Internet Marketing Magazine June 2014 by Internet Marketing Magazine

JUNE 2014

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> BUILD A TOP 100 BLOG IN 12 MONTHS P28

> FACEBOOK TARGETING

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> INSTAGRAM MARKETING MASTERY P21

COVER STORY: FREE YOUTUBE ADS TRAFFIC SECRETS

JAKE LARSEN >> THE ORIGINAL AND BEST INTERNET MARKETING MAGAZINE DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR THE IPAD, KINDLE FIRE, ANDROID AND THE WEB

MEET OUR EXPERT PANEL Garrett Heath

is a Racker who works in Rackspace Marketing and has had experience as a technical project manager in the Cloud. He enjoys writing about how the cloud is spurring innovation for startups, small businesses and enterprises. You can read his personal blog for where he likes to eat in San Antonio. Read his article on Bitcoins for eCommerce on PAGE 13

CONTENTS

1Expert

commentary on what are the big plays that have recently happened online and how they affect you.

1Jake

Kurt Elster

is the co-founder of a bootstrapped startup called Ethercycle. He is one of the few web designers in the city of Chicago with both design skills and business acumen. Kurt and his team specialize in high-end responsive websites for mid-size businesses that generate serious revenue. Read his article on Million Dollar eCommerce Traffic on PAGE 19

Larsen shares his knowledge on how to master Youtube Advertising in an exclusive interview with Internet Marketing Magazine.

13 17 19

1What

Joanna Giouros

is an SEO Analyst at Trinity Insight. Joanna has a deep interest in being at the forefront of new technologies and trends. She is obsessed with digital & social media marketing, and believe the world would be a frightening place without them. Her goal in this fast-paced, digital world is to be a point in the continuim, not a fork in the road. Connect with Joanna in Google+ and LinkedIn. Read her article on Instagram Marketing Mastery on PAGE 21

Gray MacKenzie

is a co-founder of GuavaBox. He has been privileged to help people and solve new problems everyday. His passion for strategic development and organizational consulting falls just short of his love for competition. Find him on Twitter, Google+ and connect with Gray on LinkedIn. Read his article on Email Marketing Campaigns on PAGE 25

Matthew Woodward

is a multi award winning internet marketing & business blogger. He has over a decade of experience which he shares on his blog at www.MatthewWoodward. co.uk

does the future of Bitcoin look like for eCommerce? 1Facebook

Targeting Tightness Conversion Curve

1Discover

the 5 Sources of Million Dollar Ecommerce Traffic

21 25

Mastery

Tips for Instagram Marketing

lKnow How Often You Should Send Email Marketing Campaigns

lLearn How to Build a Read his article on Building a Top 100 Blog In 12 Month on PAGE 28 Top 100 Blog in 12 Months

internet marketing magazine june 2014

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

’m just back from my latest trip to the States. That’s one thing about living in Australia – the lifestyle is great, but if you want to keep in the top 1% of the Internet Marketing Industry I find you need to be willing to hop a plane overseas to keep up with what is changing in bigger markets. I attended the Digital Marketer War Room Round Table event in San Diego with Ryan Deiss, Perry Belcher, Frank Kern, Roland Fraiser and Richard Lindner. I find them to be a very clever group of guys at the very bleading edge of what is possible online.

While there I got their team to audit what we are doing and teaching in the Facebook Ads space, and it was all on the money, which is great. I also had an excellent meeting with Laura Betterly who showed me some new stuff on targeting competitors audiences on Facebook. I’ll share that in the next issue. The other massive area of traffic that we are very interested in at the moment is YouTube advertising. It’s for this reason that we sought out YouTube Ads expert Jake Larsen for the cover of this issue. The audio of this really should be listened to in full as this represents such an amazing cost effective traffic opportunity in 2014. For those with iTunes the Podcast version may be more convenient. If you haven’t got access to the member’s area please feel free to do at http:// internetmarketingmag.net/become-member/ (it’s free). Our Google Play App is now live and working well. It gets updated roughly one day after the Apple Newsstand issue. So please feel free to check it out if you are on Android. We are working on a way to make it get automatically updated the same day as Apple Newsstand, so I’ll let you know if that comes off. A special thanks to those who have left reviews in the apple platforms as it really helps us out. If you are getting good value from Internet Marketing Magazine and you can spare 1 minute of your time to click this link to give us a quick honest review that would be greatly appreciated (click ‘view in iTunes’ then scroll down and click ‘write a review’, thanks :). New this year: Send us a screenshot of your review in iTunes or Google Play (info@ internetmarketingmag.net) and we will send you some great Internet Marketing Training resources that I have put together in recent months based on what we are doing in the marketing agency that is working right now.

Greg Cassar Regards,

Internet Marketing Strategist & Editor – Internet Marketing Magazine

internet marketing magazine june 2014

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internet marketing magazine june 2014

INTERNET UPDATE

THE STATE OF THE INTERNET In this section of Internet Marketing Magazine our editor Greg Cassar cover’s the facts and provides expert commentary on what are the big plays that have recently happened online and how they affect you. > RE-TARGET OTHER WEBSITES VISITORS Perfect Audience has recently started testing the ability to “retarget” the audiences of specific websites that likely have similar visitor profiles as yours. It’s called Perfect Audience Connect, and it offers gives advertisers a way to connect with other companies they are familiar with and share retargeting audiences with one another in a way that doesn’t drive up bid prices.

It’s a similar concept to the Tinder App where you can only connect with other singles that want to connect with you. This is a revolutionary game changing use of cookies that we’ve never seen done before. It opens up a world of opportunities to cost effectively do joint ventures with other businesses to market to their site visitors.

> TIME SPENT ONLINE IN THE US How it works is that from within Connect, companies can send requests directly to contacts at companies they already know, or they can tap their LinkedIn networks to make connections. If a request is accepted, both companies can then “retarget” the other’s visitors.

The Wall Street Journal recently published the results of a GFK and Interactive Advertising Bureau survey of USA Internet usage over the last year. The surveyed Internet users advised they spent about an average of 37 minutes a day on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Emailing was 29 minutes, while watching online video was 23 minute

internet marketing magazine june 2014

INTERNET UPDATE > GOOGLE RELEASES PANDA 4.0 UPDATE In late May Google released it’s Panda 4.0 update - which affected approximately 7.5% of English language search queries. Google’s Panda Update is a search filter that was originally introduced in February of 2011. It was designed to stop sites with poor quality content from working their way into Google’s top search results. The Panda 4.0 update was designed to catch ‘poor quality’ sites that escaped before. A refresh also means “false positives” might get released.

Press Release sites seem to have been hit the biggest this time. PRWeb.com, PR Newswire, BusinessWire and PRLog all seem to have lost significant rankings in Google. IMM

internet marketing magazine june 2014

> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW

ALL ABOUT JAKE LARSEN • Jake Larsen is a world-famous YouTube video marketing expert • Jake runs the agency and online training center “Video Power Marketing” at VideoPower.org • Jake has amazing insight and experience into how individuals and also businesses can increase sales and brand awareness using video and YouTube

“

There’s a way to hack You Tube advertising so you can technically get free traffic.

“

internet marketing magazine june 2014

> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW

JAKE LARSEN FREE YOUTUBE ADS TRAFFIC SECRETS An Interview by Internet Marketing Strategist Greg Cassar CPV or Cost Per View is an exciting new area. How does CPV work for those who haven’t come across it? Jake: Creating these campaigns is done in the Google AdWords platform. AdWords has is traditionally a Cost Per Click (CPC) or a Cost Per Thousand Views (CPM). The way YouTube advertising works, it’s a Cost Per View (CPV). Costs Per Views range from $0.02 to $0.25 depending on how targeted you get. The cool thing is if the viewer watches 29 seconds of a 60 second video as an example, and then skips to the ad, you don’t have to pay because they didn’t hit that 30-second threshold. It’s basically a free 29 seconds.

What are the main ways to advertise on YouTube? Jake: When it originally started out, there was four ways to advertise on YouTube. made a change a couple weeks ago and now there’s two ways. The very latest in this space is ‘instream’ and ‘in-display’. Those are the two types of videos. The In-Stream Ads are what we talked about previously where you can skip those ads after five seconds. The other type of ad is In-Display ads. Those are the videos you see beside the search results and also on the right side in the suggested videos. Both are done in TrueView.

Greg: That is so exciting for those who hasn’t grasped that concept…the opportunity to get free traffic from YouTube in that space. Jake: There’s a way to hack You Tube advertising so you can technically get free traffic. If you can get the viewer to click before 30 seconds, you can drive free, targeted traffic to your website. The other cool thing about it is the viewer that has a choice. They can watch it or not. They can skip the ad if they want to and that’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing. Because you don’t want to waste your ad spend on people who aren’t interested. Because no matter how much money you spend, certain people will never buy your product. And why would you want to waste your ad spend on people who aren’t interested?

internet marketing magazine june 2014

Which of those advertising units do you find to be the most effective and why? Jake: I have a bias. I’m a big fan of the InStream ads because I build videos around a click. I want to get people’s attention, I want to get them off YouTube and on my website. So, I’m a big fan of the in-stream versions.

> COVER STORY: I personally have never had huge success with the In-Display ads. My whole YouTube hacker strategy involves building video ads that get the click. I’m a big fan of getting clicks and getting people off of YouTube and onto the website.

EXPERT INTERVIEW

talking about this versus TV advertising…with this, you’re able to target the exact people who you’re after. It’s just so much smarter. Jake: Exactly. Because we know how many people watch the video. We know how long they watch the video. We know if they click. We know if they go to the website. We know how long they’re on the website. We know if they buy something. You know everything you could possibly want to know. Greg: What about with getting in the door of some of those big companies that are doing the TV advertising? Are they seeking you out or are you doing some clever marketing to get their attention?

What are the different ways that we can target the exact audience on Youtube that we are after? Jake: One of the coolest ways to target is to put your video, your message on your competitors’ YouTube channel or on their videos. You can target any channel or a specific video on YouTube, as long as it has ads on it. You can target based on keywords. It works based off keywords that are in the title or the description of the video. You can also target by keywords that people search. You can target by people’s interests. So, if they’ve been viewing videos about how to market online, then you can put your ad there. One of the best converting targeting groups that I’ve noticed is re-marketing. So, if anyone’s been to your website and then they go onto YouTube and search for something, then you could basically have your ad follow them around. Greg: Agreed. I remember early on, you were

Jake: I do YouTube advertising to get people to my site and to sign up, because I have a free marketing course that I give away. I also have a couple of info products, like “How to make $1 a day on YouTube” or “How to hack YouTube advertising.” I use those that to get my message out there. That’s the only marketing I do. Most of it has been kind of word of mouth or speaking at events, people hear me speak and see my results.

When putting together a video for an ad. What specifications of size and quality etc does it need to meet? Jake: The first thing I have is cut out your logo for five seconds at the beginning. Get someone’s attention right off by presenting your value. The whole purpose of this video ad is to get people off of YouTube and onto your website. So you need to “Build the video around the click.” Whatever you need to do to get them internet marketing magazine june 2014

> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW

to click the ad before 30 seconds. Put a button on there. Lastly, every video needs a strong call to action.

What do you believe is the formula for a great video advertisement on Youtube? Jake: You need to talk to whoever your target audience is. Like what I did. “Are you looking to grow your YouTube channel. Say you own a vehicle accessories shop, you could open with “Hey, are you a truck owner? Check this out.” Greg: Then they’re less likely to do that skip as well, aren’t they? Because they know you’re talking directly to them. Jake: Yes. And if they skip it, if they’re not a truck owner, you don’t want to waste your money on people who don’t own trucks, right? You could almost say “Hey, if you don’t own a truck, skip this ad and it’s not for you.” You want a click, regardless. Whether it’s a click to your site or a click to skip the ad. I

internet marketing magazine june 2014

think that’s a good goal to have, that’s the purpose. Either way, it’s a benefit for you. Because if they skip it, awesome, you’re not wasting your money on them. And if they click, obviously they’re interested or they’re relevant. Greg: So, in some ways, it’s got both a direct response component and an element of branding as well? Because like you said, you were getting your personal brand out there. But you were also getting people to click through to your site. So, it’s like re-marketing where you can get your brand out there, as well as get that direct response of people coming across. Very cool. Some people may be worried about the adwords aspect. Is it very complicated to setup and get approved and going? Jake: Yes and no. It depends...three years ago, I had no idea what AdWords was. I never really used it. So, I kind of got into it and taught myself how. But then people who have at least tried one campaign on AdWords or set something up, I think it’s very familiar to them. And it’s a quick pickup. But then some people have never tried it. If you’re dedicated to it and you want to learn it, I think you can learn it.

Have you worked with any eCommerce stores or had any success with eCommerce stores? Because I found with a lot of different marketing platforms, eCommerce stores find they’re great at building brand awareness but it’s more difficult to drive sales? Jake: Right. So, one of my clients, they actually got the fastest top 20 fastest-growing eCommerce stores. I’d been working with them for the last six months. And the first month, we probably spent $5,000. Not one conversion. So, you’re first thinking “Oh, my God. This sucks.” Then, the next month, we spent I think the same thing, $5,000. And we got I think it was like 10 conversions. And a customer to them is worth around $300. And they’re willing to spend $75 to get a customer. But after spending the money, we were able to see the holes in the campaign. You’ve got to spend money to see where the money’s going and then where the money just kind of drains through. Then plug a

> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW

hole there. By the third month, I think we spent $10,000 and we made $30,000. Greg: Wow. What’s interesting about that, most people would have killed it at the end of the first month. Jake: It usually takes three months for it to work. And that’s also because the first month we went in there, I said “Your videos are horrible. They’re good videos, but they’re not made for TrueView.” They had their own kind of production team that they worked with. And I had them follow this formula and had them make new videos. And that third month was when it was actually when it was put into place. So, you were able to see that for it. So, last month, we spent $12,000 on TrueView ads. And they made I think close to $80,000 in online sales. Greg: Excellent. That shows it does work in the eCommerce space. But like you said, you test and measure. How can our readers, listeners, subscribers and members best find more information from you online? Jake: You can find us on videopower.org/imm. And on there, I have a free course that I created. And also have some products on there as well like “How to make $1 a day on YouTube” or “How to hack YouTube advertising.” I just launched “How to Hack YouTube Advertising.” For your readers, just because we’ve been talking about it, If you go to videopower.org/imm, Internet Marketing Magazine, there’s a discount code that they can use that will give them $100 off the course, which I have priced at $297. So, you can basically get that for $100 off and it teaches them that exact hacking YouTube strategy that I use for myself and that I use with clients. IMM internet marketing magazine june 2014

internet marketing magazine june 2014

BITCOIN FOR ECOMMERCE

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE OF BITCOIN LOOK LIKE FOR E-COMMERCE? By Garrett Heath

he meteoric rise of Bitcoin’s value—from a low of $13 to upwards of $1000 in 2013— caused the general public to take notice of this cryptocurrency. Once relegated to tech circles, last year saw major economists discussing the digital currency, international governments questioning its legitimacy and speculation on well-known hedge funds acquiring it in their portfolios. Last year was truly the coming out party for Bitcoin. But is the time right for businesses and e-commerce sites to begin accepting it as a method of payment?

“We see a range of emotions towards Bitcoin adoption in the retail industry. Some retailers believe that they are just merchants and ready to support any mode of transaction for selling goods,” Mahesh Gandhe, Product Marketing Manager for Rackspace Digital says. “On the other side of the spectrum, some are skeptical and really want federal agencies to regulate Bitcoin before considering its adoption.” In deciding whether it’s time to adopt Bitcoin as a method of payment, below are some points that online retailers should consider.

internet marketing magazine june 2014

BITCOIN FOR ECOMMERCE Playing with house money Investors who’ve been lucky enough to hold onto to their Bitcoin from the early days are suddenly seeing real, tangible worth. As the Bitcoin value has moved from pennies to hundreds of dollars, many of the original owners have come into a windfall.

accepting Bitcoins will give you an initial PR pop.” Online dating site OKCupid was one of the first major businesses to accept Bitcoin in April 2013. While the sales haven’t been huge (about 1,000 people have paid with the currency), the company did cash in on the publicity from many articles circulated about them on the Web. Certainly, news coverage will begin to wane as more companies begin to accept Bitcoin, but there is still the opportunity to capture some media exposure in the near term.

In essence, there’s a feeling of playing with found money—similar to how gamblers on a winning streak in Vegas might spend big with house money in their pockets. In addition to their recently acquired wealth, many early owners are passionate about Bitcoin becoming a mainstream currency. This could mean a boon for e-commerce sites that are early adopters of Bitcoin. Overstock.com’s recent adoption of Bitcoin is a case in point. In less than a full day of accepting Bitcoin, Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com, tweeted that the company received over 780 orders totaling over $124,000 in sales. Providing an outlet for passionate users to spend their newfound wealth could carry many benefits for merchants that are early to the Bitcoin party. Free publicity Because we are in the early days of retailers accepting cryptocurrency, there is a significant amount of potential media coverage for businesses that opt in. Roger Wu, cofounder of Cooperatize.com, began accepting Bitcoin for his business. In a recent Forbes article, he notes, “The newness and risk associated with

internet marketing magazine june 2014

Volatility of Bitcoin value Because the current value of Bitcoin is highly volatile, companies accepting Bitcoins and not immediately transferring them into local currency incur the risk—and possible reward—of this volatility. Furthermore, there could be a possibility of what is called the Bitcoin Crack, a condition that Gary Le Masson covers in detail on PrestaShop. Essentially, it entails a significant drop in the price of Bitcoin—say 100-fold—over the course of a day and the subsequent “buying up” of physical goods. Rather than exchanging their devalued Bitcoin for USD, users will look to spend the digital currency very quickly on tangible goods, potentially in your online store. By not updating your associated Bitcoin price in real time, as an e-commerce merchant you could receive a flood of orders paid for by a devalued currency. Securing the currency As with all things digital, Bitcoin owners have to take certain precautions with their digital assets. While there are many security precautions in place for Bitcoin wallets, one of the best practices is to keep the majority of the

> money in an offline, encrypted wallet.

BITCOIN FOR ECOMMERCE

merchants don’t have to be concerned with the security and redundancy of a Bitcoin wallet.

As Bitcoin.org advises, a “Bitcoin wallet is like a wallet with cash. If you wouldn’t keep a thousand dollars in your pocket, you might want to have the same consideration for your Bitcoin wallet.” If you utilize an offline storage strategy, it is imperative to backup your wallet and to make multiple copies. Just as a digital photo can be lost if the hard drive becomes corrupted, your wallet could be lost if a hardware failure occurs. Having multiple copies of an offline wallet is key to protecting your assets. Mitigating volatility and security To help mitigate some of this volatility and security concerns, there are tools and platforms that are available for online merchants. Coinbase, for example, is a platform designed to make accepting Bitcoin easier for merchants. Instead of being subjected to volatility, merchants can specify the price of their good or service in their local currency.

However, merchants should perform their due diligence when choosing a third party platform. At the end of February, popular exchange Mt. Gox went offline after an estimated 744,408 Bitcoins went missing. The unregulated nature of Bitcoin can cut both ways, so it is important to critically evaluate each exchange and platform when planning to conduct business using Bitcoin.

Coinbase then facilitates the Bitcoin transactions for the items and deposits the total amount of sales at the end of a day— less a fee not to exceed 1 percent—into the merchants account.

Future currency or financial architecture? While Bitcoin may still be a niche currency, there’s momentum towards more widespread adoption. With this momentum, the future of Bitcoin seems to be heading down one of two roads. First, it has the opportunity to become a mainstream currency, where the general public actually buys, sells and holds an amount of Bitcoin without constantly exchanging it back into a local currency.

“You [could] price a toaster for $30, it pulls the correct amount of Bitcoin in the background and then it can instantly convert that Bitcoin payment back into dollars,” Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase said at a SXSW panel. “There’s no exchange rate risk for them, it just looks like one more payment option that’s quicker, it’s cheaper and it happens to be universal.”

The second path is where Bitcoin becomes a protocol for the exchange of money online, where businesses like Coinbase help exchange money between buyer and seller at a fee less than the typical 2.5 percent seen today. Regardless of whether they accept Bitcoin in their stores today, it is in the best interest for e-commerce and online merchants to continue to watch the evolution of this trend. IMM

Furthermore, by converting Bitcoin from the day’s sales into the local currency, online

*This article is originally published on TheNextWeb.com

internet marketing magazine june 2014

FACEBOOK

THE FACEBOOK TARGETING TIGHTNESS CONVERSION CURVE By Greg Cassar

ow well the offer on your landing page/ squeeze page converts when targeting visitors from Facebook (or other similar display media such as banner ads) is not always just related to the quality and effectiveness of the offer and the design and copy on your landing page. It’s very commonly understood in the direct response marketing world to test and measure different traffic sources to see how they convert. The school of thinking here is sound, because you can then ‘run your winners long and cut your losers short’ by keeping any traffic sources that are converting well and culling the traffic sources that are not converting to a standard that you are happy with.

But what about within traffic sources? One thing that can affect your conversion rate in a major way is the ‘tightness’ of the traffic within a traffic source. This can be shown below with the ‘Facebook Targeting Tightness Conversion Curve’. What this shows is that within traffic sources the conversion rate will vary depending on the ‘tightness’ of the traffic, meaning the closer your targeting is to the exact audience who is your perfect avatar (the sweet spot), then the higher that the landing page is likely to convert because your ‘message to marketing match’ is more exact.

internet marketing magazine june 2014

FACEBOOK The further that you get away from the sweet spot of your exact target market into broader edge traffic that have similar characteristics and interests, then the lower the conversion rate as a general rule. How this came about for us was we had a seminar landing page that was converting at roughly 10% from Facebook traffic, which is not great but given that events have time and location components it is understandable. We then decided that we ‘needed more traffic’ so instead of just targeting our ‘sweet spot’ traffic of 46,000 people in the city we were holding the event we decided that we would go broader. We then targeted 600,000 people that were ‘edge’ traffic for us that had similar characteristics and interests to our exact avatar. Our conversion rate went down as low as 1%2%. It sounds silly with the benefit of hindsight, but at this stage I hadn’t put two and two

internet marketing magazine june 2014

together and figured out what was causing the issue. So I setup a new split test and started testing ‘video’ vs ‘no video’ design to see if the video was the problem. It was only when I was talking to my brother Dave the mechanic on the phone and he said to me ‘everyone I know keeps telling me that they are seeing you on facebook’ that I realised it wasn’t the page, the video or the offer, it was the targeting tightness that was the problem. Luckily I’d had a few nights out on the town with Dave’s mates to know that they were not our perfect target audience for a digital marketing event. So that’s the story behind the Facebook Targeting Tightness Conversion Curve. It’s worth now taking a moment and thinking about your Facebook Ads and seeing how close are they to your ‘sweet spot’ or are you potentially wasting money like I was. IMM

ECOMMERCE TRAFFIC

5 SOURCES OF MILLION DOLLAR ECOMMERCE TRAFFIC By Kurt Elster

n 2013, our top 3 ecommerce clients received over $10 million in revenue from online sales. That wasn’t an accident and they didn’t get lucky. It was a lot of hard work, risk-taking, and some trial and error, but it paid off big. I’m going to share with you their top five traffic sources, sorted by conversion percentage. Keep an open mind and learn from their success.

them if you make a sale. The leader in this niche is the eBay Enterprise Affiliate Network (formerly PepperJam.) Price shopping comparison engines can also work well as marketing affiliates. PriceGrabber is the clear winner here.

1. Google PPC ads This is where your time and resources should be being spent. Pay per click ads aren’t sexy and fun like social, but they’re sure as hell effective. My top 3 clients are spending 50-75% of their marketing budgets on PPC advertising and it’s absolutely driving wallet-out-readyto-buy customers to their stores. In fact, 1 in 3 sales for all of my clients are coming from Google AdWords. The success of your store depends entirely on the efficacy of a Google AdWords campaign. The best part is its easy to implement. Anyone can setup a basic campaign.

4. Cart Recovery

2. Affiliate Marketing Affiliate marketing is a nifty concept. Like AdSense, you let anyone advertise your products, but unlike AdSense, you only pay

3. Google organic search While this is the third highest referrer, I wouldn’t spend time on traditional SEO beyond making sure your site and meta tags get indexed. Call this the death of SEO if you want but competing for ranking position is a dangerous game. Since you have very little control over where Google decides to place you, and can change that placement without warning, any business that relies on organic search is on borrowed time.

There’s no reason you shouldn’t be trying to recover cart abandonment recovery on your site. It serves two important purposes. The first is passive revenue generation, but the second is customer service. You’re establishing

internet marketing magazine june 2014

ECOMMERCE TRAFFIC communication with the customer and asking them “Hey, why didn’t you buy this?” You’ll quickly find that many customers reply and tell you what the barrier to their purchase is. Consider that you’re conversion optimization to-do list. 5. Email Marketing I absolutely love email marketing. It’s easy and incredibly inexpensive. While it doesn’t generate huge traffic, the return on investment is massive. Want to make more money? Send emails to your existing customers. It’s much easier to sell to existing customers than it is to new visitors on your site. I personally like MailChimp for implementing campaigns. Try sending an email to your customers (who have opted-in, don’t spam, nobody likes that) once a week. Announce new products, sales, coupons, and even company news. If you need inspiration, I bet you’re already subscribed to at least dozen ecommerce newsletters.

Did you notice what’s not on the list? Social. That’s because social is less than 0.5% of my client’s sales referrals. My knee jerk reaction to this was “social is a bullshit shell game” but then I calmed down. Social is not about selling direct to consumers, it’s about brand building and staying top of mind. It will augment an integrated marketing strategy but will not in itself sell anything. If you have limited resources, I wouldn’t waste them on social media. I’d spent that time on the original social media: email. eCommerce isn’t easy but I promise that you can implement all five of the above strategies within 30 days and be making more money in your business than you were before you started. Remember, with ecommerce there are fundamentally only two kinds of strategy to grow your business: get more traffic and sell more to your existing traffic. IMM

internet marketing magazine june 2014

INSTAGRAM MARKETING

6 TIPS FOR INSTAGRAM MARKETING MASTERY By Joanna Giouros

ince its inception back in 2010, Instagram has become one of the fastest growing mobile applications to date. Considering it has an estimated 150 million monthly active users worldwide, it is clear that this filterenabled picture displaying social app is showing no signs of slowing down. With the simple evidence being that prospective customers are already present and active on the platform, the benefits of companies using Instagram as a marketing tool are beyond valuable. One might assume that managing an effective Instagram account entails taking an interesting photo, sitting back, and watching the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;likesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and comments ensue. While this method might be efficient for personal accounts and may even help gain a follower or two, it does very little in maximizing optimal visibility in a target market for companies. The biggest hurdle?

What might be the biggest hurdle for the more business-minded individual is the understanding

that Instagram is not just about selling. In fact, using your account as a megaphone to promote your product or service is a surefire way to lose followers and leave you feeling like you are shouting into a deserted room.

By having a dynamic Instagram account, new visitors will feel persuaded to start following you in order to get instant updates on their coveted personal feed. The fundamentals for Instagram success The fundamental strategies when regarding customer experience are: 1. Learning to listen 2. Creating engaging conversations 3. Posting ingenious images By making sure you are practicing these essentials, you will develop a healthy Instagram account that will draw in new visitors and eventually establish an entertaining hub for followers to come back to time and time again. For businesses to truly get the most out of Instagram, below are six tips for Instagram marketing mastery to help establish your account as an authority in your niche and create a fun, open relationship with your customers.

internet marketing magazine june 2014

INSTAGRAM MARKETING 1. Connect your channels An important—yet sometimes overlooked— feature is the Bio section at the top of your profile page. It is crucial that this section contains all the information pertinent to a new visitor who wants to know who you are, what you do, and where they can find you. Also, since this is one of the first locations a new visitor will view, make sure you add a little personality into the description to entice them to stay a while and thumb through. Linking your social channels is an excellent way to expand your reach to new or existing communities. If your business already manages a blog that has some online traction, make sure you are embedding photos and videos from Instagram in order to create an avenue for traffic to flow between. Furthermore, be sure to capitalize on Facebook’s integration of Instagram to reach wider audiences. Making your Instagram account visible on your Facebook page is a simple yet extremely effective method that will unify communities and increase the amount of engagement and sharing. 2. Post quality, personable visuals Below is a list of the most followed brands on Instagram, found on Mashable.

Chart by Statista

internet marketing magazine june 2014

What all of these brands have done successfully is to integrate photographs into their strategy. However, if you look closer, you’ll notice that the Ellen Show, Forever21 and the other brands are not posting professionally lit visuals that would normally appear as an advertisement in a magazine.

Instead, the photographs are personal, if not a bit gritty. Instead of being aloof, these companies are using visuals to build a personable identity that readers can bond with. Let’s look at Sneaker News, a blog that provides up-to-date intelligence on hot commodities like LeBron 11 and Jordans. While this online publication is well-known among sneaker aficionados, it doesn’t pull the same weight as the other bigger-hitters on the above list, making it the true “dark horse” of the winner’s circle.

However, because of its ability to leverage simple photographs and comprehensive understanding of what its followers desire

> (insights into the trendiest looks that is accurate down to the hour), Sneaker News has forged a bond with readers and established itself ahead of competitors so followers repeatedly visit and share the posts. 3. Use #hashtags Hopefully by now you have become acquainted with the ‘lingo’ associated with certain social media practices. Hashtagging pictures on Instagram means you are filing that image in a larger folder where the contents all share the same hashtag. This is a no-brainer for businesses that aim to be associated with industry-related keywords and trending topics. During the beginning stages of your account, try to use the most popular, yet relevant, hashtags that will draw visitors to your account and hopefully increase your following. How many hashtags? A recent study from Track Maven found that posts made by Fortune 500 brands that used five hashtags received the most interaction. If your business has already jumped on the hashtag train on other social channels, be sure to enforce them on Instagram, as well. For instance, if you have already built hype around your #bestcompanyever hashtag on Twitter, keep the trend going on Instagram to help solidify the reputation.

Photo by Marketing Profs

4. Be interesting and genuine Perhaps the most important tactic that will ensure a prosperous Instagram account is posting attention-grabbing images and videos.

INSTAGRAM MARKETING

If your showcase appears somewhat mediocre or low quality, the likelihood of creating new followers and maintaining an existing community is slim. Because Instagram is a ‘social’ network, make sure your account has a heartbeat. Followers want to feel as if they are gaining an insider’s look at your business and get turned off if it feels disingenuous. Capture photos that reflect the lifestyle of your customers, while staying relevant to your brand. Try to keep a balance of fun pictures— such as company outings, pictures of cute animals, or funny pop-culture references— mingled with your promotional business photos. One common trend is to post pictures of happy employees in their work element or at company events to show that your business doesn’t take life too seriously and workers truly enjoy being a part of your team. Don’t be afraid to shake it up with a few videos here and there. While photos continue to be the bread and butter of the app, the video aspect is growing.

According to Ad Week, 40% of the most shared videos on Instagram were created for marketing purposes. Lastly, try to follow your followers back. It not only shows that you reciprocate their support, but it also allows a new opportunity of being noticed by other connected communities. 5. Host a contest An optimal strategy to ignite engagement is by hosting a contest. This can be done directly on Instagram and shared throughout all linking

internet marketing magazine june 2014

INSTAGRAM MARKETING accounts to ensure visibility. By asking followers to include one common hashtag so they are stored together, the creative possibilities of contest ideas are endless. Delivering perks to followers in the form of giveaways and contests will form a buzz around your account and help establish a priority to review your page. 6. Plan your posts

The frequency of posts, or your “feed speed”, is an important factor to take into consideration when leveraging customer experience. There is a fine line between agitating your followers with a daily clogging of their newsfeed and posting so infrequently that your followers forget you exist. That fine line is where your company will thrive, and can be sustained through a flexible posting schedule that will allow you time to track what works and decide which direction to take next. Post at peak times Try to assess peak times of the day your followers seem to be most active while planning your posts. With the goal of having your images seen by as many users as possible, consider holding out until after work hours, and even weekends, since these are dense activity periods. Wrapping it up When contemplating whether Instagram could be an effective marketing tool for your company, ask yourself two questions: Is my target audience active on it? Are my competitors successful with it? If the answer to at least one of these questions is yes, then there is no doubt you should be using Instagram to promote your product or service. Though it does require some planning, testing, and tracking to make sure you are on track with the latest trends, Instagram is meant to display your company’s creativity and lightheartedness. Show that your business has an eye for capturing interesting images, a sense of humor, and a passion for engaging with customers, and start ‘gramming! IMM *This article is originally published on JeffBullas.com

internet marketing magazine june 2014

EMAIL MARKETING

HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU SEND EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGNS? By Gray MacKenzie “How often should you send email marketing campaigns?” “What is the right email marketing frequency?” “When should I send emails?”

ales managers and marketing folks search for these answers on Google every day. Email is ingrained in our culture, used constantly, and abused just as often. Getting email frequency just right is a major challenge; to make matters worse, it’s often a moving target.

Why does how often you send email marketing campaigns matter? Because it impacts your bottom line. Overload your email list and you’ll wind up with a significantly smaller list. 69% of U.S. email users unsubscribe from lists because the organization sends too many emails. Your audience is your lifeblood.

You can’t run a business without customers, and causing a high percentage of your marketing database to get upset and unsubscribe because of email overdose is a recipe for failure. On the flip side, you don’t want to avoid overdose at the cost of undernourishing your audience and leaving money on the table. I agree with Jeremy Reeves about this statement: “You will make more money if you communicate with your prospects and customers more often.” To be clear, “communication” does not always mean “email.” The goal of your communication is to build credibility, awareness, and trust with your audience - and email can certainly contribute to that goal. Finding the right email marketing frequency allows you to simultaneously establish trust, be helpful to your audience, and maximize profitability.

internet marketing magazine june 2014

EMAIL MARKETING Email Marketing Frequency Best Practices These recommendations have been gathered from industry experts, but keep in mind that every audience is unique. If you’re just getting started or looking to benchmark your email marketing, these principles are a great place to start.

Test and optimize- this is the most important step. The other three recommendations are simply common principles that work well for many other organizations. Testing and adjusting, however, is a rule. You absolutely must test new ideas and compare results to find what works best with your audience.

Segment your list- while the vast majority of businesses aren’t implementing any kind of segmentation, it is a guaranteed first step to increasing engagement. Context and personalization are guaranteed to increase your open rates, click rates, and ultimately, revenue.

Start with high frequency, then slow downimmediately after signing up, you know that people want to hear from you. Give them helpful, action-oriented content with a high frequency. If they don’t buy from you within the first week or first month, don’t write them off, just recognize that they’re not ready yet. Stay on their radar with regular emails, but there’s no need to overwhelm them and scare them away. Establish regularity- people are incredibly habit-oriented - they don’t like change. Establish a regular schedule and stick to it, don’t email three times on one day and then blast them irregularly.

internet marketing magazine june 2014

Want to keep improving your sales numbers? Email marketing is a great step for boosting engagement and qualifying prospects. If selling is your challenge right now, go beyond just improving your email automation game and learn about additional sales secrets in this awesome eBook filled with insider sales secrets from companies who are blowing projections out of the water with their sales numbers. IMM

internet marketing magazine june 2014

BLOGS

HOW I BUILT A TOP 100 BLOG IN 12 MONTHS & HOW YOU CAN DO IT TOO! (PART 3) By Matthew Woodward

his is the story of how my MatthewWoodward. co.uk blog became a Technorati Top 100 Business Blog in just 1 year. I even took a month off!

Site Speed Optimisation I launched the blog on cheap $1 a month hosting which was fine for a while but overtime the site became slower and slower.

*** Read the first two parts of ‘How I Built A Top 100 Blog In 12 Months & How You Can Do It Too!’ from the April and May 2014 issues of Internet Marketing Magazine.

Did you know a 1 second delay in load time causes 11% less page views and a 7% drop off in conversion.

December 2012 – $5,796.03 Profit / 5,477 Visitors Already the blog had come along way and as I entered the 5th month I decided to take some time off. I had spent the last 3 years developing my online business working stupid hour’s day in day out. So I decided to try and take as much time off as possible in December and published just 1 post – the best free SEO tools.

Personally I don’t like burning money so I spent some of my time off improving site speed.

Although I knew I would probably end up doing something. I managed to do this by moving my hosting over to WPEngine and a bunch of other things which I ended up writing a much more detailed post about. Fell In Love With BuzzBundle During my ‘time off’ I started to use BuzzBundle more and more. The software really aligned well with the blogs traffic strategy and allowed me to reach new audiences with ease.

internet marketing magazine june 2014

BLOGS

I was previously hacking together a few services with a bit of manual processing to do this but BuzzBundle delivered a very clean solution. It is available for a onetime fee and quickly became a key part of my traffic strategy. #1 Affiliate The Kontent Machine team got in touch with me to let me know that I was their #1 affiliate! They had been so impressed with the performance of the competition they decided to give me a 50% bonus. That was greatly appreciated and a nice prexmas bump during my month off! Key Statistics • Unique Visitors: 5,477 • Subscribers: 1,808 • Profit: $5,796.03

January 2013 – $9,511.93 Profit / 9,485 Visitors After taking a month off I was refreshed and ready to kick some blogging ass! Well that was the plan – I actually spent the first couple of weeks playing catch up but once that was done I kicked ass. I published 5 posts including successful people vs unsuccessful people (read the testimonials at the end of this post to see how that changed someones life o_O), site speed is money along with the regular income report roundup & what I have read this month features. I also published the Ahrefs vs Majestic SEO vs SEOMoz vs Raven Tools vs SEO Spyglass case study which promoted this boss response from SEO Spyglass CEO Viktar Khamianok.

Increasing Email Subscribers In January I decided to try and increase the amount of email subscribers I was getting by introducing an inline opt in form that I could place in blog posts. That looks like this – which you should totally be entering your email address into now

Introduced An Email Engagement Sequence While I had been collecting email subscribers since day 1 – I hadn’t written any kind of auto responder series to keep people engaged with the blog. One of the main problems with blogs is that your best content often gets buried away. So I decided to kill 2 birds with 1 stone and create an email engagement autoresponder series in Aweber breathing new life into old posts keeping new subscribers engaged on auto pilot! This is the sequence I setup-

internet marketing magazine june 2014

BLOGS adding testimonials and opt in forms. • Income Reports Page – I added a page to display summaries of all of the income reports. • Advertise Page – Although I had setup the OIOPublisher plugin I hadn’t created a dedicated page with all the information advertisers needed. • Top Social Share Widget – I added this widget to the sidebar so people could see the most popular posts based on social shares.

If you look closely messages number 2, 7 & 17 are actually designed to engage the user. First off I ask new subscribers how I can help them in email number 2 which always gets some interesting replys.

Key Statistics • Unique Visitors: 9,485 • Subscribers: 2,196 • Profit: $9,511.93

In message number 7 I ask people which tutorial they would like to see me produce next – this provides a steady flow of content ideas.

February 2013 – $3,245.59 Profit / 9,938 Visitors I completely stopped client work for a while as I wanted to focus on growing the blog. This came at the cost of upfront profits but was a good decision long term.

And finally in message number 17 I ask people to tell me 1 thing they like about the blog, 1 thing they don’t like about the blog and 1 thing they would change immediately.

I shared my custom Google Analytics profile to increase traffic and created a full blown video tutorial showing you how to use BuzzBundle to increase traffic.

These 3 emails are critical and help me build relationships with people while getting critical feedback on how to drive the blog forward. A lot of the tutorials and changes I have made to the site were born out of responses to these emails. Made A Bunch Of Improvements I made a bunch of improvements to the blog in January including• Upgraded About Page – I changed the about me page to be more about you

internet marketing magazine june 2014

> Choosing A New Logo As the blog was becoming more popular I decided it was time to get a professional logo made. So I created a logo contest and was spoilt for choice! I then setup a logo split test to measure if having a professional logo actually made a difference or not! Unfortunately it did which meant I had to go through a complete rebranding process across social media, PowerPoint templates, my video intro and more!

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The Fourth Competition After a bit of a break from competitions I launched the 4th competition. This time with 2 BuzzBundle licenses worth a total of $432.95. Upgraded Income Reports The income reports get published on the 1st of every month and are one of the most popular posts on the blog. I started to look for ways to present the data better and integrated Google Charts.

YouTube Optimisation I had identified that YouTube was consistently sending the highest quality traffic in terms of subscriber conversion, time on site and pages per visit. During the rebrand I decided to optimise all of my YouTube videos – but the problem is you can’t just make changes to a video. You have to upload it again which means you lose all your views, comments and ratings. But it was totally worth it. First of all I created a branded outro and edited this into every single tutorial. This means I can keep people moving around my videos instead of YouTube’s related recommendations. I added watermarks throughout each video and also took advantage of the new option to upload custom thumbnails for your videos. If you take a look at my YouTube channel you can see how eye catching they are!

TrafficPlanet Sticky Status Terry Kyle was kind enough to make my tiered link building tutorial thread a sticky in the SEO forum. This means it is always stuck to the top of the forum no matter what so it gets maximum exposure! Thanks again to Terry for hooking that up =D My Second Award I was also listed as one of ProBloggers One To Watch 2013. I’ve been reading ProBlogger for longer than I can remember so to pick up an award from them is a huge honour!

internet marketing magazine june 2014

BLOGS Went To Amsterdam I also took the opportunity to sly off to Amsterdam for a few days with a friend!

so stepped it up a gear with a total of 8 posts. I posted a full review of WPEngine, how to use IFTTT save time & automate, SENuke XCR tutorial, how to improve site security, the logo split test case study along with the 2 regular features. The Fifth Competition I also launched the fifth competiton with WPEngine.

It would be rude not to given it’s an hour flight from the UK! Key Statistics • Unique Visitors: 9,938 • Subscribers: 3,197 • Profit: $3,245.59

March 2013 – $5,953.23 Profit / 13,487 Visitors

Although this competition had an added twist of combining a review, case study & competition into one massive orgy! There was 12 months of hosting up for grabs worth a total of $348! Added Thirsty Affiliates I wanted a way to monetise the forum by automatically replacing keywords with affiliate links. I tried a number of solutions and eventually came across the Thirsty Affiliates plugin. The developer helped me out a bit with the integration to ensure it only replaced keywords with links on the forum and nowhere else on the blog. I now use the plugin to create and track all of my affiliate links across the site and it has been a great help. Keyword Optimisation Jason Acidre published this awesome post teaching people how to increase traffic with a Google Analytics Keyword audit. So I followed his tutorial to the letter and conducted my own audit on the blog making a bunch of changes!

I had slacked off on content the previous month

internet marketing magazine june 2014

> Moved To The Cloud As I was starting to travel a lot I wanted to make sure I had access to everything no matter where I was in the world using any device. So I moved to the cloud setting up Google Apps to control email & calendar synchronisation and Google Drive to store key business files.

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Went To Iceland I shot over to Iceland for a few days to see the Northern Lights, along with some close encounter whale watching, a look at the famous Geyser and hit the geothermal blue lagoon.

I also setup Google Chrome to sync all of my tabs, bookmarks, extensions and history between devices. Password sync is handled by LastPass with an annual $12 subscription. I setup remote access with no-ip.com and forwarded the remote desktop ports on my router and I also installed TeamViewer as a backup. Music sync is taken care of by Google Music. The end result is as long as I have access to a web browser I can run my entire business from anywhere in the world using any device that has a web browser and an internet connection.

Key Statistics • Unique Visitors: 13,487 • Subscribers: 4,388 • Profit: $5,953.23 April 2013 – $6,060.41 Profit / 16,017 Visitors With things progressing nicely on the blog I decided to push forward on content creation and promotion.

I also bought an ultra-light powerful laptop to take with me on my travels. Met Terry Kyle It turned out that Terry Kyle was in the UK for a while so I shot down to London to meet him. We had some great views of London, fantastic food and were joined my Malcolm Simmonds & Chris Freville. Traffic & Promotion At this point I was still continuing with my back to basics traffic generation techniques. I was still active on TrafficPlanet, Blackhatworld & WarriorForum as well as using BuzzBundle on a daily basis to build traffic gently.

I created 6 posts including the monster Ahrefs vs Majestic SEO post, how to add advertising to your blog and the results of 2 case studies – opt

internet marketing magazine june 2014

BLOGS in email popups and video conversion. Majestic SEO Got Their Knickers In A Twist One of the best bits of this month was the publication of the Ahrefs vs Majestic SEO 1 million domain showdown. Dixon Jones, the Majestic SEO marketing director had tried his best to blindly discredit my earlier test claiming bias and a bunch of other things without checking his facts first. So you can be sure my follow up was more than entertaining to read putting him under the microscope – after checking my facts and backing up my test with a huge dataset drawn from Majestic themselves. They posted this response clutching at straws saying the data size didn’t provide a realistic comparison even though they said the data set for my initial test was too small.

My First Interview! I have been a long time reader of Zac Johnson’s blog so I was pretty excited when asked if I would be willing to give an interview! The problem is most interviews are really boring and after looking at what people like Pat Flynn and Chris Guthrie had done I knew I could do better. So I decided to try and flip the interview model on his head and try to produce more of a tutorial than a review. I wanted people to walk away from it feeling like they had learnt something they could implement immediately. Got Invited To Costa Rica At the start of the month an interesting email landed in my inbox.

In short, Ahrefs knows more about Majestics top 1 million domains than Majestic does. A big shout out to Dixon Jones for handing me this on a plate – I couldn’t of done it without you! Added A Sweet Email Signature In an effort to solidify branding and grow my social followings I upgraded my email signature with WiseStamp.

You can probably guess what I chose to do I didn’t know it at the time but that email was the start of something special that has had a fundamental impact on my life. Went To Snowbombing I went to the Snowbombing music festival which is set in the mountains of Mayrhofen, Austria.

It even pulls in my latest post automagically!

internet marketing magazine june 2014

The problem with this was I had to leave for Snowbombing on the 1st of April at 9:30am and I have to publish the income report on the 1st.

> I can’t actually get the final numbers for the income report until 00:01am on the 1st. So I had to work through the night to prepare the report and hit the publish button minutes before walking out the door into a 21 hour journey. I didn’t have time to proof read it or check if links were working. I even got to meet part of Rudimental & Breach! I later found out that one of my readers was there and not only that – I had actually taken a picture of him in fancy dress!

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had time to go the doctors. • Thursday – 7am-9pm work (catching up on the catching up now) While it might look like fun travelling the world the cold hard reality of this is for every day I have off, 3-4 hours work builds up which all needs catching up on when I get home. Key Statistics • Unique Visitors: 16,017 • Subscribers: 5,053 • Profit: $6,060.41

May 2013 – $5,432.24 Profit / 19,248 Visitors May was a fairly plain sailing month still focused on content creation while working promotion daily across the 3 forums and BuzzBundle. I created an SEOMoz review (more on that fail in a moment), how to blog & work on the road (written from a plane), how to use social media to destroy your business (Epic lulz don’t miss this!) along with the 2 regular features.

The Brutal Return Snowbombing was 7 days of skiing all day and partying all night into the early hours of the morning. After 7 days of that my schedule looked like this. • Sun 7th 1pm – leave Austria • Sun 7th 9pm – arrive home, start work • Mon 8th 5am – stop work, sleeeeep! • Mon 8th 9am-10pm – work • Tue 9th 8am-10pm – work • Wednesday 10th – mind, body, soul broken – client booked for 10am, didn’t wake up till 1pm. Start of chest infection, still not

My Big Fat SEOMoz Fail The SEOMoz affiliate program was one of the best converting at 10%! So I decided to send more traffic that way and create a dedicated tutorial showing people

internet marketing magazine june 2014

BLOGS how to use the tools properly. The only problems were1. A couple of days after publishing, SEOMoz rebranded to Moz and changed the entire design/layout 2. They had also closed down the affiliate program So the tutorial was instantly out of date and even if it wasn’t, couldn’t have earnt any affiliate commission anyway. I can see that I sent them 300 clicks and at previous conversion levels that was worth $750 to me! You can’t win them all huh! Updated Social Profile Designs Now let me be 100% clear – I am not a designer, I suck at design. However since I had launched the blog a number of social networks had updated layouts and changed things around. Twitter introduced the header image, YouTube changed to the one channel and so forth. So I decided to update them all in one clean sweep and added my pretty little award symbols where possible to add social proof. So take a look at my Google+, Twitter, YouTube & Facebook profiles! Prepare to envy my design skillz. A Custom Phone Case

One of my readers got in touch and sent me a custom cover for my new phone! Great quality case and an unexpected surprise! The Sixth Competition This month also saw the launch of the Licorne AIO competition giving readers a chance to win 1 of 5 lifetime licenses. This was one of the most successful competition promotions generating $2,120.00 in affiliate commission! Won My 3rd Award The Unbounce team announced the Top 75 Internet Marketing Blogs and it was great to see me featured amongst them! The only problem is they didn’t rank them in any particular order – hopefully they publish an update in the future with a more competitive spirit. Went To Costa Rica In the previous month a reader had invited me out to Costa Rica for a beer. So this month I went to Costa Rica for a beer to meet Andrea & Yeison. We also spent a good few days working together and I shared my mind-set/approach to internet marketing and helped them out. My visit to Costa Rica really opened my eyes to a lot of things, mostly to do with quality of life and the pura vida lifestyle. Taught In A Costa Rican High School While Andrea & Yeison was showing me around the neighbourhood Yeison grew up in, he decided to quickly drop into the local high school. Long story short I ended up teaching internet marketing to an IT class with Yeisons help translating.

internet marketing magazine june 2014

> Certainly wasn’t expecting that to happen!

BLOGS

blog tutorial I decided to take a quick break and grab a drink. Upon returning I had blue screen of deaths all round and the lovely smell of burning electronics. My primary hard disk which was an SSD drive had somehow overheated and died.

Key Statistics • Unique Visitors: 19,248 • Subscribers: 6,728 • Profit: $5,432.24 June 2013 – $9,366.19 Profit / 16,444 Visitors June is always an awesome month, mostly because it is my birthday! I had planned to have a wicked sick fun month but had to cancel most plans including my trip to the Download Festival as I was swamped with work.

Luckily I had previously moved to working in the cloud so there was no data loss and I was back up and running in a couple of hours after swapping the drive out. Increased Video Conversion A lot of my tutorials are video based so I’m always looking for the best way to squeeze more value out of them. I had previously created a case study on increasing video conversion but wanted to improve this further. So I decided to try LeadPlayer out which allows you to place opt ins and call to actions at key points of the video.

I did create a bunch of content though including how to start a blog, how link colour affects conversion, if the sidebar should be left or right aligned & a look at Google Alerts vs TalkWalker Alerts along with the 2 regular features.

I tested it with a couple of videos initially which saw 1,577 opt in displays and 64 email subscribers in 28 days.

Primary Hard Disk Failed Half way through creating the how to start a

Previously it had taken a few months to get 1,922 opt in displays and 111 email subscribers. Based on that small test I rolled out LeadPlayer to every single video across the blog at the end of June.

internet marketing magazine june 2014

BLOGS Added A Sticky Sidebar I always ask my readers for feedback and things they would like to see improve – Serge Marchuk took me up on that and introduced the Q2W3 fixed widget plugin. Squeezed More Value Out Of The Contact Form Although I introduced a forum and changed the copy on the contact page to reduce the amount of email coming in, I knew there was more value to be had.

web knowledge, didn’t know how to bold text, how to setup a blog, very little money and poor written English skills. We spent a few days together in Costa Rica and I was totally blown away to find out that 6 weeks later he had built a blog that had been featured in 2 newspapers, earning him 3 all expenses trips including staying in a $375/night hotel.

What I wanted to happen, is every time someone submit the contact form – they get added to the blogs newsletter. I eventually found the solution with this simple Contact Form 7 addon! The Seventh Competition I also launched the Link Emperor competition this month which had the biggest single prize fund yet! The prize was worth a total of $1,800 and was snapped up by one lucky reader! BuzzBundle #1 Affiliate The BuzzBundle team got in touch with me to let me know that I was their #1 affiliate and sent me this-

His blog is all about Costa Rica but take a look around and look at what he has achieved in such a short amount of time. So if Yeison can do it with all of those challenges, you have no excuse! Start your blog now! Met A Reader In Spain Former competition winner Stuart Jewson invited me out to the south of spain for a few days!

I had to laugh at the slogan when you consider the Kontent Machine team gave me a 50% bonus. Yeison Blew My Mind I went to Costa Rica and met Yeison at the start of May. When I met him he had no previous

internet marketing magazine june 2014

We spent a few days forming a plan of attack for his new blog putting together target

> audience definitions and a solid content strategy! Although we did spend most of our time working out of bars and on beaches we got an awful lot done!

But that’s why the planning stage is the best bit. Key Statistics • Unique Visitors: 16,444 • Subscribers: 7,987 • Profit: $9,366.19 July 2013 – $6,758.07 Profit / 18,654 Visitors We are now entering month 12 since I launched the blog and as you can see it has been a wild ride so far! I slacked of a little bit on content creation this month but did publish how to track anything with Google Analytics, my favourite TED talks as well as the Blackhatworld vs TrafficPlanet vs Warriorforum case study along with the 2 regular features.

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Personal Branding Google Results One of the things I had been trying to do is dominate the Google search results for my own name. A year on this is what the search results look like-

I even managed to hack them with a big red start button for a while. Zero Link Building Experiment Update I also felt like it was a good time to reveal how the recent Google update had affected my zero link building experiment. Here is a graph showing organic search traffic with each algorithm update overlaid-

It’s pretty safe to conclude the experiment was a success! Top 100 Business & Top 100 Small Business Blog Awards I started the year with a bang and I’m finishing it with a bang! Technorati are one of the biggest blog search engines in the world tracking millions of blogs and billions of links. They rank blogs in order of influence across a range of categories.

internet marketing magazine june 2014

BLOGS In July 2013 I picked up 2 Technorati Awards• Top 100 Business Blog • Top 100 Small Business Blog

Crunching The Annual Numbers Let’s take a look at all of the important numbers and metrics across the past year. Visitor Statistics My traffic strategy looks to have paid off throughout the year with BuzzBundle along with posting on forums like TrafficPlanet, WarriorForum & BlackHatWorld. A grand total of 113,170 unique visitors (310/ day) with a total of 632,452 page views! In July 2013 the blog was pushing 601 unique visitors per day so it’s great to see that’s currently double the annual average.

Expecting Kittens! I had planned to spend the last few days of the month with Dave & Vicky from ACoupleTravelers.com in Poland but had to cancel it after finding out my cat was up the duff.

Even though I had to cancel the trip, I more than made up for it in August! Key Statistics • Unique Visitors: 18,654 • Subscribers: 8,949 • Profit: $6,758.07

Most Popular Content I’ve published a whole lot of content across the year, a grand total of 82 posts made up of video and text based tutorials. But what was the most popular content this year?

So What Are You Waiting For? If you’re still with me – you now know everything you need to know to start a blog & follow my success. Whether its a blog about internet marketing, finance or travel you have all of the tools & knowledge you need to start your journey today.

internet marketing magazine june 2014

The tiered link building series, link building forum, free SEO tools, tools of the trade and the backlink checkers compared posts take up the top spots!

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Top Traffic Sources Given my fairly basic traffic strategy the traffic sources below should come as no surprise!

Google sends the most traffic with the forums and social networks bringing up the rear! Search Engine Traffic As you probably know by now this blog is a zero backlink experiment so looking at how search traffic has performed across the year will be interesting!

What is interesting though is that discovery of the videos only occurred 34.9% of the time on other websites (eg my blog) and 58.5% of the views happened directly on YouTube after a search or clicking on a related video. As you can see traffic has increased steadily and Google has sent a total of 80,650 visitors across 7,463 keywords!

Social Shares

YouTube Views YouTube has been a critical part of the blogs growth. Not only has it helped with the delivery of videos, it has also delivered the highest quality traffic consistently.

The blog has seen a total of 16,559 shares

internet marketing magazine june 2014

BLOGS across Facebook, Twitter and Google+ • Google+ – 2,139 • Twitter – 8,482 • Facebook – 5,938 My Forum Statistics The forum has seen steady growth since its introduction and claimed 2 of the top 10 spots in the most popular content category.

I’ll personally answer any internet marketing questions you have! • Users: 1,396 • Topics: 604 • Posts: 2,298 Subscribers The most important metric on the entire blog – earning a subscription from someone is the ultimate form of commitment and conversion.

There are now a total of 8,949 subscribers across all of the different channels. • E-mail – 4,031 • Twitter – 1,307 • YouTube – 1,396 • Facebook – 594 • Google+ – 1,156 • RSS – 465

internet marketing magazine june 2014

Forum Promotion Posts I made a total of 3,335 posts across 4 forums in the year which averages out to roughly 9-10 per day. • TrafficPlanet – 1,488 posts (9,374 visits) • WarriorForum – 864 posts (7,854 visits) • BlackHatWorld – 781 posts (12,940 visits) • DigitalPoint – 202 posts (752 visits) Income Report Here are the numbers you really want to seeAffiliate Earnings • 48HoursLogo – $165.00 • 99CentArticles – $975.79 • Ahrefs – $271.67 • AuthorHreview – $157.50 (my review) • Blog Advertising – $2,931.00 (tutorial) • BuyProxies – $718.45 • BuzzBundle – $2,513.63 (my tutorial) • CaptchaSniper – $954.70 • GSA Captcha Breaker – $111.80 • GSA Search Engine Ranker – $1,104.64 • GSA SEO Indexer – $83.23 • HostGator – $50.00 • IBP – $158.32 • Inspyder Backlink Monitor – $3,329.47 (my tutorial/exclusive discount) • JustHost – $420.00 • Kontent Machine – $9,005.27 (my tutorial) • Licorne AIO – $2,467.50 (my tutorial) • Link Assistant – $123.45 (automate guest posting tutorial) • Market Samurai – $131.12 • PowerupHosting – $167.10 • Rank Tracker – $105.52 • SENuke – $176.40 • SEO Powersuite – $2,019.87 (my tutorial) • SEO SpyGlass – $65.84 • SEOMoz – $1,300.00 • SESlingShot – $3,450.00 (my review/ exclusive bonus) • SimpleVideoPro – $117.49 • StableHost – $162.93 • TheBestSpinner – $3,104.95 (my tutorial) • Thirsty Affiliates – $98.50 • Ultimate Demon – $8,963.09 (my tutorial series)

> • Website Auditor – $57.61 • WP Engine – $1,500.00 • WP Robot – $50.40 Expenses • WPEngine (hosting) – $391.60 (my review) • LeadPlayer – $147.00 • OIOPublisher – $47.00 • OnePress Social Locker – $21.00 • Top Social Share Posts – $8.00 • Ninja Popups – $18.00 (case study) • StableHost – $9.45 (original host) • Contact Form 7 Autoresponder – $14.97 • Blogging With John Chow – $37.00 • SponsoredTweets – $50.00 • SimpleVideoPro – $37.00 • BlackHatWorld Membership – $97.00 • BringMyBlogVisitorsBack – $37.00 • PC Upgrades – $596.06 • Facebook Sponsored Stories – $77.10 Consultation Earnings I separate out the consultation earnings from the affiliate earnings. The blog drives affiliate sales directly and whilst it does generate consultation leads these are separate projects in their own right. This year I generated $27,910.03 / £17,844.14 in consultation earnings. Earnings Total • Affiliate Income – $47,012.24 • Consultation Income – $27,910.03 • Expenses – $1,588.18 Grand Total: $73,334.09 / £46,885.78

BLOGS

But Money Is Not The Biggest Reward Over the past year I’ve collected feedback from people through emails, forum posts and so on. Some of the feedback I get from people is truly staggering and I wanted to share some of that with you. I never thought I would create something that could touch people’s lives in the ways you are about to read. Tom Whettem It’s been a few years since I have done any serious seo, but with your help I have doubled turnover month on month every month for the since October when I started promoting an ecommerce site I have a financial interest in. Feb already looks on trend to double Jan sales again. I have not even really started any of the tiered link building but your blog has enabled me to get back up to speed with SEO and understand the fundamentals that work which have been a massive help. John Lefler I stumbled across one of your YouTube vids on back linking. Good grief! It was incredible! Thank you SO much for your kindness in sharing some of the most amazing training on the Internet. And free??? Amazing. For such a young guy your IQ is obviously through the roof and yet you have a heart that shares such genius. Bless you for that. I am an old great grandfather (who loves technology) and have been working toward an online business for several years and it is so rare to find such generosity that I simply wanted to say thank you. My only regret is I just found this site and am excited to dig into the wealth of knowledge here and my wife is calling me to come to bed. Drat. Oh well. I’ll be back first thing in the morning. Thank you so much for the kindness Matt. This is a wonderful gift you are providing.

internet marketing magazine june 2014

BLOGS You can’t put a price on feedback like that! What’s Next? I’ve come a little long way in a little long time but really I feel like I’m only just scratching the surface. There’s still an awful lot to explore and given the dynamic pace of the web it’s likely I’ll never explore it all. But I’ve got a good idea of what I want to do over the next few months – if you have any suggestions, please let me know! Taking A Chill Pill It’s been a very hectic year to say the least. I’ve never worked so hard in my life and after a while that begins to catch up with you. I had planned not to work at all in August but well, I kind of suck at not working and this post has taken around 30 hours to put together alone.

So I’m going to give it an annual spring clean going through the entire blog fixing & improving things where necessary. I suspect there’s a lot of internal linking opportunity I’m missing out on and a bunch of stuff that doesn’t work as it should anymore. Upgrades Ahoy I’ve also got a few upgrades for the blog planned that should help make it more useful to people in general. I’m going to improve the navigation and also change the category/structure of the site which currently sucks. I will also be adding a few things to keep you guys coming back but that’s more of a master plan that will turn into a case study at some point. The theme also needs some work, I have hacked it an awful lot so I would like someone to rewrite it from the ground up so it’s fast, agile & responsive. As I complete the site audit I’m sure some other ideas will spring up along the way, either way the blog will be much better than it is right now.

But I’m off to Costa Rica for nearly 3 weeks except this time it’s all pleasure. Hopefully I can spend the next few days preparing some posts so I don’t have to do much while I’m there. I’ll return refreshed & ready to rock – as long as the pura vida lifestyle hasn’t set in too hard. Complete Site Audit As the blog has grown it has started to become a little bit messy.

internet marketing magazine june 2014

Free Product Launch About 10 months ago I started to tease people with a free piece of software in the income reports.

> This all started by me trying to automate a manual process, which turned into a product I could give away to my readers. Which then needed a squeeze page, which needed a video, then the software needed to be upgradable & a bunch of other stuff. Along with pushing the blog forward & creating content this has dragged out an awful lot. So I know I suck and it’s taken a whole lot longer than anticipated but all the pieces of the puzzle are now done! AND I’ve nearly finished putting all the pieces together. Trust me the wait will be worth it – you will have a robust reliable piece of SEO software that will stand the test of time. It takes one of the most aged SEO tactics that has survived 15 years of updates & automates it. I could easily sell it for $97 a pop but I’m just going to give ya’ll for free! It’s what I do. My Biggest Tutorial Series Yet I will take $100 and show you how to build a business online from the ground up. I get lots of tutorial requests for very specific tutorials focusing on different parts of the internet marketing puzzle.

BLOGS

So instead of creating tutorials about individual pieces of the puzzle – I’m just going to create the entire puzzle step by step over my shoulder. I will publish a highly detailed video tutorial every week documenting everything I’ve done that week and everything I intend to do the following week. You will be able to create your own site and follow along week by week. Join my email list now if you want that juicy action in your inbox! Explore New Types Of Media One of the main pieces of feedback I get is you guys want more content, more often. After reading this article I hope you can see why that is a problem. But every problem has a solution so I’m going to explore new types of media & ways I can deliver content. I’ve already got a good idea of how I’ll do that – whether its technically possible or not is a different question. Wrapping It Up When I started writing this article I wanted to give people all of the information & knowledge they need to succeed online or improve their current position. So I’m hoping the 30 hours I have put into this article over the weekend will help you in some way! Looking back it’s been a crazy year and the next year is looking to be just as crazy if all goes to plan. IMM

internet marketing magazine june 2014

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internet marketing magazine june 2014