something else, often a bank or other financial institution, are what is known as “phishing attacks”. They are phishing for your private banking information in an effort to get into your bank account and then steal your money.
It is that simple. Fake website that looks like it belongs to a bank. Fake email pretending to be from the bank asking you to login. You go to the website, they record your data, within 5 minutes your bank account is cleaned out and all your money has been wired to an off-shore account.
Now there are a variety of other scams out there. You are probably already familiar with the cheque scams, the Nigerian Prince scams, the lottery winnings scams, and so forth.
They all have a different angle. Your bank information, your credit card info, possibly even after your passwords for different social media websites because sometimes people use the same passwords for their bank accounts.
Right: Canada Anti-Spam Legislation meeting in Toronto 2014
The good news however is that the Canadian government is now starting to fight back.
Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) will go into effect on July 1st 2014 and will result in 35 federal investigators going after Canada’s biggest spam offenders, toppling over the biggest spammers in Canada like dominoes and slapping the big offenders with fines of up to $10 million.
However when it comes to phishing attacks run by the Montreal Mafia I am worried CASL will come up short. After all, its the mafia. How are they going to catch a gang of thugs which have been running illegal operations for decades and rarely ever get caught by the police?
Case in point the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) years ago tried to collect on taxes owed by Vito Rizzuto, the godfather of the Montreal Mafia. Instead of receiving money CRA somehow mysteriously wrote the crime boss a cheque giving him more money – an incident which has since been reported by employees at CRA as highly suspicious as to how the crime boss managed to rob the Canada Revenue Agency of thousands of dollars.
Thus if the Canada Revenue Agency cannot catch these crooks, what makes the CRTC (the government regulator which will be in charge of enforcing CASL) think they can catch them?
Sheer gall?
I don’t think they will. I would LOVE it if these crooks were caught (and so would Canadian banks), but I don’t think it is going to happen.
Earlier this morning I went to a meeting in Toronto organized by Vigorate Digital to talk about the new anti-spam laws. Vigorate Digital does email marketing in Toronto and is therefore one of those squeaky clean companies which wants to go on being squeaky clean by upholding the new laws.
Right: I went to the meeting with my colleague Robert Campbell, who works in online marketing.
During the meeting I was handed the microphone and I asked several questions, basically whether political parties would be exempt from the new laws (which they unfortunately are, and I think they should not be because I feel they should still be forced to use an “opt in” / consent system), and I asked how would these new laws be enforced?
And the speaker explained how the CRTC will dedicate 35 federal investigators to finding the biggest spammers, going after them financially with fines of up to $10 million, and so forth.
Which to me means that the mafia run phishing operations will be unaffected because they can simply drop out of sight, use off shore bank accounts, refuse to pay the fines, and so forth.
The CRTC would need to prove an electronic paper trail going back to the mafia in order to actually catch them and convict them of breaking Canada’s spam laws – let alone convicting them of fraud, theft, etc.
And on the rare case, recover money defrauded from people’s bank accounts due to large scale spam operations.
Conclusions
I think CASL is a step in the right direction in cutting back on spam, phishing attacks, scams, and so forth – but I think the CRTC will want their investigators to be carrying firearms if they are going up against crooks like the Rizzuto family.
I am therefore reposting it here.
Did you know that amongst the many activities run by organized crime, one of them is running spam and scam operations?
That means if you get spam from a local source and it looks fishy then it probably is the mafia that is running the scam. eg. If you receive a fake email from the Bank of Montreal asking you to login in to your Bank of Montreal account via a third party website, that website is probably owned directly or indirectly by a member of the Montreal Mafia.
In other words the Rizzuto family. Or people working for them.
Those scammy emails that are pretending to be from something else, often a bank or other financial institution, are what is known as “phishing attacks”. They are phishing for your private banking information in an effort to get into your bank account and then steal your money.
It is that simple. Fake website that looks like it belongs to a bank. Fake email pretending to be from the bank asking you to login. You go to the website, they record your data, within 5 minutes your bank account is cleaned out and all your money has been wired to an off-shore account.
Now there are a variety of other scams out there. You are probably already familiar with the cheque scams, the Nigerian Prince scams, the lottery winnings scams, and so forth.
They all have a different angle. Your bank information, your credit card info, possibly even after your passwords for different social media websites because sometimes people use the same passwords for their bank accounts.
The good news however is that the Canadian government is now starting to fight back.
Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) will go into effect on July 1st 2014 and will result in 35 federal investigators going after Canada’s biggest spam offenders, toppling over the biggest spammers in Canada like dominoes and slapping the big offenders with fines of up to $10 million.
However when it comes to phishing attacks run by the Montreal Mafia I am worried CASL will come up short. After all, its the mafia. How are they going to catch a gang of thugs which have been running illegal operations for decades and rarely ever get caught by the police?
Case in point the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) years ago tried to collect on taxes owed by Vito Rizzuto, the godfather of the Montreal Mafia. Instead of receiving money CRA somehow mysteriously wrote the crime boss a cheque giving him more money – an incident which has since been reported by employees at CRA as highly suspicious as to how the crime boss managed to rob the Canada Revenue Agency of thousands of dollars.
Thus if the Canada Revenue Agency cannot catch these crooks, what makes the CRTC (the government regulator which will be in charge of enforcing CASL) think they can catch them?
Sheer gall?
I don’t think they will. I would LOVE it if these crooks were caught (and so would Canadian banks), but I don’t think it is going to happen.
Earlier this morning I went to a meeting in Toronto organized by Vigorate Digital to talk about the new anti-spam laws. Vigorate Digital does email marketing in Toronto and is therefore one of those squeaky clean companies which wants to go on being squeaky clean by upholding the new laws.
During the meeting I was handed the microphone and I asked several questions, basically whether political parties would be exempt from the new laws (which they unfortunately are, and I think they should not be because I feel they should still be forced to use an “opt in” / consent system), and I asked how would these new laws be enforced?
And the speaker explained how the CRTC will dedicate 35 federal investigators to finding the biggest spammers, going after them financially with fines of up to $10 million, and so forth.
Which to me means that the mafia run phishing operations will be unaffected because they can simply drop out of sight, use off shore bank accounts, refuse to pay the fines, and so forth.
The CRTC would need to prove an electronic paper trail going back to the mafia in order to actually catch them and convict them of breaking Canada’s spam laws – let alone convicting them of fraud, theft, etc.
And on the rare case, recover money defrauded from people’s bank accounts due to large scale spam operations.
Conclusions
I think CASL is a step in the right direction in cutting back on spam, phishing attacks, scams, and so forth – but I think the CRTC will want their investigators to be carrying firearms if they are going up against crooks like the Rizzuto family.
Deleted 3 old blogs today...
January 2nd 2019.
So today we deleted 3 old blogs that we haven't updated in years.
Several reasons.
1. We no longer used the blogs in question for advertising (or anything else).
2. We had already cannibalized the blogs in question for their content and repurposed that content elsewhere.
3. It is 2019 and we felt like cleaning house, throwing out old blogs / old stuff.
Blogging is valuable as a method of advertising and building an audience. However if you rarely update a blog or have quite a few (we manage about 200 different blogs) then it just sits there, unused and unappreciated.
Eventually after a blog collects dust long enough the best thing you can do is cannibalize the content, use the content elsewhere in a blog of a similar topic, and then delete the blog which is no longer of any use.
And now here we are...
Writing a blog post about deleting 3 other blogs.
A new year is a good time to do something new. Start fresh.
In our case, it is a matter of fixing old things that need fixing.
Make Do and Mend was a motto promoted during WWII in Britain, promoting the idea that people should not buy new things and should ration their supplies by focusing on repairing things.
As a concept, it isn't something people do these days in our modern capitalist consumerism society. I should know, I work in the marketing industry. Consumerism is what I promote.
However from a business perspective saving money is also of value.
Say for example you have old signage outside your store. Something which needs some repairs and a lick of paint.
Does it make sense to replace the signage entirely, just tossing out the old signage?
Or does it make more sense to repair the old sign, repaint it, and thus it can serve its purpose once more with renewed vigor?
A wise businessman (or businesswoman) would choose the 2nd option. Repair, repaint and reuse.
You know the old adage for recycling?
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Except the Reuse part is kind of useless if you don't also Repair.
In blogging terms we use the word Cannibalize*. We take the old content, copy/paste it to a different location, and delete the old website that is no longer used. There is more to it than that however. First you want to set up a redirect code so that visitors to the old website are automatically redirected to the new website.
* Cannibalize is an ugly word, but it is the word used. Basically it just means we are reusing the old content elsewhere.
After a suitable amount of time has gone by and visitors to the old website are rare, the old site is then deleted.
During the process of copy/pasting the old content, you may also decide the content needs to be updated. This could be done immediately, or it can be delayed until a better time. eg. Delayed until you have time available to do the needed updates. Updating the content (repairing it?) doesn't always have to be done right away.
But if you are in a mood to repair / fix things, like we are right now, then now is as good a time as any.
So why not? Just get it done now.
Just do it now. Get it over with.
Doesn't have to be a big fix either. Sometimes a bandaid solution works just as well and is a more efficient use of your time.
So today we deleted 3 old blogs that we haven't updated in years.
Several reasons.
1. We no longer used the blogs in question for advertising (or anything else).
2. We had already cannibalized the blogs in question for their content and repurposed that content elsewhere.
3. It is 2019 and we felt like cleaning house, throwing out old blogs / old stuff.
Blogging is valuable as a method of advertising and building an audience. However if you rarely update a blog or have quite a few (we manage about 200 different blogs) then it just sits there, unused and unappreciated.
Eventually after a blog collects dust long enough the best thing you can do is cannibalize the content, use the content elsewhere in a blog of a similar topic, and then delete the blog which is no longer of any use.
And now here we are...
Writing a blog post about deleting 3 other blogs.
A new year is a good time to do something new. Start fresh.
In our case, it is a matter of fixing old things that need fixing.
As a concept, it isn't something people do these days in our modern capitalist consumerism society. I should know, I work in the marketing industry. Consumerism is what I promote.
However from a business perspective saving money is also of value.
Say for example you have old signage outside your store. Something which needs some repairs and a lick of paint.
Does it make sense to replace the signage entirely, just tossing out the old signage?
Or does it make more sense to repair the old sign, repaint it, and thus it can serve its purpose once more with renewed vigor?
A wise businessman (or businesswoman) would choose the 2nd option. Repair, repaint and reuse.
You know the old adage for recycling?
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Except the Reuse part is kind of useless if you don't also Repair.
In blogging terms we use the word Cannibalize*. We take the old content, copy/paste it to a different location, and delete the old website that is no longer used. There is more to it than that however. First you want to set up a redirect code so that visitors to the old website are automatically redirected to the new website.
* Cannibalize is an ugly word, but it is the word used. Basically it just means we are reusing the old content elsewhere.
After a suitable amount of time has gone by and visitors to the old website are rare, the old site is then deleted.
During the process of copy/pasting the old content, you may also decide the content needs to be updated. This could be done immediately, or it can be delayed until a better time. eg. Delayed until you have time available to do the needed updates. Updating the content (repairing it?) doesn't always have to be done right away.
But if you are in a mood to repair / fix things, like we are right now, then now is as good a time as any.
So why not? Just get it done now.
Just do it now. Get it over with.
Doesn't have to be a big fix either. Sometimes a bandaid solution works just as well and is a more efficient use of your time.
9 Ways to Promote your YouTube Channel
#1. Make Lots of Content
Stop trying to "hack the system" with 1 video you are hoping will go viral. It won't work. Instead, make lots of different videos and see which ones become popular.
There are lots of websites claiming that there are "hidden tricks" to promote your video, but none of those hidden tricks will work if your video is horrible and nobody likes it. The solution is to make lots of videos, see which ones are popular, and then improve upon the videos that are successful.
Great Videos = More Free Promotion from viewers.
So called "youtube hacks" are actually just little known features that everyone can use, and often do use, so they're not really hacks at all. They're just common knowledge and some people don't always use them. That is not a hack. That is just a person who doesn't follow common sense.
#2. Follow an Upload Schedule
Another thing to be doing is to be making 4 videos per month (or more) and be uploading 1 video per week. Fulfilling that minimum shows that you are more serious about video production and YouTube's algorithms treats you as such.
Thus if you are already following tip #1 above and making lots of content, releasing your videos once per week (eg. every Saturday morning) then following #2 is done easily by scheduling your videos to become available 9 AM every Saturday.
This is known as the "1x4 Schedule". One video for 4 weeks, every month.
If you were somehow producing lots of videos you could just do videos every day (and have no life), but one video per week is easier to do as it allows you to still have a job, a life, a love life, etc.
Regular Frequency = Important.
#3. Stop thinking about making videos, and just make videos.
If you have the time and a basic idea, just make a video.
Don't overthink it. Just make it and see what happens.
Procrastination is the death of ideas that never get made.
#4. Keep the Intro Short but Sweet
Don't bore people with the first 8 seconds of your video. That is when people are most likely to click pause and stop watching.
You don't need a long intro with music on every video. Leave that at the end. The very start of the video should be kept short but awesome.
Also if possible, don't even include music in the intro. That just annoys people. Just show a logo for 1 second or less and go straight into the awesome content.
#5. Make Playlists
People are more likely to subscribe if you have playlists. So organize all your videos into playlists so that there are different themes.
#6. Promote on Social Media
Don't bother with anything else. Those are the Big Three.
If you want to go a step further use reddit and subreddits too. Instagram is okay, but not the greatest for promoting youtube videos as Instagram has its own video upload service.
#7. Create a website / blog
Promote your videos and written pieces on a website / blog, where you can embed your videos and gain more subscribers to both your blog and your channel.
#8. Use Titles that are easy to search for
Choose a title that makes it easy for people to find your video a 2nd time, so they can watch it again, is easy to remember, and sounds awesome. Avoid generic sounding titles.
#9. Translate your most popular videos
Okay, so this is a tip to do when you've already hit the jackpot with a popular viral video.
Take the time and create translations of your best video(s) into other languages so that they can be more easily promoted to people who speak various popular languages. eg. Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese. Depending on the topic you may want to add specific languages you feel are important.
It is possible to add subtitles to all your videos, but this is time consuming and really only worth it when you have a video that is already super popular.
#10. Invest in better equipment, editing software, and better filmography skills
Having better camera equipment, software that allows you to make better videos, and learning how to do different filmography tasks allows you to create a broader range of things in your videos.
eg. Time lapse videos are great for showing a long task which would be boring to watch the whole thing slowly, but is more enjoyable when it is sped up to an almost comical speed.
BONUS TIPS FOR BOOSTING POPULARITY
Updated August 2019.
#1. Giveaways and prizes may help to boost subscribers and comments, but you are really just paying for subscribers. If your videos are good and worth watching then you will gain subscribers anyway. So save your money and focus on making great videos.
Stop trying to "hack the system" with 1 video you are hoping will go viral. It won't work. Instead, make lots of different videos and see which ones become popular.
There are lots of websites claiming that there are "hidden tricks" to promote your video, but none of those hidden tricks will work if your video is horrible and nobody likes it. The solution is to make lots of videos, see which ones are popular, and then improve upon the videos that are successful.
Great Videos = More Free Promotion from viewers.
So called "youtube hacks" are actually just little known features that everyone can use, and often do use, so they're not really hacks at all. They're just common knowledge and some people don't always use them. That is not a hack. That is just a person who doesn't follow common sense.
#2. Follow an Upload Schedule
Another thing to be doing is to be making 4 videos per month (or more) and be uploading 1 video per week. Fulfilling that minimum shows that you are more serious about video production and YouTube's algorithms treats you as such.
Thus if you are already following tip #1 above and making lots of content, releasing your videos once per week (eg. every Saturday morning) then following #2 is done easily by scheduling your videos to become available 9 AM every Saturday.
This is known as the "1x4 Schedule". One video for 4 weeks, every month.
If you were somehow producing lots of videos you could just do videos every day (and have no life), but one video per week is easier to do as it allows you to still have a job, a life, a love life, etc.
Regular Frequency = Important.
#3. Stop thinking about making videos, and just make videos.
If you have the time and a basic idea, just make a video.
Don't overthink it. Just make it and see what happens.
Procrastination is the death of ideas that never get made.
#4. Keep the Intro Short but Sweet
Don't bore people with the first 8 seconds of your video. That is when people are most likely to click pause and stop watching.
You don't need a long intro with music on every video. Leave that at the end. The very start of the video should be kept short but awesome.
Also if possible, don't even include music in the intro. That just annoys people. Just show a logo for 1 second or less and go straight into the awesome content.
#5. Make Playlists
People are more likely to subscribe if you have playlists. So organize all your videos into playlists so that there are different themes.
#6. Promote on Social Media
Don't bother with anything else. Those are the Big Three.
If you want to go a step further use reddit and subreddits too. Instagram is okay, but not the greatest for promoting youtube videos as Instagram has its own video upload service.
#7. Create a website / blog
Promote your videos and written pieces on a website / blog, where you can embed your videos and gain more subscribers to both your blog and your channel.
#8. Use Titles that are easy to search for
Choose a title that makes it easy for people to find your video a 2nd time, so they can watch it again, is easy to remember, and sounds awesome. Avoid generic sounding titles.
#9. Translate your most popular videos
Okay, so this is a tip to do when you've already hit the jackpot with a popular viral video.
Take the time and create translations of your best video(s) into other languages so that they can be more easily promoted to people who speak various popular languages. eg. Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese. Depending on the topic you may want to add specific languages you feel are important.
It is possible to add subtitles to all your videos, but this is time consuming and really only worth it when you have a video that is already super popular.
#10. Invest in better equipment, editing software, and better filmography skills
Having better camera equipment, software that allows you to make better videos, and learning how to do different filmography tasks allows you to create a broader range of things in your videos.
eg. Time lapse videos are great for showing a long task which would be boring to watch the whole thing slowly, but is more enjoyable when it is sped up to an almost comical speed.
BONUS TIPS FOR BOOSTING POPULARITY
Updated August 2019.
#1. Giveaways and prizes may help to boost subscribers and comments, but you are really just paying for subscribers. If your videos are good and worth watching then you will gain subscribers anyway. So save your money and focus on making great videos.
#2.
Aim to make videos between 10 to 16 minutes long. According to my
research that is the Goldilocks Zone in terms of making popular videos.
You can make shorter or longer videos for the sake of variety, but if
you want videos to be popular aim for 10 to 16.
#3.
Original Content. Borrowing videos from other sources and commenting on
the content is so 2011. Since then YouTube has changed algorythms
multiple times so that commentary videos are less likely to be shown to
random users.
#4. Content
that Endures. If a video is about an old news topic it won't be fresh
or popular years later. Instead, a video that always feels fresh on a
topic that hasn't changed in years, eg. Woodworking, fishing, how to
videos, etc, will always be relevant and endure. YouTube had updated
their algorythm is recent years to put more emphasis on YouTube channels
with content that endures.
Why is Facebook Advertising so horrible?
Ad Fatigue: Facebook users are exposed to a significant amount of ads on their feeds. Over time, they may become immune to or disinterested in seeing ads, resulting in a lower CTR. Ad fatigue can occur if the same ad is shown repeatedly to the same audience, leading to decreased engagement and click-throughs.
Targeting and Relevance: If your ad targeting is not properly optimized or if your ad content is not relevant to your target audience, the chances of generating clicks and conversions decrease. Precise targeting based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and custom audiences is essential to reach the right people with the right message.
Ad Quality and Messaging: The quality of your ad creative and the clarity of your messaging play a crucial role in attracting user attention and driving clicks. If your ad lacks visual appeal, compelling copy, or a clear call-to-action, users may scroll past it without taking any action.
Competition and Ad Auctions: Facebook's ad platform operates on an auction-based system, where advertisers compete for ad placements. Higher competition within your target audience can drive up ad costs and make it harder to achieve a satisfactory CTR. The competitiveness of your industry and the quality of your competitors' ads can also impact your ad performance.
User Behavior and Intent: When users are browsing social media platforms like Facebook, they are often in a more casual and social mindset rather than actively searching for products or services. This can result in lower conversion rates compared to intent-driven platforms like search engines, where users have specific purchase intent.
Landing Page Experience: Even if an ad generates clicks, a low conversion rate can be attributed to the quality and relevance of the landing page. If the landing page doesn't align with the ad's promise, lacks clarity, or has a complicated checkout process, users may abandon the page without making a purchase.
Product-Market Fit: Sometimes, low conversion rates can indicate a lack of product-market fit. It's important to ensure that your product or service meets the needs and expectations of your target audience. If there is a disconnect between what you offer and what your audience is looking for, conversion rates may suffer.
To improve Facebook ad performance, consider the following strategies:
- Continuously test and optimize your ad campaigns by experimenting with different ad creatives, headlines, targeting options, and calls-to-action.
- Ensure your ad content and landing pages are highly relevant, engaging, and persuasive.
- Refine your target audience based on data and feedback, focusing on those most likely to convert.
- Implement remarketing campaigns to re-engage users who have shown interest but haven't converted.
- Regularly analyze and adjust your ad campaigns based on performance metrics and user feedback.
By refining your ad strategy, targeting the right audience, and optimizing your ads and landing pages, you can increase the likelihood of generating higher click-through rates and conversion rates on Facebook.
15 Business Tips for Online Businesses
Define Your Target Market: Clearly identify your target audience, their needs, and preferences. This understanding will help you tailor your products, services, and marketing strategies to effectively reach and engage your ideal customers.
Develop a Comprehensive Business Plan: Create a well-defined business plan that outlines your goals, strategies, financial projections, and marketing tactics. A solid plan will serve as a roadmap for your online business and provide a clear direction for growth.
Build a Professional Website: Invest in a user-friendly and visually appealing website that reflects your brand identity. Optimize it for mobile devices, ensure fast loading times, and make it easy for visitors to navigate, find information, and make purchases.
Prioritize Customer Experience: Focus on delivering exceptional customer experience throughout the buying journey. Provide clear product information, offer prompt customer support, and streamline the checkout process to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Leverage Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Implement SEO techniques to improve your website's visibility in search engine results. Research relevant keywords, optimize your content, meta tags, and headings, and build quality backlinks to increase organic traffic.
Embrace Content Marketing: Create high-quality, informative, and engaging content that resonates with your target audience. Publish blog posts, videos, infographics, and other valuable content to establish thought leadership, attract organic traffic, and build brand awareness.
Utilize Social Media: Leverage social media platforms to connect with your audience, promote your products/services, and build a community around your brand. Identify the platforms most relevant to your target market and develop a consistent and engaging social media strategy.
Implement Email Marketing: Build an email list and utilize email marketing campaigns to nurture leads, engage customers, and promote your products/services. Personalize your emails, offer exclusive discounts, and provide valuable content to drive conversions and customer loyalty.
Monitor Analytics and Metrics: Regularly track and analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and customer lifetime value. Use analytics tools to gain insights and make data-driven decisions to optimize your business strategies.
Stay Updated and Adapt: The digital landscape is constantly evolving, so it's crucial to stay updated on industry trends, technological advancements, and customer preferences. Adapt your strategies accordingly to stay ahead of the competition and meet the evolving needs of your target market.
Build Relationships and Network: Attend industry events, join relevant online communities, and connect with influencers and potential partners. Building relationships and networking can lead to valuable collaborations, partnerships, and opportunities for growth.
Provide Excellent Customer Support: Prioritize prompt and effective customer support. Offer multiple channels for customers to reach out to you, respond to inquiries and issues in a timely manner, and go the extra mile to ensure customer satisfaction.
Monitor Competitors: Keep an eye on your competitors' strategies, pricing, product offerings, and customer experience. Identify areas where you can differentiate yourself and continuously strive to offer unique value to your customers.
Test and Iterate: Experiment with different marketing strategies, product variations, pricing models, and website designs. Test and measure the results to identify what works best for your online business and make informed decisions based on data.
Stay Compliant with Legal Requirements: Familiarize yourself with the legal obligations and regulations pertaining to your online business, such as data privacy, consumer protection, and e-commerce laws. Ensure your website and business practices align with these requirements.
Optimizing Your Blog Post for SEO
Conduct Keyword Research: Begin by conducting thorough keyword research to identify the most relevant and high-ranking keywords in your niche. Tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Moz's Keyword Explorer can assist you in discovering popular search terms. Choose long-tail keywords that have a good search volume and low competition, as they offer a higher chance of ranking well.
Create Engaging and Valuable Content: Craft compelling and valuable content that caters to your target audience's needs and interests. Your blog post should be informative, well-structured, and engaging. Incorporate your target keyword naturally within the content, headings, subheadings, and meta tags, while ensuring it fits contextually and doesn't disrupt readability.
Optimize the Title Tag and Meta Description: The title tag and meta description are crucial elements for SEO and enticing search engine users to click on your blog post. Make sure your target keyword is present in the title tag, preferably closer to the beginning. Keep the title concise, compelling, and within the recommended character limit (around 50-60 characters). Craft a compelling meta description that accurately summarizes your content, includes the keyword, and entices users to click through to your blog post.
Use Proper Heading Tags: Structure your content using proper heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.). The H1 tag should contain the blog post's main title and include the primary keyword. Subheadings (H2, H3, etc.) help break down your content and improve readability. Include variations of your target keyword in some subheadings, but ensure they remain relevant and natural.
Optimize URL Structure: Create search engine-friendly URLs that are concise, descriptive, and contain your target keyword. Avoid using numbers, special characters, or lengthy URLs that can confuse both search engines and users. Instead, use hyphens to separate words for better readability.
Image Optimization: Images enhance the visual appeal of your blog post, but they also provide an opportunity for optimization. Compress your images to reduce file size and improve page load speed. Use descriptive filenames that include relevant keywords and add alt tags to describe the image content. Alt tags not only aid accessibility but also provide an opportunity to include keywords.
Internal and External Linking: Internal linking helps search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of your website, and it keeps users engaged by providing them with relevant content. Link to other related blog posts or pages within your website using descriptive anchor text. Additionally, include relevant external links to reputable sources that support your content. This demonstrates credibility and enhances the user experience.
Mobile Optimization: In the mobile-first era, optimizing your blog post for mobile devices is critical. Ensure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly. Check for mobile usability issues using Google's Mobile-Friendly Test and make necessary adjustments to enhance the user experience on mobile devices.
Social Media Integration: Promote your blog post on social media platforms to increase its reach and engagement. Add social sharing buttons to your blog post, allowing readers to easily share your content on their preferred social networks. This can lead to increased visibility and potential backlinks.
Monitor and Analyze: Continuously monitor and analyze the performance of your blog post using tools like Google Analytics or other SEO analytics platforms. Track important metrics such as organic traffic, bounce rate, average time on page, and keyword rankings. Use this data to identify areas for improvement and fine-tune your SEO strategy.
Optimizing your blog post for SEO purposes is crucial for achieving higher visibility, attracting organic traffic, and engaging your target audience. By conducting keyword research, creating valuable content, optimizing on-page elements, and implementing a robust SEO strategy, you can significantly improve your blog post's chances of ranking well in search engine results. Remember to stay up-to-date with the latest SEO trends and continually refine your approach to maintain a competitive edge in the digital landscape.
$10 Guest Posts? Not worth our time.
Since February we have had a client asking us to post a sponsored article they wrote for $10 USD.
Every week she would email us, nagging us, to post the article. Every week since February and it is now July.
Except nobody who works at designSEO.ca wants to post the article.
The
$10 USD just isn't worth the time and effort to do it. None of our
staff wants to post it because we have other clients paying $30 USD or
more. The time it takes to post it means whomever does the work is
getting paid less than minimum wage for their time and effort, and when they have
to choose between clients who pay more and her offer of $10, they are
obviously going to choose the clients who pay more.
I am only posting this blog post because I just had to copy paste it and it takes me less than minute. Plus it allows me to vent about a client who is frankly a cheapskate and doesn't want to pay our usual rate of $30 USD.
Which is an industry standard rate for advertising. Anything less than $30 USD is cheap and the person doing the work is being underpaid.
So we are literally turning down money because it is literally not enough money to be worth our time.
Every week she would email us, nagging us, to post the article. Every week since February and it is now July.
Except nobody who works at designSEO.ca wants to post the article.
I don't think we will be posting it after all.
I am only posting this blog post because I just had to copy paste it and it takes me less than minute. Plus it allows me to vent about a client who is frankly a cheapskate and doesn't want to pay our usual rate of $30 USD.
Which is an industry standard rate for advertising. Anything less than $30 USD is cheap and the person doing the work is being underpaid.
So we are literally turning down money because it is literally not enough money to be worth our time.
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