Here in a dimly lit room about the half the size of a football filled, airmen — some not even old enough to legally drink alcohol — stare at computer screens interpreting people’s movements and producing intelligence reports that could ultimately be read by President Barack Obama.
A Look Inside A Secret U.S. Air Force Intelligence Center
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
A Look Inside A Secret U.S. Air Force Intelligence Center
Here Come the Men of Pinterest
Pinterest's first explosive growth was fueled by women, as suggested by early reports from women's magazines that their sites were suddenly getting more traffic from Pinterest than from Facebook.
But don't discount the growing group of men on the social pinboard, said Don Faul, head of operations at Pinterest, during an appearance at Ad Age's Digital Conference in San Francisco.
See more video from the conference right here, with Old Navy Global CMO Ivan Wicksteed talking about the value of outtakes from its TV campaign with Amy Poehler.
Here Come the Men of Pinterest
5 Reasons IT Is Scared of Mobile Security
Last month Spiceworks released a study about mobile security in the enterprise – or, as the case may be, lack thereof.
The company found that despite ever-present threat of hacks into corporate systems, corporate IT shops are not investing in mobile device management software or buying mobile device security software, at least not at the levels they should given the deep inroads mobile devices have made in the corporate environment.
Spiceworks found that very few IT departments are monitoring employee usage of their mobile device and in fact, more than 25 percent of the organizations of the IT executives surveyed do not have a formal mobile device policy in place.
It’s scary information when you consider that 96 percent of supported smartphone and tablets do have access to corporate data, Spiceworks’ Peter Tsai told CMSWire.com. "I would say that there is very likely a lot of vulnerable data out there."
IT ops, though, are not run by stupid people—they know the risks they are taking, Tsai continues.
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5 Reasons IT Is Scared of Mobile Security
Positive and Perplexing Trends in Mobile Marketing #incitesummit
The burgeoning communications sector for marketers is mobile applications. However, the popularity of the smartphone has fueled growth in other more conventional communications arenas, particularly email.
Dave Hendricks, president of LiveIntent, a New York City-based real time advertising email marketing company, recalled that before the smartphone, individuals used email almost exclusively at their desktop at work and at their computers at home. However, they were offline on the way home from work — or while they were at lunch or dinner, with the exception of Blackberry users.
“Since the rise of the smartphone and the tablet, email has become the number one thing done on any smartphone device,” Hendricks said. He said that 25 minutes to 28 minutes of every hour by mobile users is spent in respect to emails.
Hendricks was one of a host of participants at last week’s “The Incite Summit: East” conference at the Wyndham New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan. Incite Marketing and Communications of Hoboken, N.J. hosted the two-day event.
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Positive and Perplexing Trends in Mobile Marketing #incitesummit
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Salesforce’s Revamped Social Studio Includes Tighter Integration With Sales And Customer Service
Salesforce.com is unveiling a new version of the Social Studio, its set of social media tools for marketers.
When the company first announced the Social Studio earlier this year, it seemed like a way to bring its various social media acquisitions under one (metaphorical) roof. (The full name of the product was the Radian6 + Buddy Media Social Studio.) Read More
Salesforce’s Revamped Social Studio Includes Tighter Integration With Sales And Customer Service
7 Popular Travel Bloggers Share Their Best Blogging Tips
The people behind seven popular travel blogs share their personal insights and best blogging tips in this post. Their stories and experiences showcase the path you can follow in order to become a great blogger. I hope their words inspire you. The post is long and full of practical advice so let’s get started. First a quick introduction to our guests:
- Earl Baron (EB): Wandering Earl is a permanent nomad and an experienced traveler.
- Matthew Kepnes (MK): Matt explores the world and collects his traveling experiences at Nomadic Matt.
- Dalene & Peter Heck (DH): Hecktic Travels have left everything behind to live with no possessions, no plans and just travel.
- Andrea Spirov (AS): A travel lover with the ambitious goal of inspiring you to take a trip through Inspiring Travellers.
- Cameron & Nicole Wears (CW): Traveling Canucks have been to over 50 countries on 6 continents.
- Christy Woodrow & Scott Calafiore (SC): Two entrepreneurs who run Ordinary Traveler.
- Mary Gabbett & Bret Love (BL): Co-founders of Green Global Travel, dedicated to ecotourism.
How and why did you start your blog?
EB: I wanted to know if the experiences I was having during my travels would be of interest to anyone else. And so I figured that a blog would be the best platform for me to test that idea out.
MK: I started my site as a way to create an online resume for writing. I wanted to write guidebooks for Lonely Planet and figured if I had a website with posts as well as some writing on other websites then it would have been easier for me to do so.
DH: When we first started our travels, we fired up a Blogspot page to keep our family and friends informed on our whereabouts and activities. We stumbled upon the vast community of travel writers online and realized that we could perhaps take our site to the next level and even make some income off of it. We then bought our own domain, focused more heavily on providing quality content, and began to engage in social media.
AS: When my husband and I decided to take a year off for a sabbatical I thought it might be nice to start blogging about our experiences. Originally I wanted to interview other travelers, in particular those that we would meet in hostels who were doing really interesting things while on the road. But eventually we also decided to write about our own experiences and the site just evolved from there.
CW: We started our travel site before embarking on an around the world adventure. Originally the page was designed to update family and friends and to share our travel stories. As our travels continued, we found that our readership was growing. People were actually interested in our adventures, stories and photos. This inspired us to take our travel blogging seriously and write for a much wider audience.
SC: We wanted to share our stories with family and friends while we were away. It also seemed like a great way to keep track of our photos since photography is a huge part of not only our personal lives, but our professional lives as well.
BL: We’re insatiably curious about traveling to new places, meeting new people, seeking out new experiences and new ideas, and love sharing those things with other people in a way that will hopefully inform and inspire them to travel.
How much time do you spend working on your site?
EB: These days, I spend about 30 hours per week working on my blog and that involves writing posts, adding new pages, promoting the blog on social media platforms and general maintenance of the site.
MK: I spend all of waking time blogging if I am not doing anything else. After years of blogging, my site is a full time business and like any business it takes up most of my time. I have people working for me now – I have a part time assistant, PR agent, and designer. I spend my days writing posts, networking with other authors, writing articles for other websites, answering email, and overseeing a few other websites. It’s very time consuming.
DH: Between the two of us, we spend about 40 to 50 hours a week total. We each have our responsibilities: I do the writing, keep up on Twitter and Facebook, as well as handling all our ‘business’. Pete does most of the photography, all photo editing and handles StumbleUpon and Pinterest. We have outsourced our technical support as neither of us are WordPress gurus.
AS: On average I spend at least 40 hours a week on the site – it’s a full-time job. Researching and writing takes up the vast majority of my time with social media at a close second. Other tasks include responding to queries via email, including advertisers, advertisement maintenance (renewals, billing, updates, etc.). I also correspond with contributors and deal with the technical aspects of the website.
CW: About 25 hours per week. I spend time editing and tagging photos, which is very tedious and time consuming. Tasks include responding to comments, answering emails, and sharing our articles through social media. I also spend a lot of time sharing other travel bloggers’ work. Every day I leave about 10 comments on travel sites and I promote articles from travel bloggers through social media – what goes around comes around!
SC: I would say at least 15-20 hours a week on the actual site, but starting out we probably spent more like 30-40 hours a week getting things set up. The most time consuming tasks are writing, editing photos and uploading them to our site. These are daily tasks, otherwise we can easily get behind on our posting schedule. Lately we have spent a good deal of time optimizing old posts to rank better in search results and staying on top of social media.
BL: Between the two of us, I’d say we average well over 40 hours a week, usually working on it at least 4-5 hours a day. Tasks include writing, assigning and editing stories; editing photos and video; reaching out to potential advertisers and PR representatives; managing our team of interns; doing copious social media tasks; strategizing ideas for business growth; and then of course there’s the actual travel itself. We stay very, very busy!
What is the best lesson you have learned?
EB: Growing an engaged audience takes time, but in the end, as long as you stay focused and are willing to constantly learn, you will succeed. Those who don’t achieve their goals are generally those who eventually give up because they haven’t seen the results they were hoping for. Stick with it, push through the tough times and suddenly, one day, progress will be made and all of your efforts will have paid off.
MK: Learn website code. You don’t need to be a master at building websites or anything like that but being able to understand how your website works and how everything under the hood fits together will make your life a lot easier when there is a small problem that needs to be fixed, when you want to change a font color, or when you want to expand your website. Knowing how your website functions will make your life a lot easier.
DH: Be yourself. At the beginning we struggled a bit with what kind of website we were and what we wanted to write. A few months in we found our groove and our voice and have stuck with it. There’s no point trying to ‘force’ a certain kind of style onto yourself, it will show in the writing and will more easily wear you down. Do what you love and the rewards will come.
AS: Start networking and spend a lot of time on it. We regularly guest post and give interviews. We belong to a variety of online groups and forums for meeting other bloggers. You also need to be creative to think of new ways to promote yourself, with cross-promotion in other niches being a very important way to expand your reach. And don’t underestimate search, which can bring you significant amounts of traffic if you pay attention to SEO best practices.
CW: Don’t underestimate the time commitment that is required. Pay attention to the details. Don’t add too much sizzle that will slow down your site and frustrate your readers. Be clear with your message. Don’t be afraid to experiment with your site design. Stick with it! There will be weeks where it feels like nobody cares about your site. Stay the course. It takes time. Be patient.
SC: Running a successful site is not a cake walk, but if you are aware of this, hopefully you won’t get discouraged as easily. There will be plenty of times where you will consider giving up. The web is full of all different types of people. Some people will lift you up and others will try to tear you down. Do your best not to let the haters get to you. Learning how to separate constructive criticism from negativity is extremely important.
BL: The sooner you treat your site like a business, the faster it will grow. If I’d known how quickly we could grow this business by giving it everything we had, I’d have done it right from the get-go! Also? Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you can’t do it.
What is your best advice on how to attract readers?
EB: Create high-quality content. No matter how well you do with SEO, no matter how attractive your website or how catchy the titles of your posts, or even how visible you are on Twitter and Facebook, it means nothing if you don’t create content that is useful to your readers.
MK: Market outside your niche. Find similar topics and guest post on those websites. You can always market in your own niche but finding success outside your niche will lead to the greatest audience growth. I always post on lifehacking and finance sites because their audiences and missions align well with my budget travel tips. There is a lot of overlap.
DH: Do lots of guest posts. And I mean, LOTS, especially at the start. Right now we try to keep it to one guest post a month to control our workload, but we did many more in the beginning to reach a wider audience. Also, and this should go without saying, focus on producing high quality content. You want readers to come back and to also tell their friends about it.
AS: Building consistent, quality content is the best way to develop a successful site. Networking and promotion on social media is also very important, but if you don’t have great content, no one will care. Find your voice and don’t try to copy what others have done – you are what will engage readers and keep them coming back. People tend to follow personalities that they can relate to.
CW: Dedicate more time to social media. You can have the best content on the planet, but if nobody knows about it then you’re not going to get the recognition you deserve. Be everywhere. Join networking groups and connect with other bloggers. Leave comments and share their posts. Engage with your readers and followers. Respond to comments and emails. Be helpful and give before taking. Your time will come, but you have to earn it first.
SC: Network. Relationships are key. Start out by helping other bloggers and most of them will be happy to return the favor by sharing your articles, commenting or offering guest posts on their site. Guest posts are a great way to get your content in front of a different audience. It’s also important to stick with it, even through the tough times. Keep putting out great content while sharing it through all of your social media channels and eventually the readers will come.
BL: The brief version is to blaze your own trail, focus on killer content, set concrete (and attainable) business goals, work social media like a beast, treat others the way you want to be treated, and try not to focus too much on stats or monetization, especially for the first year. It takes a lot of time, patience, energy and talent to build a successful site.
What has been your biggest success?
EB: My biggest success has been creating a travel blog that has become my main business, one that can support my current lifestyle of constant world travel.
MK: My biggest success as a blogger came when I got a book deal from Penguin Books to turn my ebook into a print edition book.
DH: The success we are most proud of is building the great fan base we have. We love the interaction we see on our Facebook page and the great comments and emails we get every day. That is the number one thing that keeps us going!
AS: Our biggest success has been the steady increase in traffic over the last two years. We also meet a lot of fascinating people through our site and I consider that to be as much of a success as any numbers or advertising revenue that we generate.
CW: You always want more page views, followers and advertising dollars – it’s never enough! We love to travel, so a big success for us has been attending press trips to fantastic destinations. We’ll always remember the first time we were offered an “all expenses paid trip” to the Dominican Republic in exchange for some posts and social media loving. We had one of those “we finally made it” moments.
SC: I would say that our biggest success is the relationships that we have formed with other bloggers. This may not be a success to some people, but for us it is extremely empowering to meet other people who have the same passion and drive as we do. I won’t lie though, seeing our monthly reader numbers grow gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling and makes me feel successful as well.
BL: Our biggest success has been in getting big-name companies to approach us before we really even knew what we were doing as afar as running a site. Several companies approached us about working together back when we were barely getting 10,000 page views a month. Working with such high-caliber companies DEFINITELY elevated our profile considerably.
What has been your biggest mistake?
EB: Not starting a blog earlier in my travels. I’ve been traveling for 12 years but have only had the the blog for 2 years… it would have been excellent to have been writing and interacting with the community from the beginning!
MK: I think it was failing to recognize how important design is to a website. I had a bad design in the beginning. Moreover, I also didn’t make it easy for people to be able to sign up for my website. I think that lost me a lot of readers and now I can’t help but stress the importance of design to people.
DH: Our biggest mistake was to not start sooner! When we first started traveling, we wish we had known that there was this big, crazy, travel blogging world out there, and to make a real ‘go’ of our travel site right from the start.
AS: The biggest mistake has been not having a more well-defined niche as I think those sites that have one tend to have a lot more success than general interest sites in a genre.
CW: We focused on quantity not quality – big mistake. If you want people to share your story, make it memorable and provide value. I’m embarrassed by some posts that were published years ago. The writing was sloppy and disorganized. But that’s just a part of the creative process. Another mistake was ignoring the importance of SEO tactics. If you want to increase traffic and readership, search engines need to find your work.
SC: Our biggest mistake has probably been not starting sooner. I know, that’s a stupid thing to say because it’s never too late to start. This is a tough question though. It is really hard for me to think about life and business in terms of mistakes. I like to look at things as a learning experience rather than a mistake, otherwise I might drive myself mad.
BL: In our first year we weren’t focused, had no clue what we were doing on social media, and weren’t even on WordPress. In some ways, our relaunch when we moved to WordPress was like starting all over again.
Loved the advice? Inspired to start you own blog? Check out my start guide here.
The post 7 Popular Travel Bloggers Share Their Best Blogging Tips appeared first on How To Make My Blog.
7 Popular Travel Bloggers Share Their Best Blogging Tips
13 Food Bloggers Share Their Best Advice For Newbies
Food is one of the most popular blogging topics. In this post thirteen popular food bloggers share their best tips, advice and stories for newbies who want to enter the field. First a quick introduction to our foodies:
- Deeba Rajpal (DR): The author of Passionate About Baking.
- Lori Popkewitz Alper (LP): Groovy Green Livin inspires readers to live a healthier, greener and more sustainable lifestyle.
- Dori Story (DO) is a very passionate writer at Riches to Rags.
- Peef and Lo (PL) are two food lovers from Milwaukee writing about seasonal cooking and local eating.
- Debi Wayland (DW) is a food blogger at Life Currents.
- Michael Natkin (MN): Herbivoracious presents vegetarian cuisine through flavored recipes, techniques and mouth-watering images.
- Christine Chitnis (CC): Rural life, farmers markets, art events, good food, crafts and photography are some of her favourite topics.
- Anne-Marie Nichols (AM): This Mama Cooks! On a Diet where she inspire families to live healthier with a minimum of fuss.
- Sophia Breene (SN): Greatist is focused on health and fitness advice for “young, savvy and social”.
- Catherine McCord (CM): Weelicious features a prominent search bar that gives easy access to recipes tailored to family needs.
- Jenny McGruther (JM): Nourished Kitchen promotes sustainable agriculture and nutrient-dense, whole foods in everyday kitchens.
- Kiersten Frase (KO): Oh My Veggies is a vegetarian food blog with focus on easy recipes.
- Sarah Zinkel (SZ): She shares her experiences on how to balance healthy living with a grad school and a newlywed life.
- Thanks to Daniela from Food Recipes HQ for doing the interviews.
How and why did you start?
DR: Armed with a new digital camera, I began blogging in 2007 in an attempt to record recipes I was trying at home. At the time, it was just a personal site, something I was too intimidated to share. A handful of beautiful food sites were my constant source of inspiration.
LP: My passion for natural, non-toxic living began after seeing first hand how living an organic, non-toxic lifestyle can directly affect your health and well being. I began sharing information with my family and friends. I decided to learn everything I could about blogging and what it meant to have an online presence. I started off knowing nothing. I took a leap of faith and decided to trade in my day job as an attorney and dive head first into creating a site.
DO: I started my site at a time in my life where we had been going through a very difficult time for years. I was depressed and my sister told me that I needed to find a passion and do something that I loved. I LOVED social media, cooking and food so I started the site and I have been doing it ever since.
PL: I’ve always had a passion for cooking and creating new recipes in the kitchen. I’ve always been passionate about writing. Blogging brought those two worlds together. We really didn’t expect that we’d have any readers beyond a few curious family and friends. But, as our readership started growing, I realized that there was a market for our story – and it opened up a whole new way to create community with not only local Milwaukee foodies, but also foodies from across the world.
DW: I started my site because so many people would ask me for recipes of things I make. Whole foods. Real foods. No trans-fats. Less high fructose corn syrup. I didn’t want my recipes to be too out of reach or weird for most people. Despite how healthy I think most people are trying to be, I know that some people still rely on processed convenience foods and fast food restaurants that can be high in bad fats, calories, or sodium.
MN: It was literally a snap decision. I was sitting on my couch, lamenting the fact that I wanted to switch to a cooking as a career but not sure how to leave the software world, with its predictable paycheck and reasonable work hours. You can’t start without a name, so I launched that same night as “The Vegetarian Foodie”, but I hated it. A friend texted me the single word: “Herbivoracious”, and I knew that was it. It captures both the idea of being vegetarian, and my insatiable, voracious appetite for everything related to food.
CC: I started my site by taking a free class at my local library that taught the basics of using Blogger. I had left my job behind and I was looking for a creative outlet. I had worked in the non-profit sector and in working 50-60 hours a week I had lost my creative spark. Blogging was a way to get it back.
AM: I started my blog eight years ago to document my Thanksgiving plans. Since then it’s morphed into a healthy lifestyle and food blog.
How did you choose the name for your blog?
CM: I sat for 6 hours with a friend trying to think of names that made you just get it from the title. After trying 50 plus names my best friend called me and said “aren’t kids just wee ones.” Weelicious was available so I got it!
JM: Nourishment calls to mind a sort of fuller and rounder expression of health than other keywords. I also knew “Nourished Kitchen” is short enough to be memorable.
KO: Before my site was called The Type A Housewife. It was a joke, but no one understood that. The name had nothing to do with vegetarian cooking – it was confusing. Other writers told me that changing the name was the worst thing I could do, but I did it anyway and my site has only grown since. I brainstormed and came up with several different names and asked around to see what people thought of them. Definitely get feedback on your domain name before you commit to anything!
SZ: I always joke that I’m a professional student. I’m finishing up my 4th year of graduate school now, but even if I don’t have any more formal education after my Ph.D., I don’t think learning ever stops. I learn something new every day!
What are the usual tasks you do?
DR: I spent 2-3 hours on my site on good days. Ideally would be happy to spend a couple more, but home, kids etc all demand their share of time. My usual tasks are the birth of a food idea, making it with substitutions which are almost always the norm, photographs along the way, recipe notes, then a draft in place as my thoughts are fresh at the time. Then it is scheduled for posting and I return to ‘pretty up the post’ a day before posting date.
LP: I spend 20-25 hours a week working. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m blogging on my site during those hours. I am running a business and my site is the platform. I am very active in social media and devote a chunk of my day to Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest. I spend time working with advertisers, brands and PR agencies trying to find products that my readership would enjoy learning about.
DO: I started out as part time. I was having to work full time because my husband was injured at work so I would work on the content while cooking dinner and then after the kids went to bed I would work in the evenings. Now I am fortunate to be able to stay home and work full time on these two sites.
PL: We spend 5-10 hours on the site every week. The most time goes into creating and testing recipes. There is the time spent setting up and photographing the food. It’s as much about timing as anything. We depend almost entirely on natural light, so have to make sure to leave enough daylight time to get a good shot of the finished product. Then it’s all about sitting down, choosing photos and writing the post. It’s quite possibly the part I enjoy most – as it’s the mechanism by which we connect with our readers.
DW: I only post about things that we actually eat, so it is time that I would spend cooking anyway. Some posts just flow out and I’m done in a matter of minutes. Some take much more time and effort. I do a little processing on the picture, like sharpen it or brighten the colors. I write out the post in Word first so that I have a backup of the recipe as well as my thoughts about it. Then, I copy it into my site, and add in the links: links to Amazon, other sites or for recipe links. Then, it’s off to share it on social media sites like Facebook, Pinterest, Punk Domestics, etc.
MN: I’ve never kept track, but I’d say I spend at least 10 hours a week on it. There are a lot of tasks – developing recipes, photographing them and processing the photos, writing up the recipe steps and headnotes, submitting my posts to sites like Tastespotting and Foodgawker, hanging out on Twitter and Facebook, maintaining the site itself and so on.
CC: I plan photo shoots around crafts and recipes which can take a few hours. I photograph my daily life and travels. I post around two times a week, and usually spend about an hour per post editing pictures and writing content. I don’t have to spend time on the back-end of my site thanks to my web designer. It was so time consuming and frustrating to try and figure it all out myself. It was a small investment but well worth it.
AM: I have a terrific team, so I spend very little time doing anything more technical than adding ad code in my sidebars. I spend most of my time cooking, writing, photographing, posting, promoting my content and being active in various online communities that fit my niche (mom bloggers, foodies, healthy folks, etc.) Blogging is a full time job for me, but that also includes social media consulting work I do with agencies and brands outside of my blog.
SN: It is my full-time, 9-to-5 job. That sounds pretty basic, but I do way more than just cranking out content. In addition to writing, I brainstorm with the rest of the editorial team during meetings, do tons of research, edit photos, hunt down recipes for roundups, test out workouts from trainers, and help work on larger editorial projects.
Which qualities make you a good blogger?
CM: I’m a homebody at heart, so that helps because you’re definitely in front of your computer a lot. I also love the social interaction with readers and fellow bloggers. Thank goodness I’m typing, though, because as much as I like to write my throat would really hurt if I was talking that much.
JM: I was able to delve into my niche early, and was one of the first few blogs covering the topic when I started in 2007 so that helps. I also research my subjects impeccably and seek to provide real, workable solutions for my readers.
KO: I think being determined and focused are two qualities necessary for all bloggers, no matter what genre you’re writing in. When I want to accomplish something, I let nothing stand in my way. I’ve been this way with everything I do, but it’s especially served me well in the competitive world of blogging.
SZ: I think that a lot of people can relate to me. I’m just a normal, busy woman, trying to balance all of my responsibilities with having a life and staying healthy. I think it’s really important to have something in common with your readers and target audience. A lot of people can relate with my struggles.
What is the lesson you’d like to share with people starting out?
DR: Be original and find your niche. Take inspiration yet build your own style, and do add photographs. Nothing holds the reader more captivated. Good pictures must connect to well written prose. Please respect copyright. There is no room in the world for plagiarism.
LP: Set boundaries and stick to them. If you have 2 hours to write a post devote those two hours to writing and be careful not to get sucked into social media. I’m going to have to reread this one myself. I’m still not very good at setting boundaries and sticking to them! Work in progress.
DO: It is very rewarding, it has taught me that I have a lot more to offer people and has become a therapy. Don’t do it for the money. Start out doing something you are passionate about and love because that passion will come out in your writing. Be patient, it doesn’t happen over night. There are so many people that need what we as bloggers have to offer. There are people who need this connection and many friendships have been made.
PL: Write about something for which you have a deep-rooted passion, and recognize that it’s something that takes work to maintain. We didn’t anticipate experiencing periods during which we didn’t feel like cooking anything, or the writing just didn’t come easily. Have a back-up plan – maybe a cache of recipes or posts that you can use when you get busy, go on vacation, or aren’t feeling particularly inspired.
DW: Do what makes you happy. Write about things that interest you. If you’re just doing what “sells” it isn’t you, and people can tell. Writing about healthy food isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it works for me, and it makes me happy. I see other bloggers struggle with the concept of keeping the followers happy. They talk about how they lost followers because of something they said or something they did. But, you can’t make everyone happy, and above all else, it’s really important to be true to what you love.
MN: That is a big topic! A few things that I think are really important when starting out:
- Choose your platform wisely; moving is a non-trivial exercise! I’ve moved to self-hosted WordPress now and I’m super happy with it. But whatever you choose, realize it has a big impact on what will be easy or hard to do.
- Be patient. Those first few months are hard, when you are lucky if you can get your brother-in-law to read and comment. You have to be in it for the long haul, be consistent about posting, and don’t be in a rush to monetize. The money you can make with 300 or even 1k page views per day isn’t going to buy you much more than a few cappucinos a month anyhow, so don’t even bother until you’ve got an audience.
- Focus on quality. There are lots of things you can do to bring people to your site once. But if you want them to keep coming back, they have to think that they will find something wonderful and relevant to them whenever they visit.
AM: Sit down and figure out if your blog is a business venture or a hobby. Once you’ve figured that out, everything else from goals to what email address you’ll use will fall into place.
CM: Find your passion and niche and stick with it. Keep your interest narrow at first and build an audience. After that you can venture out and those who love reading your blog will follow as you branch out.
JM: Make your work meaningful. Before you write about random things in your life, focus on how it might sincerely help and support someone else. Take the time to write well and grow your audience before jumping ahead of yourself to monetization strategies.
What is your best advice on how to grow traffic?
DR: Once you’ve established your niche, find ways to improve the content. Listen to your readers and build that most important relationship. Read other related sites, blogs, magazines, look at trends, or set a trend. Innovate and post regularly.
LP: When I first began blogging a well-respected blogger gave me some good advice which has stuck with me: “write from your heart”. When I’m writing I always think about what I like to read or what catches my attention and try to apply that to the piece that I’m working on. Also, form community. Visit other websites, comment, compliment and be sincere. Add your powerful and important voice to the discussion.
DO: Constantly feed it. Use Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. Everyone loves a giveaway and it doesn’t have to be expensive. Be real and answer questions from the visitors and they will become loyal followers. Be kind, honest and don’t allow any negativity on your site.
PL: Think hard about what you can bring to your site and then put everything into making it happen. Blogging doesn’t work if it doesn’t contain a piece of you. Readers want to know there’s a human being at the other end. Engage your readers on Facebook and Twitter. Join a Triberr tribe or create a Pinterest page. Keep in mind that being an active part of a food blogger community is always key when you’re looking to expand your influence.
DW: When I first started blogging I would post and no one would see it. I got some traffic from search engines, but I didn’t really understand what being involved in the community would do for me. Play around on Facebook and get to know other bloggers; they’ll be the ones who help you grow your site the most. Go to linky parties. Submit to websites like FoodGawker. Make comments on other people’s pages. Link to others bloggers. Share.
MN: Time, patience and quality are the biggest factors, as is developing your unique voice. That is what will bring people back to you. You need to learn about SEO, but don’t spend too much time chasing it. Build relationships. Through social media and commenting on people’s sites. Try to find ways to get out and physically meet other bloggers and readers. That will lead to deeper and more gratifying relationships, and maybe even opportunities like speaking engagements.
CC: Write about what excited you, and what is authentic. Don’t try to be someone else. People will appreciate your honesty and come back for more. Building my site has been a ton of work. Some sites are overnight hits, with tons of commenters and readers, mine is not one of those. I have built it through hard work, time and effort. I am constantly striving to make it better and more original. Here are a few ways that I have managed to get the word out about my site:
- Link – you should always include your link in your email signature
- Comment – the more you comment on others sites, the better your chance that someone will like your comment and click over to your page. Think of links to your content as breadcrumbs. You want to create a trail of breadcrumbs all across the internet, so that people from all over will find their way to your contnet.
- Flickr – If you take good pictures, join Flickr, once there, link your pictures back to the post where you posted them, join groups, get your pictures out into the Flickr world. Again, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. And finally, keep at it….building an audience takes time.
AM: Spend time creating great content and knowing SEO, of course. Then find time to promote content on social media sites like Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook by being active in those communities as a helpful person, not a promoter. If people like you and what you’re saying, they’ll come to your blog for more.
SN: Stay in touch with your readers. Keep your finger on the pulse of what they want to see more of and what they love/hate/need/want. It’s always good to read opinions other than your own! Have your own message and don’t be swayed by what’s trendy or popular at the moment. These two pieces of advice seem to be in opposition, and that’s pretty much correct. Maintaining a successful site is all about balancing between writing what you are passionate about and making content that’s interesting and accessible to all kinds of people.
KO: Trust your gut. Most of the missteps I’ve made were because I went against my instincts; you’ll find that as a writer, you’ll get a lot of well-meaning advice from your fellow writers, but ultimately you need to decide what’s right for you. Never publish something on your site that you wouldn’t read yourself. You need to be willing to look at your site with a critical eye. You need to offer your readers something unique and compelling that will make them want to come back again and again.
SZ: Be true to yourself. There are so many blogs and bloggers out there and it’s easy to try to imitate someone’s style. Really listen to your gut and do what feels right to you. That’s how you will get the most out of your blog and so will others!
What are best and most challenging aspects of your lifestyle?
CM: The most challenging part is keeping up with everything. When I started there was really only my site and the comments. Now with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and more there’s just a lot more ground to cover in a day. The best part is meeting incredible people (mostly women) who I’ve met over the internet. Some I’ve gotten to meet and become true friends with which has been a gift.
JM: It’s a struggle for me to manage the needs of readers. Blogging is my full time job and it supports my family, but it’s a constant struggle to write the posts, prepare the premium content that supports my family, answer emails, manage social media outlets, forge friendships with other bloggers and still maintain a semblance of a personal life.
KO: I love being my own boss. The flexibility of working from home has completely spoiled me too – if I’m sick, I take the day off. If I want to go on vacation, I schedule posts ahead of time. When I worked as a librarian, I used to spend the entire weekend dreading Monday morning; now I can’t wait to dive in. The biggest downside is that it can be difficult to find that all-important work / life balance. This is something I’m working on – I’d like to get to the point where I can turn off the computer at 5pm and be done for the day.
SZ: It has definitely been the community of readers and other bloggers that I’ve met through my blog. It’s funny how quickly you can begin to “know” someone through their blog. The most challenging aspect of blogging for me is achieving a balance. Blogging and the social media that comes with it can be very time- and energy-consuming. Not everything needs to be documented for my blog or posted on Twitter. It’s refreshing to take a step back (or a weekend off) and just unplug for a bit.
What is your biggest success?
DR: My proudest moment was when my site began to get noticed and got it’s very first blogging award from Abby – ‘Best Kept Secret’! I was elated!
LP: The incredible connections I’ve made through blogging. From brands to bloggers, there is such an amazing group of men and women out there filled with humor, intelligence and passion.
DO: All the wonderful friendships that I have built. Wonderful people all over the world. I would have never had a chance to talk to these people without the site. My site has connected me with families that have and are in need of the same thing as I was. The fact that I am able to stay home with my children and still work from home has been priceless as well as the confidence I now have in myself because of something I created.
PL: We’ve made an amazing number of connections and been able to share our expertise with others through presentations at area festivals and libraries. We’ve found our place in a community of individuals who really care about great food, local eating, and sustainable living. One of the best things that came from blogging is a wealth of freelancing opportunities.
DW: It’s how much I’ve learned about photography. I love taking pictures. I look back on my early pictures and I can see right away how much better they are now. I still learn all the time. I read other posts and watch tutorials. It takes a lot of time. It takes commitment. But, it’s worth it to share your passion, your art. And, yes, I consider food to be my art. Whatever your passion, go for it.
MN: Well, I guess my biggest achievement is being asked to write a book. That would have never happened without the site, and it actually got me over the hump to quitting my day job.
CC: My site has been instrumental in building my career as a writer and photographer. It has helped me find my voice, and pushed me to take better pictures. I believe that my first book deal came about because of the confidence I found through blogging – so I count that as a big success.
AM: My biggest success was being hired to write a blog. When the call went out to the mom blogging community about the gig, many of us realized that blogging had become way of making a living and was no longer just a hobby.
SN: I always love hearing back from readers who loved (or even who didn’t love) my articles via comments or twitter. Knowing that something I wrote can help somebody make a healthier choice is always a huge plus, too.
CM: In the first year a mother wrote to tell me that her family hated the food she cooked and never said anything positive. The first time she made my recipe for dinner her husband leaned over and told her “dinner is delicious tonight” and she cried. I realized how powerful food can be and how thankless a job it is for moms.
JM: I loved it when I was featured on CNN, but my fondest memory is meeting a reader at a festival where I was speaking and conducting a demo on fermented foods. She came up to me and told me personally how important the content was to her and to her family and beautiful baby girl, and that meant a lot. Sometimes you feel like you’re a voice in the dark, and it’s nice to know your work means something to someone.
KO: My first press trip! I was terrified. I had no idea what to expect, but it ended up being a fantastic time. And I think that was one of the points where I realized just how influential bloggers can be and how many opportunities are out there for us.
SZ: My favorite blogging memories all involve meeting and hanging out with fellow bloggers in person! I feel so lucky to have made some awesome friends through my blog and getting to meet them in real life and instantly connect is very cool. It’s great finding other people out there with similar interests!
What is your biggest mistake or the biggest mistake to avoid?
DR: Not sure if I made any big ones as I am always careful of etiquette etc. Personally I regret that I do not always have time to visit or reply to each reader that takes the time to leave a comment on my page. I do hope I can manage that better soon.
LP: The list of mistakes is long. As I tell my kids, it’s how we learn. The biggest mistake I have made is letting blogging take away from family time. Sometimes when I am kissing my kids goodnight I’m also thinking about that long list of “to-dos” waiting for me. I let it get in the way of time with my kids and that’s not OK in my book. Everything else can wait.
DO: Not being consistent. People want results and money overnight and it doesn’t happen like that. It takes time to build a following, but when you do they will help you and share your content with others. Giving up too early on your site before it has had a chance to shine is a common mistake. There are going to be hard times, slow times, etc. but you charge through it and keep going.
PL: Don’t accept too many freebies. Taking every sample that someone offers you feels like a great idea. But, you often end up in a situation where your page looks more like an advertisement for products than a great place to go read about food. I don’t love pages that do too many product promotions, as I don’t find that they seem very genuine. It’s actually quite a bit of a turn-off. We have a pretty strict policy about what types of products we will write about. They have to be a good fit for the site, or we won’t take them.
DW: Don’t try to take someone else’s material and use it as your own. Give credit where credit is due. When people come along and crop my photos so that my watermark is no longer there, or they copy my recipe and photo without giving me any credit, it’s not cool. It’s stealing. Bloggers work really hard and they don’t make much money, so it hurts even more when people aren’t nice.
MN: I don’t really have too many regrets. In my very early days I wrote some pretty bad posts and took some pretty bad pictures, and I’ve left them all up there in the archive for hilarity purposes. Beyond that, blogging has been a whole lot of fun!
CC: As far as mistakes, I’m not sure I’ve made any mistakes. I certainly look back and cringe at my early posts, the pictures are terrible, and I had yet to develop a writing style. But it was all a part of the learning process. I guess my only real mistake, and this is something I work on still, is being envious of other bloggers that might have more readers, better pictures, or more achievements. I am learning to be proud of all that I have done, and stop the comparisons.
AM: My biggest mistake was not switching over to a self-hosted WordPress blog sooner! Once I did that, my traffic and opportunities grew.
Inspired to start your own food blog? See my step-by-step instructions here.
The post 13 Food Bloggers Share Their Best Advice For Newbies appeared first on How To Make My Blog.
13 Food Bloggers Share Their Best Advice For Newbies
Morning Clicks: Google Puts More Focus on Mobile and More
The focus this week for Google continued to be on mobile advertising. Google officially launched Mobile-friendly labels.
Read more at PPCHero.com
Morning Clicks: Google Puts More Focus on Mobile and More
Amazon and Google: Friends, Enemies or Frenemies?
Reports show Amazon is Google's biggest search advertiser, but the online retailer is reportedly developing its own ad program to rival Google AdWords.
Amazon and Google: Friends, Enemies or Frenemies?
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Here Come the Men of Pinterest
Pinterest's first explosive growth was fueled by women, as suggested by early reports from women's magazines that their sites were suddenly getting more traffic from Pinterest than from Facebook.
But don't discount the growing group of men on the social pinboard, said Don Faul, head of operations at Pinterest, during an appearance at Ad Age's Digital Conference in San Francisco.
See more video from the conference right here, with Old Navy Global CMO Ivan Wicksteed talking about the value of outtakes from its TV campaign with Amy Poehler.
Here Come the Men of Pinterest
Don’t Ask For Faster Horses: Embrace Revolutionary Change In Digital Marketing
Are you capitalizing on new marketing trends, or ignoring them at your peril? Contributor David Rodnitzky offers some tips for keeping up.
The post Don’t Ask For Faster Horses: Embrace Revolutionary Change In Digital Marketing appeared first on Marketing Land.
Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.
Don’t Ask For Faster Horses: Embrace Revolutionary Change In Digital Marketing
How To Predict Marginal Returns In Search
Columnist Ben Spiegel details sophisticated analyses you can use to optimize your search bidding strategy.
The post How To Predict Marginal Returns In Search appeared first on Marketing Land.
Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.
How To Predict Marginal Returns In Search
Top hedge funds predict Apple could achieve trillion-dollar market cap
As shares of Apple repeatedly reach new all-time highs, major investors believe the trend could continue, propelling the iPhone maker to a massive market capitalization level of $1 trillion as soon as next year.
Top hedge funds predict Apple could achieve trillion-dollar market cap
3 Must-Optimize Web Pages (and How to Optimize Them)
We all agree that conversion optimization is important. But knowing it’s important doesn’t always translate into results.
I think I understand why.
Recently I discovered a fantastic CRO training program that doesn’t just tell you what to do, but how to do it. Step by step. One piece of the puzzle at a time. So it’s downright easy.
While I enjoyed all the material covered, there was one section that jumped out at me—the section covering specific recommendations for optimizing the Web pages most likely to drive profits.
It occurred to me that most articles give general tips for optimizing your pages. They don’t call out the unique needs of the top pages for engaging and selling. As a result, our own CRO efforts can fall short of expectations.
So today, we’re going to remedy this.
To give credit where credit is due, I’ve pulled this information (with permission) from the training program. It’s called Boost Website Sales Fast with Conversion Rate Optimization, and it comes from conversion optimization specialist, Rich Page.
Keep in mind, this is just one small piece of this incredible resource. To master CRO and start increasing your profits, check out the entire program here. (Rich is offering a 35% discount to all Crazy Egg readers—but it expires November 30, so don’t wait.)
Okay, let’s dig in and learn Rich’s pro tips for improving three key Web pages: your home page, your product page, and your checkout flow.
Before we begin
True conversion optimization is about incremental improvements to specific pages. So you have to have two things in place before you begin:
- You need to have Google Analytics set up on your website.
- You need to be able to run A/B tests on your pages.
You also need to measure and write down key metrics that will tell you whether the changes you make on your pages help or hurt your conversion rate. In most cases, that will be:
- Bounce rate. This tells you how engaged visitors are on the page. Ideally, you want 40% or lower. 50–60% is average.
- Top next page. Where to people go after leaving the page? This will give you an idea of the traffic flow on your site.
- Click map. What are people clicking on when they’re on the page? For this, there’s no better tool than Crazy Egg. (If you haven’t tried it out, be sure to take advantage of our free trial.)
For your checkout flow, you also need to know:
- Cart abandonment rate. Ideally, it should be at or below 50%.
- Goal funnel report. Figure out where people most often abandon your cart and prioritize that page in your optimization efforts.
What you need to do: For each of the pages you optimize, record its performance before you begin testing. Then start testing different options on the page to see if you can improve performance over time. It’s that simple.
Home Page
Your home page is the page that typically gets the most traffic, and it’s the place new prospects often visit first. It’s here that you need a powerful value statement that tells people what you can do for them and what to do next.
Best Practice
- Unique value proposition above the fold
- Strong, engaging headline and images
- All clutter removed
- 1–2 CTA buttons (one above the fold) showing the next step for visitors to take
Example
Some home pages are essentially sales pages, with a lengthy sales presentation. My favorite format is a modular layout, with each “section” presenting one piece of the message.
For example, one section may call out a special benefit or feature. Another may offer social proof. By breaking up your message, adding icons and images for interest, with lots of white space between, you make it easy for visitors to find the information they need.
Here’s an example from RocketLawyer.
Notice how this page really explains the value people will get when they work with RocketLawyer. It also offers multiple ways to get into the site and multiple ways to respond right away.
Product Page
Product pages are your sales pages. They may be long-form sales pages or service pages, but here, we’re focusing on ecommerce product pages.
Your challenge in optimizing product pages is providing the product information, trust elements, and the response buttons without creating clutter. On this page, a lot of information needs to go above the fold, so you need to test different layouts to see what works best.
Best Practice
- Product overview above the fold (this may be a bulleted list of benefits)
- Price is optimized to be compelling
- Multiple, zoomable images or videos of the product
- Ratings and reviews
- Risk reducers, such as shipping information, guarantee, trust seals, etc.
Example
When designing your product page, always remember that online buyers can’t touch and feel your product. That’s why it’s important to include multiple images of your product.
This page does this particularly well. You get five images of this camera in black, three each in red and white, and two of the case and packaging. In addition, a pop-up enlarges images for closer inspection.
Other elements worth imitating…
The headline is a clear (but detailed) product name. There’s no question about what’s being sold here.
Customer ratings are just below that, with a link to below-the-fold reviews.
Included with the price are details about shipping. In this case, FREE shipping, which is always appealing. Note that the price is framed as a savings, and it specifies the dollar amount and the percentage of your savings.
The description is given in bullets, so you can see at a glance what you’re getting.
Below the fold, you can also see technical and product details, a lengthy description with a features list, Q&A, and customer reviews.
All these elements answer buyer questions and reduce concerns that they’ll make a bad buyer decision. Include as many as you can on your own product pages.
Checkout Flow
Best Practice
- Distractions and clutter removed
- Emphasis on benefits of the product
- Risk reducers are easy to see
- Security/trust seals
- Error checking and help tips to ensure customers include all required information
- Streamline forms to simplify checkout
Example
The shopping cart flow should be intuitive and easy. As an example, let’s look at BackCountry.com, who has a one-page checkout flow:
Product Page
If you try to check out without selecting your size, you’ll get an error message:
This is a great example of error checking that helps users get through your checkout flow quickly and easily.
Shopping Cart
This is a clean page that’s easy to understand. It’s hard to imagine a user having troubles here, but just in case, there’s a phone number and a link to open a chat box.
Checkout Page
The form is streamlined and the page is easy on the eye. The product you’re buying is showcased to the right, so there’s no question about what you’re getting. Plus, the Norton security seal helps reduce last-minute jitters.
Notice that throughout the flow, efforts are made to reduce shopping cart abandonment:
- Coupon code for a discount
- Phone number and chat are available throughout the flow
- Multiple shipping options
- Multiple payment options, including PayPal
Plus, you can complete your order without having to sign in. All these things are geared to build trust and reduce objections, which keep buyers engaged until the purchase is complete.
Another example (not in the program)
Interestingly, after watching this part of the program, I completed an online purchase at TeaBox and observed many of the same elements in their checkout flow.
In particular, I liked their status bar at the top of the page, so I knew exactly where I was in the process. The form was short and simple, and at the top of the page were stress-reducing reminders: direct from source, easy cancellation, secure payments, and worldwide shipping.
So as you can see, there are lots of options for creating a checkout flow that works for your customers. The key is to pay attention to how many customers drop out of the flow before completing their purchase—and on what page. Your goal is to optimize that page so you get the highest conversion rate possible.
Bottom Line
Ultimately, you need to optimize all your pages, but you can get a lot of mileage out of your home page, product pages and your checkout flow. If you’re new to CRO, that’s a good place to start.
No matter which pages you’re optimizing, remember that conversion optimization is about optimizing your pages to sell.
By learning the process pro CROs use to do their job, you can apply these same tactics to your website, providing an overall better experience for your visitors and converting more of them to loyal customers.
If that’s what you want, you can’t go wrong with Boost Website Sales Fast with Conversion Rate Optimization. Enjoy your special 35% discount as a Crazy Egg reader. (Hurry! This offer expires November 30, 2014.)
Read other Crazy Egg articles by Kathryn Aragon.
The post 3 Must-Optimize Web Pages (and How to Optimize Them) appeared first on The Daily Egg.
3 Must-Optimize Web Pages (and How to Optimize Them)
How to Fuel Your Sales Engine With Social Content [Infographic]
How can brands convert social content into sales? Here are some tips for getting started. Read the full article at MarketingProfs
How to Fuel Your Sales Engine With Social Content [Infographic]
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