How to Get The First 10,000 Visitors To Your Blog

Sujan Patel's top 9 tips on how to get your first 10,000 visitors to you blog.

TThe Perfect Template for Writing a LinkedIn Article That Makes You Sound Smart

Call it thought leadership, call it authority marketing, call it anything you’d like. Positioning yourself as someone who has useful ideas—and is ready to share them—is a sure-fire way to build your personal brand.

Sitting on your best stuff and hoping someone notices your experience? Not so much.

So, if you’re looking to build your credibility, jump into a new industry, or impress the pants off hiring managers, this crash course will show you the best way to share your ideas!

1. Choose a Topic

People tend to overcomplicate picking what they’ll write about.

If you’re job hunting, just ask yourself: “What area of my expertise is most valuable to my dream company? Which ideas can I share to show them I know my stuff?” Now, if you’re simply looking to reinforce your brand, you can move past writing content that shows off your skills and write an article that also reflects your work style, values, or personal philosophies.

And, of course, with anything you write, you want to present valuable resources and a relatively fresh perspective on your topic.

Ask yourself these questions to get started:

• What challenges do people face in relation to [topic]?
• Where do current mindsets and solutions totally miss the mark?
• Are there three to four tips or solutions your audience should try? (Outline why people should try each one and how to overcome snags along the way).

Doodles, question marks, and scratch-outs—or their digital equivalent—mean you’re on the right track. Remember, you’re not writing the article just yet. You’re just getting thoughts on the page and figuring out which one of your ideas actually has enough to it that you could craft an article around it.

2. Lay it Out

I’m not here to teach you how to be a better writer, but I will fill you in on my process, because it makes crafting a 500+ word masterpiece a lot less daunting.

Really, all you have to do is think of your article like a series of fill-in-the-blanks. Write down the following categories:

• Title
• Intro
• Idea #1
• Idea #2
• Idea #3
• Conclusion

Bonus: We've already done the legwork for you. Head on over to this free worksheet to fill in this outline.

Dumping and organizing your ideas is easier when there are a few sections on the page to catch them. (Oh, and some pieces may revolve around one or two points—that’s OK, too.)

3. Get Writing

I know: Finally!

Start by filling in a working title that describes what you’ll generally be writing about, knowing the whole time that you’ll refine it once you’ve worked through your ideas on the page.

Next fill out each of your idea blanks. These should be the main ideas or tips you’ll be sharing. Start with just the sub topics, then circle back to flesh out each one with your ideas. Don’t get too concerned about how one section impacts another. You can weave everything together as you edit.

I know it seems backwards, but fill out your intro and conclusion last. Waiting until I’ve worked out my ideas in the body of an article helps me open an article on a stronger note (because I know what’s to follow), and filling out my introduction and conclusion blanks at the same time keeps my message unified from end to end. Try it once: You’ll love it!

Finally (and most importantly): Walk away from your computer!

Eat lunch. Talk a walk. Sleep on what you’ve written.

Then, come back to polish your new content. Which parts need more detail? What can you trim? Would it make more sense if Idea #1 came before Idea #2? Where could you use more personality?

It’s not exactly scientific, but this approach works. If you’re just cutting your teeth as a writer, try these resources:

• How to Write Anything and Everything Faster (and Save Yourself Some Time)
• 7 Free Tools That'll Help Anyone Become a Better Writer Today
• How to Write a LinkedIn Article If You’re Not a Writer

And don’t forget: Many people with published articles or interesting blogs aren’t operating alone. They bounce ideas off more experienced friends or team up with freelance editors to make sure their stuff is top quality.

Hire an editor on Fiverr if you have to. Sneaky? Some might say so, but others would probably call that very smart. Another option’s to ask a friend to look it over for typos, and share any questions they have. 

4. Share It

Publishing your article and sitting back to wait for some viral action sounds too easy, right? That’s because it is. But don’t worry, you don’t need to become an SEO guru or social media strategist to get your article some well-deserved attention.

One of the easiest ways to create some traction for your piece is to directly reach out to your network and ask them to share your article. You message might look something like this:

Hi [Name],

I just published a new article that I think might interest you. It’s called, “[Title].”

Here’s a link to it: [Link].

Thanks for taking a look; I’m excited to hear what you think of it!

Best,

[Your Name]

Make your article a visible staple in your personal brand by sharing it across your social media platforms and network, but don’t stop there.

Plug it into your email signature “Check out my latest article at [Link].” Include it within your resume, or as part of your interview follow-up: “You mentioned XYZ during our chat. My latest article might help with…”—you get the idea. You worked hard on this bad boy, so don’t let it go overlooked, even if it means leveraging a little shameless self-promotion.

Establishing yourself as a voice in your field takes time, which is all the more reason to get started already. Stop sitting on your best ideas! Even if you don’t identify as a writer, give the steps above a shot, and then keep at it. The more you put your ideas out there, the sooner you’ll start getting noticed by influential companies (and people) in your industry.

Source: https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-perfect-template-for-writing-a-linkedin-article-that-makes-you-sound-smart

How to Write a Great Newsletter

Communicating with your customers and potential customers is important. Email newsletters are a great way to do just that. But more often than not, people will open those newsletters and not actually read them.

This means that all of that content that you worked hard to create is ignored and doesn’t help further your business goals. Getting people to read the newsletter is the missing link. Newsletters help people stay connected to your brand and give your brand a platform to speak from.

There are a few tips and tricks to creating a newsletter that people will open and read. Here’s how to ensure that people not only open your newsletter but actually read it.

Curate it to the extreme

People like it when newsletters find their niche and stick to it. Too often, people are inundated with content and they get overwhelmed. This leads to them not reading anything and your newsletter falling to the wayside.

Chose the topic of your newsletter carefully. For instance, if you are a brand that sells house inspection services, choose one house inspection service to highlight in your newsletter. Then, add maybe one other relevant piece of information that dovetails that that service.

People want to read your content, they just don’t have time to read a lot of it. When you are creating your newsletter, remember that less is more.

Put your personality on display

It’s tempting to slide into the carefully curated brand voice that you have developed. When it comes to newsletters, the more personal and personality-filled, the better. Your customers want to feel the personality of your brand shine through. Don’t bury it under jargon and sterile marketing-speak.

Be a little quirky in your newsletter. Write it from unique perspectives. Don’t be afraid to let the unique parts of what makes your business special come to life in your newsletter. Your readers will thank you (and be more apt to read your newsletter in its entirety).

Make your newsletter valuable

People don’t want a lot of clutter in the newsletters they read. They also want to get something valuable out of the newsletters they choose to actually open. Make the time your readers spend on your newsletter worth it.

In your newsletter, tell people a story, tell them why it’s important, and tell them why they should care. It’s that last part that is the most important. People want to know the “so, what?” of your content. Give it to them.

Always do something new, but keep it focused

Don’t be boring or highly predictable with your newsletters. People who open your newsletters want to get something new each time they open it. Make that open worth their while.

Keep your content and perspective fresh, but make sure you are staying focused on your niche. Going back to the home inspection example: you want people to know that they are getting a newsletter about home inspection, but deliver new things each time. Some examples: a checklist for spring cleaning, a guide to cleaning your pool, how to tell if your windows are losing heat.

Keeping your content fresh will keep your current readers invested. Keeping that fresh content focused on your niche will ensure that they keep opening and see your brand as an authority.

Keep the writing pure

Web writing has gotten a little convoluted lately. What with SEO, keywords, and click-bait headlines, the actual writing can get pushed to the back burner and the point of the content can be obscured.

Your newsletter audience is a captive audience. They opened the newsletter so they want to read it. This is your chance to communicate with them openly and honestly without all the keywords and click-bait.

Keep your newsletter writing straightforward and to the point. No SEO here. Just good and solid content worth reading and sharing.

If you want to learn more about how to write great newsletter content, check out my done-for-you system today!

Creating an Effective Social Media Posting Schedule

The frequency of your social media posts can directly impact the number of followers that you get and keep.

If you post too infrequently or frequently, you’ll lose followers. You’ll also have trouble getting people to take notice of your social media accounts. For this reason, you need to come up with a schedule.

A social media posting schedule takes into consideration the following factors:

• The best time of the day to post
• The best day of the week
• The topics you should post about
• The percentage of promotional content

Determine the Best Time of the Day and Best Day of the Week

The best time of the day to post will vary, depending on the social media platform that you use. Also, your target audience may have different internet preferences.

Don’t forget to take the time difference into consideration. 80% of the US population are in the Eastern or Central time zones. If you’re in California and want to target the largest audience, you’ll want to plan your posts based on EST time.

Engagement tends to peak at the following times during the weekdays:

• 9 AM EST – overall engagement
• 1 PM EST – most shares
• 3 PM EST – most clicks

Next, consider the best day of the week to post. Monday through Wednesday, people are less active on social media. The majority of the population is too busy getting into the work week.

By Thursday, people are looking forward to the weekend and are more likely to spend time browsing on social media.

User engagement peaks on the weekends. This goes against previous studies that showed higher engagement during the weekdays. But, trends change over time.

The bottom line is that you should post between Thursday and Sunday to increase engagement. You should also plan at least one post for 9 AM, and subsequent posts around 1 and 3 PM.

Find Topics That Your Target Audience Will Enjoy

Along with considering the time of the day and the days of the week to post, you need to consider the topics of your posts. Find topics that your target audience will enjoy.

The first place to start is with the platform that you’re using. Facebook makes it easy to share just about anything, but Instagram and Pinterest are more image-centric. This means that content with a compelling image included in the post will be more effective on these platforms.

The topics should also be related to your niche and provide real value to your readers. This could include:

• News
• Tips and tutorials
• Advice and suggestions

Essentially, it needs to contain beneficial information.

You can explore the most popular topics by performing searches through each social media platform. Each of these networks, including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, includes a search box.

Type a keyword into the search box and look at the top results. View the profiles of the original posters of the top posts. Look for posters that tend to share content related to your niche and see what topics receive the most likes, shares, and retweets.

Balance Your Promotional Content

Along with your schedule and topics, you need to balance the use of promotional content. It’s a perfectly acceptable business practice to use self-promotional posts on social media. But, if you use too many promotional posts, you’ll lose followers.

20% appears to be the median where engagement increases or decreases based on the frequency of promotional posts. This means you should plan one promotional post out of every five posts.

If you post once per day, this is one promotional post per week. If you post several times per day, you’ll share a promotional post every other day.

Start using a social media posting schedule to increase the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts. Along with these suggestions, you can get more internet marketing tips and a system for generating more internet prospects by clicking here to learn about my done-for-you system.

Exploring And Leveraging YouTube For Your Business

This video explains how video marketing has emerged as an effective marketing tool for any business to get noticed. Simple steps are given as to how anyone can create a YouTube video from scratch. No expensive camera or video editing software are necessary since a standard HD webcam will do. Put these tips into action and you’re going to drive traffic to your site soon.