Mickey Mellen
1. Define your audience: You have to know who your customer is to reach them. If you’re throwing a open house for your new real estate listing, what is the most important thing to have? A beautifully staged home An affordable price tag Plenty of parking Street signs to direct people to the event Lots of advertising Nope. Wrong. The answer is NONE of the above. When you open the door to your open house, what you want is a bunch of pre-approved house hunters, ready to buy. These ready to buy customers are the ones who should be the target of your blog posts. 2. Target your readers: Once you know who you want to reach, you’ll need to figure out HOW to reach them. What kind of blog post should our real estate agent share? Video demonstration of staging a home for sale Check list of what to look for in […]
Read MoreYahoo! Wordpress 3.9 is here. [wpvideo sAiXhCfV] WordPress 3.9 updates include: Updated TinyMCE: Have you ever pasted copy from a MS Word document into WordPress and ended up with a mess of bad code in the text editor? This is not only bad for SEO, but it’s ugly too. This update fixes this issue. (The “Paste from Word” button you probably never noticed has been removed.) Widget management to live previews: The ability to upload, crop, and manage header images, without needing to leave the preview has been added. 3.8′s beautiful new theme browsing experience has been added to the theme installer. Galleries now receive a live preview in the editor. Upload some photos and insert a gallery to see this in action. A faster way to load images: You can now drag-and-drop images directly onto the editor to upload them. Improvements to simple image editing within WordPress: It’s a lot easier to make changes to an […]
Read MoreYour website draws traffic but your page views aren’t converting into customers. Could it be that your website is pushing your customer away? Here are my notes from the breakout session, “Using Your Website to Engage, Persuade & Sell” presented by Tom Tortorici (@tom_tortorici) from the 2014 Wordcamp. SEO helps your WordPress website get noticed, but search engines don’t make purchase decisions; humans do. If you need help with designing your website use these trusted suppliers. By understanding how to appeal to the eye, the mind and the heart, we can use what we know about our audience to draw them in, make a solid connection, and overcome resistance. And with plenty of website-makeover examples, we’ll learn how to tap into both the logical and emotional aspects of purchase behavior. By taking off our “seller’s hat” and putting on our “buyer’s hat,” anyone involved with creating websites will discover what really works […]
Read MoreEvery business struggles at one point or another with how to be found by Google. Wading through the overwhelming amount of information online about marketing for search engines could take you weeks. Below are my notes from the breakout session, “How to get your WordPress website found on Google” presented by Jenny Munn (@JennyMunn) / www.JennyMunn.com from the 2014 Wordcamp. The foundation of SEO (search engine optimization) is all about keywords (and a rockin’ WordPress website of course). Come to this keyword research clinic and learn how to get more traffic, leads, and sales for your business by using the language of your customers. 4 phases of keyword research: Brainstorm keyword possibilities Verify keyword your data and add any additional words Google recommends Prioritize your keywords and select the best ones for your website Assign keywords to pages and posts SEO is simply improving the discovery of content. Remember, Google ranks web PAGES […]
Read MoreWhile you may decide to blog about celebrities, entertainment news, or even a specific TV Show or movie, the techniques used to build a following on a blog are universal. Here are my notes from the breakout session, “How to Build a Following Around Your Favorite TV Show or Movie” presented by Rosemary Jean-Louis – content curator/editor – @GBP Digital from the 2014 Wordcamp. Rosemary Jean-Louis, Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Desperate for Downton blogger, shares how she turned her passion for the show into the network’s number one blog and a fan destination to live chat, exchange information and make friends. Tip 1: Develop a persona Tip 2: Write About “oh snap” / OMG stuff — water cooler plots, gossip, behind the scenes, cast changes, fun stuff Tip 3: Milk a controversial plot line Tip 4: Build community (live chats, hangouts, Discus, twitter) Tip 5: Get stories from fans Tip 6: Interview famous people connected to show (start […]
Read MoreFor many of us who work in the blogosphere, the phrase “Content is King” is a mantra. Here are my notes from the breakout session, “Content Marketing Workshop: How to Plan, Optimize, and Analyze Your Efforts” presented by Jenny Munn (@JennyMunn / www.JennyMunn.com) from the 2014 Wordcamp. You may love your blog posts and WordPress website content, but does anyone else? How do you know what’s working and what’s not? If your content marketing plan (or lack thereof) could benefit from a strategy planning overview, then this session will help you understand what kind of content your market is searching for, how to make it findable and how to track what’s working and what’s not. Tactical diagnosis: what is / not working Book recommendation: Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media, and Content Marketing. Blog for strategic creation and promotion of information that drives leads. Look to your analytics […]
Read MoreWhat is Wordcamp? WordCamp is a conference that focuses on everything WordPress. WordCamps are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users like you. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other. In a nutshell, Wordcamp is an opportunity to learn what the best and brightest in our WordPress community have so say on a variety of digital marketing issues. We had a great time hanging out with the wonderful people in this community and have compiled several blog posts outlining each of the sessions we attended. You can also enjoy pictures of the event here. But first… Here are a few notes from the Wordcamp Keynote address presented by Syed Balkhi (@syedbalkhi): Consider including the idea of FREE in your business plan — think of the prize in a box of cereal. It adds little cost and a lot of perceived […]
Read MoreYesterday, Linked In announced some changes to their publishing platform, Linked In Pulse. Starting soon, you will be able to share your Linked In posts with your network and the LinkedIn community. This feature is slowly being rolled out, but will eventually be available to all members. From an online marketing perspective, this is a fantastic opportunity to share well written blog posts to a wider audience. When your Linked In account gets publishing access, will you use it?
Read MoreYou started a blog and you have some great content but you’d really like to start making some money. A great place to start is using Google AdSense. It takes time to build AdSense revenue, but we have 5 tips to help you get started.
Read MoreEveryone needs a toolbox — here are 5 online marketing tools that you should put in yours.
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