Share This!Today, Disney released the dates for the summer one of their more popular hard ticketed events, Disney After Hours. The dates for July, August, and September are as follows:Magic Kingdom: August 22 and 29 and September 5, 12, 19, and 26 (As a reminder, the Magic Kingdom will be offering the Disney Villains After Hours event in the months of June, July, and early August.)Disney’s Animal Kingdom: July 2, 8, 15, 22 and 29; August 5, 12, 19, and 26; and September 3, 9, 16 and 23.Disney’s Hollywood Studios: July 5, 12, 19 and 26For those who don’t know, Disney After Hours is hard ticketed event that occurs after park closing and lasts for three hours at the Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The event allows Guests to be able to ride attractions with minimal to no wait. In addition, Guests can enjoy all you care to eat snacks like popcorn, ice cream novelties, and bottled beverages.Disney After Hours event tickets cost $125, plus tax for advance purchase and $129, plus tax for day-of purchases. Disney Vacation Club members and Annual Passholders can purchase tickets at the discounted price of $95, plus tax.And because I get this question all the time, dates for Disney After Hours are typically only released a month or two before and Disney only release two-three months at a time. There is no time table on when Disney will decide to open these dates for the next segment. I will make sure to post when the new dates become available. read more

Top Reasons to Go With Managed WordPress Hosting A Web Developer’s New Best Friend is the AI Wai… Tags:#cloud#cloud computing david strom Why Tech Companies Need Simpler Terms of Servic… 8 Best WordPress Hosting Solutions on the Market For companies looking to develop and then test, stage and run a Drupal site, Acquia’s hosted Dev Cloud service provides an affordable solution to either on-premises hosting of your own Drupal server or going with a general hosting service who may not be as familiar with the oddities of setting up your Drupal server and various add-ons. You can launch a variety of pre-configured servers and Acquia will manage and maintain them as any other MSP. One big benefit is that you can quickly set up multiple servers with their self-service provisioning tools, making it easy to start with a dev/test environment or the ability to increase your server instances as your computing needs increase. Pricing starts at $150 per month and there is a very clever page that is used to calculate your monthly price with a great graphical look and feel that other cloud providers could do well to emulate. Related Posts read more

Facebook was ranked 7 Meanwhile, people spend only 7% of their media time reading magazines,yet 21% of advertising dollars are spent on magazines. This is disparity in ad spending is despite the fact thatonline advertising is more effective than magazine advertising. These critics were wrong. Facebook –Google-like potential that is yet untapped Theintersection of two trends – the shift of spending from offline to online, andthe increasing power of targeted advertising – will make Facebook worth farmore than $2 billion. When launched, average CPC prices were around $.10. Facebook needs to grant the targeting powerto advertisers. It wasn’tuntil 2002 Google that Google launched its Cost-Per-Click (CPC) AdWords As companies learned better tactics forlanding pages, targeting and conversions, the price only got pushed up more andmore. That will allow the same ecosystem of marketing firms and affiliatesellers that inhabits Google to move to Facebook and drive up the ad prices tothe market efficient price. However, only 7% ofadvertising dollars are spent online. Thistargeting proved highly effective. Fornewspapers its 10% of the time, and 22% of the advertising dollars. Topics: of the time people spend viewing media, 22% ofthat time is online. Only a small fraction of the advertisements I saw onFacebook were well targeted. A 2006Foresster study showed that people It was acomplete waste of money. Today they are approaching $1 andthey are still rising fast. Thisrepresents an increase in revenue by 10X in four years, without Google havingto do anything to improve its search engine. The $24 billiondollar opportunity AdWords, Facebook knows which moviesI like, why not give me a targeted recommendation, with a special offer to getthat movie for a discount? Two years later, the prices were around$.50. Junior in college at a top 10 university,mentions computer science or programming in his interests.   Using Facebook – the nextGoogle Aperson who is actively searching for health insurance, is very likely to clickon an ad for health insurance quotes. The endless photos of students holding redpixie cups full of beer belie the truth that Facebook is an untapped gold mine. While Google can target based on keyword,Facebook can potentially target the exact person. Because Facebook can target ads so well, it has a goldenopportunity to capture a huge chunk of that $24 billion. There are literally tens of billions of dollars waiting to be moved fromoffline to online spending. 18-22 year old male, from New England,mentions sports/baseball/football in his interests categories. Or: To illustrate this point, here is a sample of Facebookadvertisements that I viewed last night, and a note on how they could beimproved: The people running Facebook are too smart not to introduce an ad center thatoffers highly targeted advertising. Advertisers could purchase advertisements forcertain keywords, and only pay if the user clicked on the ad. th and Google was 6 – Netflix Google had already become a very popular search engine before it figuredout its true business model. th Facebookalso has a similar potential to target advertisements. NBA Store Most companies who do search advertising rankit as their most effective technique, despite that the CPM’s are becoming moreexpensive than magazine advertisements. All Google had to do is create an easy interface to let anyone buy andtrack advertisements, then let companies bid keywords up to the level of marketefficiency. When Facebook does this, companies will start gainingexpertise how they define their targeting. Facebook needs to open up an Ad Center, like Googledoes. It needs to allow anyone to buyhighly targeted advertisements. It also needs to openadvertising up so that ads can be purchased online by anyone, rather thanneeding to call an ad representative. However, currently, Facebook’s targetingtechnology is in the dark ages compared to Google. Last spring the Internet was aghast at news that Facebook turneddown a $750 million acquisition offer, and was holding out for $2 billion. Facebook Advertising That click is worth a lot of money to an advertiser. Facebook will seeits revenue increase an order of magnitude, just like Google did. Unlike MySpace, Facebook is still owned by the original founders, whoplan to take it public. It is likely Facebook will go public, and just likeGoogle, it will start killing its revenue numbers quarter after quarter asbillions of advertising dollars move from magazine spending to targeted, onlineadvertisements. founder Mark Zuckerberg, saying he had drunkfar too much of the Kool-aid and was heading for a bubble 2.0 crash. Facebook knows my home town. $24 billiondollars need to shift to online spending. Don’t forget to share this post! AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to TwitterTwitterShare to FacebookFacebookShare to Email AppEmail AppShare to LinkedInLinkedInShare to MessengerMessengerShare to SlackSlack – The ad just advertised the servicein general. Facebook nows I already have a Bachelorsdegree from a first tier university. Forthese numbers to equalize so that advertising spending is linked with howpeople spend their time, Originally published Feb 15, 2007 1:41:00 PM, updated October 20 2016 Explaining Google’sRevenue Explosion This advertisement would be far moreeffective if it targeted me with Red Sox, Patriots, or Celtics sports gear. Anadvertiser should be able to buy in categories such as: According to ComScore, in 2006 Facebook had a similar number of page viewsas Google. A whole ecosystem of affiliate marketers andsearch marketing agencies sprung up to help less savvy businesses sell online. Addinggreat targeting can easily give from 2X to 20X improvements in click throughrates. Whywould I want another one from an online university? I got about ten of thesebanners in thirty page views. . Google employed advanced algorithms tocontrol ad placement and to ensure the highest revenue for Google. Bloggers blasted University of Phoenix – Bacheleors DegreePrograms Automated analytics programs, like Google analytics, will help themimprove their ad copy. program that its revenueskyrocketed. read more

I think they were right to identify telemarketing as a business that is facing extinction but are being overly optimistic as to how long the industry will continue to be even moderately relevant. It is time to move on and reduce our spending on interruption marketing. Originally published Oct 1, 2007 11:09:00 AM, updated October 20 2016 Here’s what the article had to say about the telemarketing business: “. The article talks about various industries that are going through a major transformation and are at risk of being obsolete in 10 years. A few types of businesses facing extinction: record stores, camera film manufacturers, coin-operated arcades…and telemarketing. 10 Businesses Facing Extinction in 10 Years Ask youself this question: How many people do you think are still answering their phones and responding positively to telemarketing offers? I personally think the number is small. Vanishingly small. Why? Because people are using email, instant messaging and other online channels for communicating more and more. And, the phone people *do* answer is not their regular phone number — but their mobile number. I *never* answer my home phone number. If you’re important enough to me, you have my mobile number. And mobile numbers (thankfully) are exempt from automated telemarketing calls. Topics: Telemarketing is about having a bunch of people that don’t understand your business calling people that don’t care offering them products and services that are mostly irrelevant and unlikely to resonate. “The good news for people who hate telemarketing calls is that the industry may finally be dying; the bad news is that it may take a while.” Marketing Trends I came across an interesting article on Entrepreneur magazine’s website titled ” Don’t forget to share this post! AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to TwitterTwitterShare to FacebookFacebookShare to Email AppEmail AppShare to LinkedInLinkedInShare to MessengerMessengerShare to SlackSlack read more

The best marketers use closed loop marketing to measure ROI and track what campaigns are most effective at generating sales.  Want proof?  Aberdeen Research did a study that found that “Best in Class” companies – the companies that were in the top segment of performance – used closed loop marketing significantly more than other companies.Here is a chart with the data about the closed loop marketing study. Don’t forget to share this post! AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to TwitterTwitterShare to FacebookFacebookShare to Email AppEmail AppShare to LinkedInLinkedInShare to MessengerMessengerShare to SlackSlack Using TodayPlan to UseNo Plan to UseBest in Class88%12%0%Average46%36%18%Laggards22%44%34%Do you use closed loop marketing?  Why or why not?  Originally published Jun 2, 2008 10:47:00 AM, updated October 01 2019 read more

Don’t forget to share this post! AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to TwitterTwitterShare to FacebookFacebookShare to Email AppEmail AppShare to LinkedInLinkedInShare to MessengerMessengerShare to SlackSlack Topics: Originally published Oct 14, 2011 5:30:00 PM, updated February 01 2017 Twitter Images Face it — a company Twitter profile is incomplete without a custom Twitter background. Users who stumble across your profile will expect to see some basic branding such as company name, logo, and URLs to lead them to other useful information.Chances are, you have access to some design software somewhere in the office, and trust me, you don’t need a creative team to execute this simple task. Either read the step-by-step instructions below, or follow along during the video tutorial to whip together an awesome custom Twitter background. Don’t shy away from creating a background for your individual, personal Twitter account either! Twitter is a great resource for networking and personal branding. With that in mind, let’s get started. (Keep in mind that your background can be made with the following measurements using any design software). Step 1: Setting the Right MeasurementsOpen your design software, and create your new background using the following measurements: It’s important to note that Twitter backgrounds will not scroll down as users scroll down a profile page. The text/images on the background will be glued to one spot and will never move. Step 2: Define Your Design SpaceA blank canvas should now appear on your desktop. Now, due to the fact that a timeline or feed of activity exists on the center of every Twitter screen, we need to ensure that what we place on our background is never covered up by this feed. The trick here is to ensure that the text and images are viewable on any screen size (i.e. the feed doesn’t cut it off on a 13” screen laptop because the background was made on a 15” screen). To ensure you are always working in the “safe spot,” pull out a marker over the 300-pixel mark on the horizontal ruler in your design software. To do so, simply click on the vertical ruler and drag until the line touches 300 on the horizontal ruler. This marker will not appear in your final product, it is simply an indicator for you to keep all your work inside that selected area. (If you’re working off of a design software that does not have a marker feature, simply draw a line, and delete it after). Step 3: Choose a Background Color/ImageColor in the entire canvas with one color. Alternatively, you could insert some sort of image that takes up the entire background. Just be sure you own the rights to the image you choose, and consider how it will look when part of it is covered up by the Twitter feed. A solid color is always a safe option. It’s also easier on the eyes.Step 4: Add Your TextAt this point, you’re free to write the text and add whatever images you choose to the 300-pixel wide, left-hand column we created. For HubSpot’s Twitter background, we simply added our company name, a brief bio, URLs for our website and social networks, and our company logo. Nothing too crazy. What you choose should be a reflection of your company in some way, but it should also be simple. Twitter is the world of 140-character updates for a reason. Twitter users are used to brevity. The point is, keep it short.Step 5: Save Your File CorrectlyNow, save the file to a safe place to ensure you can find the original file again if and when you need to update it. Then, save the file again as one of the three file types Twitter accepts: JPG, PNG, or GIF. Be sure that the image size does not exceed 800K, because that is the maximum file size Twitter accepts. If you do need to shrink the image size, click here.For those designing in Photoshop, you will automatically be directed to a new prompt after clicking “Save,” which will give you the option of adjusting the image quality. Simply adjust the image quality down one number, and you will notice an extreme drop in file size, without harming the quality to a threatening extent.Voila! Now you have a background ready for Twitter. Easy peasy, right?Step 6: Upload Your Background to TwitterLastly, go to your personal or company Twitter profile, and head over to “Settings.” This option is listed in a drop-down menu under your Twitter username on the upper right-hand side. Once you’ve navigated to “Settings,” click the “Design” tab. Click “Change background image,” and upload your background! Then, click “Save Changes,” and your beautiful and custom background will appear right before your eyes.What design elements do you think make for an effective, visually pleasing Twitter background? read more

Don’t forget to share this post! AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to TwitterTwitterShare to FacebookFacebookShare to Email AppEmail AppShare to LinkedInLinkedInShare to MessengerMessengerShare to SlackSlack This is a guest post written by Bamidele Onibalusi, a professional freelance writer, copywriter, and guest blogger. You can learn practical tips on how to write online for traffic and money or learn more about his freelance writing services on his website.When it comes to guest blogging, the dream of many marketers is to write for the most popular blog in their niche, Download 195+ visual marketing design templates to use for social media posts, infographics, and more.  generate a solid flow of traffic, get a big boost in subscribers, and maybe even achieve an overnight rise to stardom. Unfortunately, while that might have been easy several years ago, it is almost impossible today. Most people guest blog for referral traffic and subscribers, but I guest blog for inbound links; for good reason, too.The idea of guest blogging these days usually consists of writing a guest post for a very popular blog, generating a lot of referral traffic, and repeating the cycle. Unfortunately, this method is so overused that it is hardly as effective as it used to be. The true benefit of guest blogging, rather, is inbound links.Why Guest Blog for Inbound Links Rather Than Referral Traffic?When people guest blog with the goal of referral traffic in mind, their thought process goes something like this …I’ll get my article published on a blog that generates a lot of traffic, and as a result, people will click on the links in my post, driving referral traffic back to my website or blog. Through this new traffic, I’ll generate more readers and subscribers!Sounds logical, but the fact of the matter is, many people think this tactic will generate much more traffic and subscribers then it actually does, and they fail to effectively capitalize on the true benefit of guest blogging: inbound links. When you blog for inbound links, on the other hand, there’s a much smarter thought process …I’ll get my article published on a blog that aligns with my expertise, and through careful optimization of the anchor text and pages I link to within the post, I’ll have control over a few inbound links that will help boost the search engine optimization of the pages I’m linking back to on my website. I may attract some immediate new traffic and subscribers in the process, but the true benefit will be from the long-term search traffic I’ll generate!A Personal Case StudyTo prove how much more effective guest blogging is for generating inbound links instead of referral traffic, I conducted a guest blogging experiment 6 months ago. I’d always been a believer of the idea that writing guest posts for popular blogs is the way to go, and I’ve had a few highly successful guest posts in the past. The idea for the experiment was to write 31 guest blog posts focused on improving search (not referral) traffic to a few quality articles and specialized landing pages on my site. Of the 31 guest posts that were submitted, 28 were published, and a large percentage of them were published within a week of when I submitted them. The focus of the challenge was to see how effective guest blogging is for inbound links, and determine the impact those links had on search traffic. The guest posts were submitted to smaller blogs with an Alexa rank of 50k to 400k and a maximum PageRank of 4.The ResultsThe result of the challenge was an increase of 100+ daily visitors from search just 10 days after the challenge, and a total increase of around 60,000 visitors from search just 6 months after the challenge. That works out to be around 2,000 visitors per guest post in 6 months from publication, when the highest I’ve ever gotten from any guest post on a big blog is 1,500 visitors; and these days, I get less than 10% of that from most big blogs.Remember: what I’m talking about is the number of visitors from search engine traffic. All the guest posts combined sent me fewer than 150 visitors from referral traffic. So the idea isn’t to drive referral traffic, but rather to attract more search engine traffic in the long run, built up through the authority the inbound links in the posts generated.To better understand what I mean, here are my search traffic screenshots before and after the challenge.6 Months Before the Challenge Topics: Originally published Apr 25, 2012 12:30:00 PM, updated November 22 2017 Sure, a number of other factors may have influenced my search engine rankings after the challenge, but the impact of those 28 guest posts shouldn’t be discounted when you consider a few factors:My blog posting frequency reduced significantly after the challenge.I never took any active measures to build inbound links to my blog after the challenge.I never made any changes to my blog, SEO-wise.The landing pages and blog articles I optimized for within those guest posts now generate a lot more traffic than they did before the experiment.Considering all the above, it’s fair to say that an increase in traffic of up to 200% in 6 months is noteworthy. This experiment certainly makes a strong case for why marketers should guest blog for the inbound links, not the referral traffic.4 Advantages of Writing Guest Posts for Links, Not Referral TrafficWriting for inbound links is smarter than writing for referral traffic for so many reasons, but here are some of the top ones:1) It’s Met With EnthusiasmRemember that many smaller blogs out there are extremely hungry for content. If you’re willing to put in the time to create valuable content, it’s often met with much excitement from blog managers who are already scrambling to meet their content creation goals. Another benefit of writing for small blogs is that, because these bloggers are always looking for content, the turnaround time is short, usually taking just a few days to get your guest post published. This is the complete opposite with more popular, established blogs.2) The Results Scale Over Time Although you are sometimes able to convert a percentage of referral traffic into subscribers, when you guest blog just for referral traffic, that traffic will eventually die down after a few weeks. Guest blogging for inbound links, on the other hand, is much more scalable in the sense that you can generate results from your efforts for months — and even years — to come. If you’ve optimized your guest post effectively for search (more on that later), the results can increase over time. In my own case, search engine traffic kept growing consistently for weeks, until I achieved a 200% increase in search traffic growth in 6 months.3) It’s TargetedWhen you guest blog for referral traffic, only a percentage of the people who read your guest post and visit your blog will be interested in your content. But when you guest blog for inbound links, the traffic you generate through search is much more targeted. People are using search engines to find solutions to their problems, and are in the right frame of mind when they come across the pages you optimized for in search — because these pages directly cater to what they were searching for.4) It Can Be Implemented on a Wide ScaleAs you know from my personal experiment, I was able to get a large number of guest posts published in a short amount of time. This was only possible because, as I mentioned earlier, the turnaround time when targeting smaller blogs is much shorter than when targeting bigger blogs. In fact, if I had been writing for bigger blogs, many may not have even accepted guest submissions in the first place.In other words, you can get more of your content published in less time when writing for smaller-scale blogs, and this means more inbound links. While inbound links from less authoritative blogs aren’t as valuable as inbound links from more popular, higher PageRanking blogs, the ease and scale at which you can implement a guest blogging strategy that targets smaller blogs makes up for it.A Note About the Importance of RelevancyGuest blogging for inbound links isn’t any different from link building. In fact, it’s one of the most effective forms of link building. So how should relevancy — in terms of the topics of your articles and the anchor text of the links in your articles — factor into your guest blogging strategy? Here are a couple of things to consider as far as relevancy is concerned:Write About Relevant TopicsWhen writing for another’s blog, the topic you write about is of utmost importance. The idea here is to write a lot of thematically relevant articles that are both relevant/helpful for the audience of the host blog and supportive on your link-building efforts. By “thematically relevant,” I’m referring to content that ties your industry focus with that of the other blogger. For instance, a post entitled, “How to Market Your Business on a Low Budget,” might be a great article for a marketing blog, but it will still provide powerful link-building opportunities for a personal finance blogger.Make Sure Anchor Text Is RelevantWhat about anchor text relevancy? How relevant should the anchor text of your inbound links be? It goes without saying that your anchor text should be as relevant to the keyword you want to rank for as possible in order to craft effective inbound links. Never try to fool readers — or Google — using false anchor text as a means of including a link that might not otherwise be relevant. In fact, Google is rolling out another algorithm update in the coming days that will penalize you even more than they have in the past for this activity. Not only will this make your inbound links less effective, but it will also make you look spammy, undermining your credibility to readers.How to Find Quality Blogs to Target If you’ve decided to ramp up your guest blogging strategy as a way to generate more inbound links, you’ll need an adequate source of blogs to target. So how do you find the right blogs to write for? Using a combination of tools, metrics, and research into the blog’s target audience, you can master the process of identifying quality blogs to target.Let’s start with the tools — here are some great ones to help you identify blogs to target in your guest blogging efforts. As you build out your list of blogs, conduct some research into the blog’s target audience to make sure you can create content that would be both beneficial to that particular audience as well as support the keywords you’re focusing on in your link-building efforts.4 Tools to Identify Blogs to Target1) AlltopAlltop is my favorite online blog directory due to the quality of the blogs you can find there. As I mentioned earlier, links from higher PageRanking blogs are more valuable than links from less authoritative blogs, and Alltop contains a quality list of some of the best blogs in every niche. The key to finding blogs via Alltop is to search for the main keywords in your industry/niche, or more specific keywords if your niche is bigger (e.g. “health” or “family health” respectively for the health industry).2) TechnoratiOne reason I love using Technorati’s blog directory is because of the sheer number of blogs it lists. Technorati literally contains over a million blogs under a variety of industry/niche categories. You can also find more relevant blogs by entering specific industry keywords in Technorati’s search box. Just note that the search function allows you to search for either individual posts or blogs as a whole, so make sure you search for “blogs” to generate the best results.3) GoogleGoogle is the biggest search engine online, as well as the best friend of any guest blogger. You can find hundreds of blogs online via Google by searching for a list of relevant keywords plus your industry or niche. Some search functions I’d suggest include:Write for us + industry/nicheGuest blogging + industry/nicheContribute blog + industry/nicheSubmit article + industry/nicheSubmit guest post + industry/nicheGuest post + industry/nicheGuest posting + industry/nicheFor example, in my own case, I would probably search “write for us + guest blogging,” considering the fact that my niche is “guest blogging.”4) MyBlogGuestThis is the biggest guest blogging directory online, as well as my favorite guest blogging site. It consists of a community of tens of thousands of guest bloggers from all over the world. Furthermore, if you’re looking to source guest contributors for your own blog, you can also include a list of criteria you want guest bloggers to fulfill before contacting you.4 Metrics to Use to Evaluate Potential BlogsOnce you have a list of potential blogs, you should conduct some additional analysis to identify which blogs are worth targeting. To make your life easier when evaluating potential blogs, I suggest you install the The PageRank Status Plugin, which displays the Google PageRank and Alexa Rank of any website, both important metrics we’re about to discuss. (Note: You’ll need a Google Chrome browser to install it.)There are several different metrics you can use to determine which blogs to target and how powerful the inbound links you gain from them will be. Most of these metrics are used and trusted in the SEO world, and you can set your own values depending on your goals.Alexa Rank: Although Alexa may not be the most accurate website ranking system, it can be a very effective metric when it comes to guest blogging for inbound links. Most blogs with a good Alexa ranking also have fairly good search rankings, and it is a metric you can trust when it comes to looking for authoritative blogs. Any blog with an Alexa Rank of 400k or lower (by lower, I mean 0–399,999) is a good bet.Google PageRank: Google is the biggest search engine online, and it sends more than 90% of search engine traffic to most websites, so what better metric to use than the one it created? PageRank (a Google ranking factor that ranks web pages by how many other pages link to it, and how reputable those pages are) can be very effective at helping you determine how authoritative a website is in search engines, so consider any blog with a PageRank of 2 and above.MozRank: This metric from the team at SEOMoz is becoming popular lately, and with good reason. The MozRank of a blog is determined by a lot of other SEO factors, but the end result is a pretty accurate SEO measure. In my own opinion, any blog with a MozRank of 3 and above is a good blog to start with.CustomRank: This is a new metric that is also increasing in popularity, and it can be calculated using the tool at CustomRank.com. The CustomRank score of any website is calculated based on a lot of other SEO metrics, including the site’s loading time, the domain authority, the Alexa ranking, the domain MozRank, and other factors. I think it is the most objective of all the metrics listed, and any site with a CustomRank score of 30 or more is a good place to start.How to Optimize Your Guest Post Optimizing your guest posts for search is the single most important part of guest blogging for inbound links. When it comes to guest blogging, blog managers understand that the trade-off for accepting guest submissions is an inbound link or two back to the guest blogger’s web property of choice. After all, they’re getting free content for their blog without having to put in the effort to create it, so they should be happy to give you a couple of inbound links.As a guest blogger, this means you have some control over the anchor text and URLs for those inbound links within your posts. As you write each guest post, include a few links to the web pages you want to rank in search (and ultimately drive more search traffic to). Include these links as anchor text using the keywords you want to rank for in search engines. Check the blog’s guest blogging guidelines to see how many inbound links it allows per guest post, and if the blog doesn’t publish any guidelines, stick to 1 in your author bio/byline in addition to 1-2 within the body of the article.Remember, this is your opportunity to craft your perfect inbound link, so make sure you think carefully about the pages you link to and the keywords you want them to rank for.Example:The following would be a great inbound link for a guest blogger from HubSpot who wants to generate more traffic to http://www.hubspot.com/lead-generation-marketing-hub by ranking for the keywords lead generation, used here as the anchor text of the link.3 Tips for Effective Link Building Within Guest Blog ArticlesUse Keywords as Anchor Text: Don’t use weak anchor text such as “click here” or “read this article.” For the best SEO benefits, the anchor text of your inbound links should consist of the keywords for which you’re trying to rank, and they should link to pages on your website that are about/include the same keywords.Link to Sub-Pages on Your Website: Unless you’re trying to improve the ranking of your homepage for a particular keyword, the URLs in your anchor text should be to sub-pages on your website, depending on what you’re ultimately hoping to drive more traffic through. Use the opportunity to improve the search rankings of important pages on your website such as specific web pages, landing pages, canonical blog articles, etc.Make Guest Blogging Part of Your Overall Link-Building Strategy: Let your keyword and URL choices for your inbound links support your overall link-building strategy. Are you trying to boost the search engine rankings of certain pages on your website for particular keywords? If so, you’ll want to be sure to target blogs for which you can naturally create content around these specific keywords.What to Do After Your Guest Posts Are PublishedWhile we haven’t discussed much about the pitching process or the content creation aspect of your guest blog articles in this post, these are certainly very important parts of any guest blogging strategy, so don’t overlook them. Be sure to establish an organized process for tracking outreach and progress, craft smart pitches to blog managers, and create high-quality content that caters to their audience. To learn about these steps in more detail, check out this blog post.Once you’ve been successful in getting your guest posts published, don’t stop there. The more successful your guest posts are, the more powerful the inbound links within them will become. Promote your guest posts as you would articles on your own blog, sharing it via your social media accounts and linking to it in other articles on your blog to increase its chances for success.Image Credit: t r e v y Guest Blogging 6 Months After the Challenge read more

Email Subject Lines This post originally appeared on The Agency Post. To read more content like this, subscribe to The Agency Post.You craft the content and sent out a weekly newsletter like always, but your open rates and clickthroughs are falling week by week.Can’t figure out what’s happening? We asked nine entrepreneurs why newsletters, which may have had high/steady numbers in the past, would have declining open rates.9 Reasons Your Open Rates Are Plummeting1) Lack of Customization”It’s not surprising rates are dropping and there’s only one reason in my opinion — people want customized content. Period. They don’t want to sift though a bunch of junk that isn’t intended for them. Know your buyer and give them what they want. Email newsletters are part of the reason email as a whole is diminishing.”– Justin Gray, LeadMD2) Not Optimizing for Mobile”Chances are, the way your audience is consuming your content is radically different than it was three years ago. In fact, in 2013, over 50% of all emails were opened on mobile. And this trend is only rising as we speak. If your newsletter (or your website) doesn’t respond to this change, it very well might be the “hidden reason” why your numbers are dropping. Check your audience device statistics.”– Juha Liikala, Stripped Bare Media3) New Signups Don’t Know What to Expect”Sometimes, what happens is your older leads are still opening your email, while new signups have no idea your newsletter is coming. Remember to automatically email new sign-ups with information about what they should expect from you and when. That way, they will be prepared to receive your email every Thursday morning instead of quickly tossing it in the trash because they forgot you even existed.”– Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep4) Email Subject Lines”Often weekly business newsletters have the same subject line format. As email providers try to clear the inbox, emails with repetitive titles often start to go under Promotion tabs or in the spam folder. So you have to spice up your subject lines. One trick that helps is reaching out to inactive subscribers and asking them to update their preferences and contact details.”– Syed Balkhi, OptinMonster5) Not Enough Value”If your newsletter is always about you and what’s going on in your world, you’re missing the point. Any time you send out an email to your customers and potential customers, it should give them something of value. This could be a tip, a strategy, a tool you’ve used that they could benefit from, or other free resources. If your customer gets value from what you send, they will keep opening.”– Natalie MacNeil, She Takes on the World6) Messages Getting Flagged as SpamSpam is a moving target, as are the efforts of service providers to cut down on spam. If you have a sudden drop off in open rates, you may want to check to see if your mail servers or providers are on a black list.– Mark Cenicola, BannerView.com7) The Label Leads to Boring, Repetitive Material”Creators often see a weekly business newsletter as another chore. This mindset is poisonous. The creator goes through the motions churning out uninspiring, repetitive material. People’s inboxes are flooded. Many people hate their inbox because mining a quality Golden Nugget is like finding a needle in a haystack. Instead, be contrarian; solicit conversations and write back when they reply to you.”– Joshua Lee, StandOut Authority8) Stale Email Lists”Nothing will kill your deliverability like a stale email list. To define stale, think about email subscribers who haven’t had activity in six months (either they haven’t opened an email or haven’t been sent an email since subscribing). Other contributors to a stale list are subscribers who were manually added without their permission. Both of these groups kill open rates and drive up spam complaints.”– Brett Farmiloe, Markitors9) Format Congestion”Like all forms of messaging, the success of a newsletter depends a great deal on being scannable and easy to absorb. Complexity isn’t ideal for inboxes.”– Sam Saxton, Salter Spiral Stair and Mylen StairsWant more content like this? Subscribe to The Agency Post. Topics: Originally published Nov 8, 2014 8:00:00 AM, updated November 18 2014 Don’t forget to share this post! AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to TwitterTwitterShare to FacebookFacebookShare to Email AppEmail AppShare to LinkedInLinkedInShare to MessengerMessengerShare to SlackSlack read more

Don’t forget to share this post! AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to TwitterTwitterShare to FacebookFacebookShare to Email AppEmail AppShare to LinkedInLinkedInShare to MessengerMessengerShare to SlackSlack 10 Weird Mobile Apps You Won’t Believe You Can Download1. CuddlrA location-based social networking app called Cuddly lets you find people in your area to cuddle with. Cute or creepy? You be the judge.Cost: FreeOS: iOS only, Android coming soonDownload here for iOS.2. Demotivational PicsKeep that frown upside down. Make a bad day worse with an app that reminds you just how crappy things can be.Cost: FreeOS: iOS & AndroidDownload here for iOS; here for Android.3. Carrr MateyForgot where you parked your car? This app can tell you — in a pirate voice.Cost: Free, matey.OS: iOS & AndroidDownload here for iOS; here for Android.4. Places I’ve PoopedI mean … the name really says it all. Mark your territory, literally and digitially, with this map of where you’ve done your business.Cost: FreeOS: iOS & AndroidDownload here for iOS; here for Android.5. Run PeeWondering whether now is the time to relieve yourself of that red slushy you just sucked down? Run Pee will tell you when you can run and pee without missing anything big in the movie. Incredibly weird. Incredibly useful.Cost: FreeOS: iOS & AndroidDownload here for iOS; here for Android.6. Cat PaintYou know what this picture needs? More cat. Cat Paint helps you add more cat. Cost: FreeOS: iOSDownload here for iOS.7. Pimple PopperIf you find pimple-popping therapeutic, this app makes a gross little game out of it.Cost: FreeOS: iOS & AndroidDownload here for iOS; here for Android.8. YoAn app that does one thing: says “Yo” to someone else. #yoloCost: Free (thankfully)OS: iOS & AndroidDownload here for iOS; here for Android.9. Spirit Story Box: Ghost Hunting ToolThis app speaks ghost. Use it to get a translation of what the ghosts that are definitely around you right now are saying. Cost: FreeOS: iOSDownload here for iOS.10. Paper RacingYou know what would make bathroom activities more fun? Competition. Race your friends to see who runs out of toilet paper first. There are no winners in this game.Cost: Your dignity; but it’s otherwise free.OS: AndroidDownload here for Android. Mobile Apps From RunKeeper to Lyft to FlightTonight, there are plenty of mobile apps that are practical, functional, and just plain good ideas.There are also addictive games that, while not my cup of tea, keep millions of people transfixed on otherwise dreary commutes in and out of work.And then there’s a bunch of weird apps that make you go “hmmm.” Whether they seem hilariously niche, totally useless, or you’re just shocked there’s a market for them, the apps in this post might make you curious enough to download. (And you can do so guilt-free — because they don’t cost a cent. Enjoy.)Master the fundamentals of mobile marketing using this free guide.10 Weird Apps You Won’t Believe You Can DownloadCuddlrDemotivational PicsCarrr MateyPlaces I’ve PoopedRun PeeCat PaintPimple PopperYoSpirit Story Box: Ghost Hunting ToolsPaper Racing Topics: Originally published Jan 22, 2015 6:00:00 AM, updated December 04 2017 read more

Personalization in Marketing Topics: Don’t forget to share this post! AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to TwitterTwitterShare to FacebookFacebookShare to Email AppEmail AppShare to LinkedInLinkedInShare to MessengerMessengerShare to SlackSlack Readers are being bombarded by more and more content each and every day. This overwhelming volume of articles, videos, status updates, and more is causing audiences to bounce faster from websites, click “delete” immediately on emails, and use any method available to tune our the noise.At the same time,  reliable sources of content distribution are becoming increasingly important for publishers, as spam filters grow more powerful, ads are blocked, and social media becomes a pay-to-play channel. So what can publishers do to earn the reader attention and engagement they so desperately need to drive revenue? It’s easy for readers to glance over emails that make them feel like “just another name on an email list.” Or leave a website that’s littered with far too many irrelevant options. But when it feels like a newsletter was curated just for you, or a website had the exact link you were looking for—that’s what keeps people engaged for longer. Audience segmentation and personalization can make one-to-many communications feel more personal, while simultaneously offering greater value to a larger number of readers.To help you learn more about audience segmentation and personalization, we teamed up with BrightInfo to write Personalize or Perish, the definitive guide on how publishers can:Collect better unified audience data across websites, events, emails, and moreBuild audience segments specific to internal or external offeringsCommunicate unique messages out to these segments via email and on-site contentReady to learn more? >> You can download the full ebook here Originally published Mar 15, 2016 8:03:35 AM, updated February 01 2017 read more