Internet Marketing Magazine April 2014

APRIL 2014

JOIN US ON FACEBOOK

> MASTER PR ONLINE IN 2014 P25

> VIDEO MARKETING LEVERAGE ESSENTIALS

> BUILD A TOP 100 BLOG IN 12 MONTHS P13

> EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WHATSAPP

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> 80/20 OF SOCIAL MEDIA TRAFFIC P35

COVER STORY: INCREASE THE VALUE OF YOUR BUSINESS

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

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MEET OUR EXPERT PANEL 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 Read his article on Building a Top 100 Blog In 12 Month on PAGE 13

Sekkei Studio

is located in the heart of Shanghai China, Sekkei Studio is your one-stop Web design Agency for all your marketing needs. Sekkei Studio aims to give a strong, clear and consistent image across both printed and online media.

Read Sekkei Studio’s article on WhatsApp on PAGE 23

Jason Hulott

is the Director of SpeedieConsulting, the internet marketing specialists. Visit the site now for more useful tips and articles aimed at Insurance and Finance Brokers who wish to use the Internet to take control of their revenue generation online. Connect with Jason on Facebook or Google.

CONTENTS

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1Expert

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

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1Jock

Purtle shares his experience on how to value and sell an online business in an exclusive interview with Internet Marketing Magazine.

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1Learn

How to Build a Top 100 Blog in 12 Months.

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1Everything

Read his article on Effective Online PR on PAGE 25

Neil Patel

is the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics. He helps companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP and Viacom grow their revenue. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies in the world. He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30

by President Obama and one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under the age of 35 by the United Nations. Neil has also been awarded Congressional Recognition from the United States House of Representatives.

Read his article on Online Videos on PAGE 29

Perry Marshall

is a traffic specialist, a conversion specialist, a mentor to thousands and all round good guy. Visit www.PerryMarshall.com to see a video of what is coming up at that amazing event. Grab your copy of Perry’s ‘5 Days to Success with Google Adwords’ today.

Read his article on Social Media Free Traffic on PAGE 35

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you need to know about WhatsApp.

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1Learn

Effective Online Press Release for 2014.

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lKnow

the benefits of an Online Video on your website.

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1Know

Why a Business Built on Social Media and Free Traffic is a Galley Slave Ship.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

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ere we are in April 2014, I hope the year is going according to plan for you. If it isn’t then it may be time to review your written goals and if you don’t have any then write some down, as without goals you are more likely to wander along without a clear focus.

I’m just back from James Schramko’s Super Fast Business event in Sydney Australia. As a result I have plenty of new leading edge stuff to share with you in the months to come.

We’ve had a few questions from readers about what we are doing with our sister business, the InternetMarketingDoneForYou.com marketing agency. The rumours are true in that we are winding it down, and are now morphing into more of a ‘Done With You’ model at Collective.com.au, rather than just pure ‘Done For You’. The reason for this change to ‘coaching with some developer hours included each month’ is to create more leverage and also have a more rewarding relationship with the business owners that we work with as its our responsibility to educate them as well as help them to implement. So far its going great and the members are getting great results.

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). This month’s complete audio interview with Steven Essa has now been added. It has lots of sections in it that were not included in the magazine, so be sure to check it out.

Our Google Play App is now fixed and gets updated roughly one day after the Apple Newsstand issue. So please feel free to check it out if you are on Android.

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.

Regards,

Greg Cassar

Greg Cassar

is Australia’s leading Internet Marketing Strategist. With Collective.com.au Greg provides Digital Marketing Mastermind Coaching for Business Owners & Entrepreneurs. It includes everything you need to know to double your business using Internet Marketing & Digital Technology. You can follow Greg’s latest updates by subscribing to Internet Marketing Magazine at InternetMarketingMag.net for the new members area and the latest issue updates. internet marketing magazine april 2014

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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. > HEARTBLEED ENCRYPTION BUG AND HOW IT AFFECTS YOU A major encryption security bug called Heartbleed has been recently announced. It was discovered by a member of Google’s security team in conjunction with the Codenomicon software security company.

Security patches are being applied by all the big vendors online - but it still makes good sense to change all your passwords on Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram etc just to be on the safe side. > THE YOUTUBE USERS MAKING MILLIONS News.com.au recently ran an article about the users on YouTube that are clocking up big incomes from monetising YouTube.

Making money from YouTube ads is only available once you have setup your monetisation settings and your videos have been approved for AdSense. You won’t start making money until at least 1000 people have clicked on your adrunning clip.

The bug affects ‘Open SSL’ on web servers running Apache and Nginx software. It has the potential to expose private information that you enter into websites, applications, web email and even instant messages over SSL connections.

The Heartbleed bug has the ability to allow hackers to defeat this Secure Socket Security layer and capture passwords as well as forge authentication cookies and obtain other private information.

The highest grossing channel on YouTube is PewDiePie who posts comments on video games.

He has over 24 million subscribers to his channel and is rumoured to be monetising the platform anywhere up to $17.7m per year. internet marketing magazine april 2014

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INTERNET UPDATE > ASIA NOW THE BIGGEST ECOMMERCE REGION IN THE WORLD According to eMarketer’s latest forecasts, worldwide business-toconsumer (B2C) ecommerce sales will increase by 20.1% this year to reach $1.5 trillion.

In 2014, for the first time, eCommerce sales in Asia Pacific (mainly China) will exceed those in North America, making it the largest regional ecommerce market in the world. This year alone, B2C ecommerce sales are expected to reach $525.2 billion in the region, compared with $482.6 billion in North America. IMM

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> COVER STORY:

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EXPERT INTERVIEW

The less risk that is posed in a deal, the more cash they are going to give you up front, and the higher price they are going to pay.

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ALL ABOUT JOCK PURTLE • Jock Purtle is an online business broker specialist, who owns and runs the full service website brokerage Digital Exits.

• Jock specializes in helping online business owners find a buyer when they want to exit their company.

• Jock personally exited his online business in 2013, and is on track to facilitate over 20 deals in 2014, ranging from $100,000 to up to 5 million dollars.

internet marketing magazine april 2014

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EXPERT INTERVIEW

JOCK PURTLE INCREASE THE VALUE OF YOUR BUSINESS An Interview by Internet Marketing Strategist Greg Cassar One question that I know you hear a lot, but really what a lot of people want to know is, “what’s my online business worth?” How do valuations work in the online space?

Jock: Offline business evaluations are slightly different to online business evaluations. You generally use a discounted cash flow valuation method for an offline business.

But what the market has accepted for online businesses is a multiple of earnings method.

The valuation of an online business is based off profits. So it’s a multiple of the profit of the last 12 months, or trailing 12 months of your business. For example, if your online business made $200,000 in net profit in the last 12 months, the multiple that you would get would be somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5 times in the small to medium business market range. You might get 3.5 to 6.5 times if you are getting acquired by a strategic buyer. However, that happens quite rarely.

Greg: So based on that, it’s always better to sell your business while you’re in a growth phase, than when you’re currently experiencing a decline.

Jock: Correct, and the best time to sell is really at that J curve. As your business is getting to that point on the J curve is best time to sell, because you’re going to get the higher price.

If we talk about traditional business models, and we look at the private equity firms. You ask yourself, “Why do they flip their businesses every 2-5 years?” The reason is because you actually generate a greater internal rate of return, which is a return on your money, flipping business than you do holding on to business.

It’s very rare that a business will last over 10 years. Statistically, you can see in the stock market with businesses that were started in the 1920s, there is only a handful of them that are

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> COVER STORY: still around today.

Then we get to the more technical stuff.

With online businesses, you’ve got different intangible and tangible factors that someone will look at during due diligence. For example - your website’s link profile, the quality of the content, the quality of the domain name.

These are slightly intangible things that people will look at. Other things would be the code of the website - is it clean, is it commented- that will obviously factor in slightly in the valuation.

They have a look at the technology. They have a look at the market. So obviously, if you’re selling, for example music CDs, that’s probably not a good market that’s going to be around for very long, because the mp3 technology is replacing it. Whereas if you’re selling golf products - golf is an evergreen market that’s going to be around.

What should the business owner do to increase the value of the business?

Jock: I’ve done quite a few podcasts with people that are on my investor database, and I basically asked them that question. It comes down to four really simple things.

1. Your business is profitable.

2. Your books are clean.

3. The business is growing 4. The business is in a sustainable industry.

EXPERT INTERVIEW

Those are the 4 things that you want to be considering as a seller, and want to be looking at. It’s basically jump into the shoes of the buyer and, what they want is to minimize the risk for them. The less risk that is posed in a deal, the more cash they are going to give you up front, and the higher price they are going to pay.

Greg: Makes good sense. With traditional business sales it’s important to systemize prior to the sale. Is it the same for online businesses as well?

Jock: Very similar, but I also add a secondary element in there, and that would be systemizing marketing. Systemizing the business, so improving value would be extracting the owner. Extracting the owner is basically any repeatable task that you do as the owner should be handed off to a staff member who is fully trained in that particular process, and all other processes of the business are systemized and repeated. Because in essence, all a business is, is a whole lot of systems and processes that generate a product or service.

That product or service is sold for a price, generally, with some type of margin. It’s that margin, and the value that you create from that product or service that is profit, and then that profit is what is valuable to a buyer.

If you can show that you have a marketing internet marketing magazine april 2014

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> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW

system and funnel in place that is automated to a point with either technology or staff members, then that’s another element that is going to massively increase the valuation of your business.

Once the business owner decides that he or she is going to sell, how does that whole selling process work?

Jock: Generally the first thing that you want to know is, what’s your business worth. So you’re probably either going to ask a business valuer, or a broker, to give you some type of valuation.

Once that valuation is determined, your agent is then going to develop what’s called an “Information Memorandum.” That is also commonly called a ‘Prospectus’ or ‘The Book’

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in the U.S. It’s all the information about your business that shows what the business is, how it makes money, what the financials are, the website traffic, and then an overview of the operation and how it runs. Basically, this is just a selling document to outline all of the positive factors of the business, and showcase the opportunities in the business.

Once that book is then finished, you then go out and sell the business to investors or buyers. They’re then going to have some initial questions based on the information presented in that book. Then you’re going to have back and forth with the buyer with those questions.

Once they’re satisfied, generally they’ll make a preliminary offer, and that preliminary offer will come in the form of a ‘Letter of Intent’. So this is a document that they sign that basically says, “I would like to offer,

> COVER STORY: let’s hypothetically say, 1 million dollars for your business.” Part of that Letter of Intent is exclusive access to perform their due diligence. What this means is you then can’t solicit any other offers from any other parties during their time of due diligence, and they have first right of refusal, which basically means: if they’re happy after due diligence period, they have right to buy your business.

After a Letter of Intent, they then have their due diligence. So the due diligence process is basically to look at anything they like about the business. They can interview any staff member, they can have a look at any report, they can have a look at your bank account statements, they have the right to look at anything to prove that the claims that you make about the revenue of the business are correct.

If that’s all successful, the due diligence checks out, the offer is made and accepted. Then you go to a sale contract. Basically, it’s the sale of the business, formatted in a legal binding document that says the business will be purchased for “X” and the terms are “Y” and the assets included in the sale are “Z”. Once that’s signed, you then go to escrow to hold those funds while the assets of business are transferred.

EXPERT INTERVIEW

In the case of an online business that would be the domain, the website’s content, customer lists, the hosting, etc. Once all those are transferred to the buyer, the buyer will then notify the escrow agent, or the lawyer, that they’re happy.

The lawyer, or the escrow service, will then release the initial funds to the seller, and they get their cash, and then the training period starts.

Then the rest of the deal is basically, finish the training and manage the payments from the buyer. That’s how the whole selling process works.

What about if we approach this from the other side?

Why would we buy a website rather than building one from scratch?

Jock: I’ve always been a buyer, and the main metaphor that I really love to use is ‘you can’t steer a parked car’. Basically, you’ve got a business that’s already in motion, and if you make some small tweaks, you can get an exponential result.

But here’s the reason why you buy: 1. It’s a good investment.

The multiples are cheap.

You can pick up a business for 1.5 net earnings, which means you get your money internet marketing magazine april 2014

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> COVER STORY:

EXPERT INTERVIEW back in 1 and a half years.

2. You gain time.

When you’re buying a business, you’re buying all the time and effort that that business owner has put into growing that business, and you get it in that instant.

3. You are making profit from day 1. So when you acquire a business, you’re cash-flow positive.

Are You Doing SEO and Finding the Rules are Changing All the Time?

Outdated SEO Tactics Can Result in Your Sites Not Getting Any Free Organic Traffic from Google & Being Penalised From Ranking Again.

Jock, how can our readers, listeners, subscribers, and members find out more information about you online?

Jock: I’ve got plenty of info on my site DigitalExits.com. I run a weekly podcast where I interview experts on the buying, building, and selling online businesses process. I’ve also got an e-book that you can download called ‘The Six Biggest Levers That you Can Pull to Increase the Value of your Online Business Today.’ IMM

Get the very Latest SEO Updates as They Break From the Team That the Internet Marketing Magazine Team use for the Latest SEO Authority Advice

Keep Up To Date With The Very Best in SEO

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BLOGS

HOW I BUILT A TOP 100 BLOG IN 12 MONTHS & HOW YOU CAN DO IT TOO! (PART 1)

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!

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What You Will Learn While this post is a look back at the previous year, I’m going to show you precisely what I did and how I did it from day 1 to the current day.

Join me on my journey and I will share everything I did with you step by step over my shoulder!

You’re going to see ‘behind the curtains’ of how I planned the blog and promoted it, along with everything I have done to get it where it is today.

• How I grew the blog from day 1 to now step by step • Why I started the blog • How I setup the blog • How I produced content • How I promoted content • How you can do the same

I have managed to achieve quite a lot with the blog in the last year• 632,452 page views • 31,715 hours/3.6 years spent reading my posts • Won 5 major awards • $73,334.09 profit

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BLOGS Why Start The Blog In The First Place?

I started the blog for a few reasons but behind each of these reasons is the passion for what I do.

I’ve had a love for websites, marketing, business & sales for more than half of my life.

Last year I had a eureka moment.

The blogosphere used to have some really good internet marketing & SEO blogs but over the past few years these have decayed.

What popped up in their place were a bunch of sites that just posted guest posts in the great guest post link building gold rush.

You usually get the same advice from most old men – fuck everything while you still can.

But the best advice I have ever had was simple – try harder. Try harder at everything. So I did.

Don’t Be Fooled For anyone that has followed the blogs growth it is very easy to be dazzled with the illusion of the blogging lifestyle.

On the surface it appears that I make a bunch of money, travelling the world having a jolly ole time!

All that was getting published were regurgitated rehashed low quality no meat on the bone posts over and over and over.

Even market leading blogs like ProBlogger and John Chow fell into this trap!

This spilled out into forums as well when people would ask for help and were just offered general flakey advice that didn’t actually help anyone.

I then came to realise I was not leveraging my most valuable asset, my own personal internet marketing knowledge and experience.

And so the idea of blog was born, my own digital playground where I could share my passion with the world.

It is that passion that has led to the success of the blog.

Work Harder Try harder This doesn’t really flow or fit in with the post but it’s an important point so I’m making it.

I’ve spoken to a lot of old geezers in pubs and I always ask them what 1 piece of advice they have for a younger guy.

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That is not the reality.

The reality is starting work at 6am and finishing at 10pm. By a Wednesday lunch time I’ve already knocked out a standard full time 40 hour week.

It’s physically & mentally impossible for me to keep that pace everyday (trust me I tried) but anaverage working week consists of 70-80 hours across 7 days.

Quite often I’ll snap out of work mode a starving quivering mess about to piss my pants.

Just seem to get locked in and forget about the real world!

While I have managed to travel a lot this year and hit a different country each month, let me

> tell you – they are the most stressful times for me.

Every day I don’t work around 3-4 hours work builds up. So if I go away for a week, I’ve got around 25 hours work to catch up on when I return. On top of the existing work load.

So don’t be fooled the illusion of the blogging lifestyle it might look like ‘the life’ on the surface but the reality is gruelling hard work with great personal sacrifice.

Preparation Is Victory

Before launching the blog I put thought into the execution.

Having passion is all well & good but there’s got to be some sort of method to the madness!

What Is The Point?

What was the purpose of the blog? What did I want it to offer? Where did I want it to go?

When I first launched the blog I wasn’t expecting it to be as popular as it was. Its initial purpose was just to ‘publish high quality internet marketing tutorials’.

However I soon changed the purpose to be ‘when people ask for help on a forum, my tutorials will be shared to help’.

That is a much more developed purpose over and above just publishing stuff.

BLOGS

An Experiment Was Born To spice things up a little and introduce a bit of a challenge, I decided I would attack this goal by not using one of my strongest areas of knowledge.

I have spent a lot of time experimenting with the technical side of SEO and link building is something I’m very comfortable with on large scales.

But I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and see if I could achieve my goal without building any links.

So the zero link building challenge was born.

Was it possible to rank an SEO blog without using SEO? Not only would that develop my skills in other areas I also knew that had the potential to be a great post in the future if I pulled it off.

I guess writing this annual report means I managed to pull it off?

You Will Remember Me To make sure people remember me I put a strong emphasis on branding. I spent a bunch of time playing with colour combinations to see what worked best.

I eventually settled on the black, blue & pink combination that you see today.

It was bright, didn’t really go together but sort of did and stuck in my mind throughout the day when choosing the brand colours.

Achieving that would be pretty tough; I would have to become highly visible in what is considered a competitive niche.

But we all need a purpose and goal to work towards right?

With the colours in mind I then started to create a logo. I didn’t want an anonymous business

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BLOGS corporatey type logo – I wanted it to represent me, be personal, friendly & inviting.

So I decided to go with a smiley cartoon version of me which looked like this-

common problems coming up over and over.

With my notes in hand I created possible tutorial titles and then bullet pointed the areas each tutorial should include.

So I knew what my audience wanted and how I could help them.

At this stage it is important to note that I suck at design and have since hired a pro!

I also had the mind-set that each piece of content I produced would be the best piece of content on that topic period.

Anyway I had a purpose, a brand and a logo!

Content Strategy When it came to the content I knew it needed to be something special.

Especially given my overall goal and the fact I had forced myself down the zero link building avenue.

That Matt Cutt’s bloke has always said the best way to get links is by creating great content.

In this video he explains what great content is• Create a blog and establish yourself as an authority • Do something that is unique/different/ original • Create content that is useful/helpful to the community • Answers common questions in your niche • Publish original research • Create videos • Publish how to guides and tutorials • Create lists of helpful resources In summary: find out what people want, give it to them.

So that’s what I did – I started to browse forums/blogs looking for peoples problems and making notes every time there was something I could help with.

After doing that for a day I saw the same

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The content strategy was born!

Setting A Tone Of Voice Quite often you will see bloggers say you need to set a tone of voice with your writing. But what does that actually mean?

I have had a lot of great feedback about my style of writing and straight to the point approach and that is because I set a tone of voice.

I know for the most part the internet marketing niche is full of false claims, glitzy sales pitches, rehashed advice & general BS to separate you from your money.

On top of that I also know that internet marketers are busy people and time is not on our side!

All of that creates a great opportunity not just

> with the content I create but also to set a tone of voice that cuts through the bullshit.

So I decided my tone of voice would1. Tell it like it is – straight & to the point 2. Fake business etiquette bullshit can go fuck itself 3. Like I’m talking to a friend in the pub 4. No more than 3 sentences in a paragraph 5. Short & punchy 6. Keep it simple Setting that tone of voice means I can have fun when I’m writing – which hopefully makes it fun to read as you learn!

After writing a post I always go back through it and shorten sentences where possible.

Traffic Generation & Promotion Strategy When I was planning how to drive traffic to the blog and promote it things started getting a bit complicated.

In the end I decided to sack it all off and just keep things simple.

Quite literally as simple as finding people that need help on forums/social media and helping them.

Planning Takes Time

BLOGS

That plan probably took you 10 minutes to read. But let me be clear, that was the culmination of months of passive thinking and mulling things over.

I eventually put it all on paper in less than a day but I had spent months thinking about the best way to skin the cat so to speak.

This planning was critical to the success of the blog. It is amazing how many people do not plan out how they are going to attack something.

Keyword research is not planning.

I didn’t do ANY keyword research until 6 months after the blog launched (more on that later).

Setting Up The Blog To Extract The Most Value So I had a purpose, a brand, I knew what my audience wanted & was ready to create great content.

Setting up the blog itself though was a whole different kettle of fish!

I made a list of popular internet marketing forums and my plan was to just help people out, linking to my tutorials where relevant.

One of the biggest mistakes a lot of internet marketers make is not taking care of the user experience and the overall ‘flow’ of things.

I also setup some Google Alerts for a range of terms that would alert me to other conversations online where people needed help.

I spent a lot of time working out the best way to setup the blog to not only deliver the most value, but extract the most value from visitors as well.

That was it – nothing more.

No PPC, no link building, no SEO, no media buys, no spending money – just good old fashioned human interaction.

There are real people behind metrics & usernames don’t ya know!

So I started to think about what ‘value’ actually is and what ‘value’ each and every visitor can actually offer me.

This is what I came up with1. Affiliate sales 2. Affiliate link clicks 3. Social shares (Google+/Twitter etc)

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BLOGS 4. A full time subscription 5. User generated content (comment/ forum post/post ideas) 6. New traffic by sharing the content with others 7. New traffic from telling their friends in the pub The obvious two are people clicking on affiliate links and buying stuff. This is the goal of every internet marketer right?

users off and convert badly.

So I wanted a theme that was clean, simple & easy to read. After a lot of searching I finally settled on the Convergence theme.

I spent the next week tinkering with it and customising it to meet the goals above.

But when you think about it, that is not actually the most important goal and that’s a very backwards way to look at things.

So I decided to shift the focus in this order of priority and setup the blog based on that1. A full time subscription 2. Social shares (Google+/Twitter etc) 3. User generated content (comment/ forum post/post ideas) 4. New traffic by sharing your content with others 5. New traffic from telling their friends in the pub 6. Affiliate link clicks 7. Affiliate sales Not everyone is going to agree with that. But no one agrees that the primary purpose of an ecommerce site isn’t to sell things either.

There is method to the madness though and it relies on the basics of human relationships rather than the constant quest to separate people from their money.

Relationships make it easier to separate more people from more of their money and be happy about it.

The entire blog is setup with those goals in mind end to end.

Choosing A Theme Having a great design can make or break a blog. If it is too busy and cluttered it will turn

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As you can probably see, it looks very different than the original live demo!

Forming The Ultimate Relationship The ultimate relationship online comes in the form of a full time subscription.

They are explicitly stating I want to hear more of what you have to say. I give you permission to invade my personal life with an email or status update.

Each and every subscriber is a real person that has built trust with you. Treat them like a real person & do not abuse that trust for a quick buck.

> The blog makes it really easy for people to subscribe-

BLOGS

Social Shares As I couldn’t build links and was aware of Google’s shift to introduce social signals into the ranking algorithm I thought about how I could take advantage of that.

I did the usual tried and tested technique of adding social share buttons to the end of my posts, but I added a big ugly arrow to make it OBVIOUS!

But that is pretty boring right? So I started to look at other ways I could encourage social signals.

I came across a sweet plugin that would hide content until the user shared the page on a social network.

So with each tutorial I created I tried to put together an exclusive pack of resources or make the video downloadable in exchange for a social share which used to look like this-

I have since upgraded to the OnePress Social Locker which is much more robust and compatible with caching systems.

As you can see – it’s pretty hard not to subscribe which aligns with the primary goal of the blog!

I also decided to try and drive a social following by asking people to connect with me on Twitter & Google+ in key conversion areas.

So when someone submits a comment for the first time, they get taken to a page like this internet marketing magazine april 2014

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BLOGS asking them to subscribe and follow me on Twitter-

from users over and above affiliate clicks and sales.

User Generated Content User generated content is a great way to keep the blog fresh and people engaged. When the blog first launched the only form of user generated content on the site came in the form of comments.

I encouraged comments by just telling people to post if they had any questions or problems that I could help with.

That is a really effective page and really helps to drive subscribers.

Equally when someone subscribes they get taken to a page which asks them to circle me on Google+

Later on I introduced a forum which was a huge success and helped drive the blog forward in a number of ways, but more on that later When I started out I was just focused on blog comments themselves which I knew would help me not only create relationships with people but also please the search engines with new and fresh content with natural long tail keywords.

Getting More Traffic I also figured that every visitor had the potential to bring more visitors.

I found the most effective way to make that happen is by asking people. At the end of emails/tutorials/posts I simply ask people to share them with their friends.

Over 80,000 visitors came to the blog via referrals from other people & sites in the past 12 months.

What all of this creates is a self-supporting eco system of social signals across the entire site.

It offers multiple opportunities to extract value

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> Looking back this was particularly effective because of the huge amount of value my content provided upfront – people were more than happy to share it with others!

Although I did get a complaint that is was too good to share in case competitors saw it =/ This also aligned with my overall goal and purpose of the blog to get people sharing and talking about the tutorials in forums.

One of the best examples is with the controversial Ahrefs vs Majestic SEO post which says- “Next time you see this topic in a forum – feel free to use this post to instantly win the argument.”

It’s amazing to see how many people use that post every time the which is best Ahrefs or Majestic question comes up.

Affiliate Clicks & Sales So with everything else taken care of – how was I going to drive affiliate clicks and sales?

Well it turns out you don’t actually have to do anything. With everything else put in place this area takes care of itself for the most part.

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track & manage huge volumes of backlinks; spreadsheets just weren’t cutting it anymore.

It turned out a lot of people had this problem and there wasn’t really a publicised solution.

I eventually came across Inspyder Backlink Monitor and after trialling it for a few weeks it became an essential tool in my arsenal.

That gave me the opportunity to create a tutorial that teaches people how to organise and manage their backlinks properly. It showed people how I was doing it and the problems that created.

It then introduced Inspyder Backlink Monitor and taught people how to use it properly to make things really easy saving a bunch of time & money.

You could break it down like this1. Identify a problem the target audience faces 2. Explore the problem & its drawbacks 3. Solve the problem with a 1 click solution 4. Teach them how they can do it as well Not only do people click the affiliate links and buy the product, they also thank me for helping them resolve a major problem that was taking up huge amounts of time.

In this specific example I also went the extra step to haggle a $10 discount for my readers to sweeten the deal.

It takes a bit more effort and sometimes you take a hit on commission but then again you get emails like this-

Keeping my problem solving high quality content strategy in mind, affiliate sales just happen naturally without any sneaky tricks.

However some tutorials do lend themselves to affiliate promotions more than others.

One example of this is when I was trying to

*** ‘How I Built A Top 100 Blog In 12 Months & How You Can Do It Too!’ - Part 2 of 2 continues in May 2014 IMM Issue

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WHATSAPP

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WHATSAPP

By Sekkei Studio

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hatsApp, what’s that? WhatsApp is an instant messaging service for smartphones created in 2009 by two former Yahoo engineers: Jan Koum and Brian Acton. The founders’ original idea was to allow smartphone users to send messages easily without paying any fee to phone carriers. It allows you to send messages, pictures or videos for free anywhere in the world without interference from third parties.

It is free the first year, then you have to pay 99 cents per year to keep using it.

and easy, only your mobile phone number is required. Then, WhatsApp automatically synchronises your contacts from your device and adds them to your contact list, which is instantaneous and very convenient. You can also share contact information, make group chats, record audio messages, share your location, … and the app always runs in background and pops up like any other normal messaging system when you receive a message.

It is fast, reliable (both on android and apple) and all that is gathered in an intuitive and nice interface that makes SMS, or any other IM experience overall inferior.

The other core value of the project was to guarantee privacy to its users. For Koum, being born and raised in a communist country like Ukraine where phone lines were often bugged, privacy was essential. That’s why the app does not require your name, age, gender or location to register and is said to limit data collection from its users. Your messages are deleted off their servers once they’re delivered.

Why is it so successful?

You may think that being able to send instant messages to your friends for free is not revolutionary, so what’s the big deal? Well, WhatsApp does benefit from some cool features and a nice integration that make it pleasant to use.

First of all, registering is extremely fast

Finally, the fact that everybody has the app on their phone helps adopting it. The app benefits from a large pool of users, more than 465 million, that surpasses the 300 million of Skype, 270 million of WeChat and 240 million of Twitter.

Indeed, it has grown faster than any other tech giants like Facebook, Gmail or Twitter. Daily, it is 19 billion messages that are sent and 34 billion received in the world. Nine months ago internet marketing magazine april 2014

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WHATSAPP the company “only” had 200 million users and is now growing at a rate of 1 million new users everyday. In comparison, Facebook had fewer than 150 million users after its fourth year.

WhatsApp’s users growth has been unprecedented in terms of speed but also engagement: 72% of WhatsApp users use it everyday while the industry standard ranges between 10% and 20% with 61% for Facebook.

Who uses it?

WhatsApp isn’t widely used in the US but overseas it is a huge success. In India or Brazil for instance it is the most popular messaging app. A reason of this difference may be that in the US people enjoy unlimited text messaging mobile plans while in Europe most operators charge per message. It is a cheaper replacement for SMS. Moreover, the Europeans tend to communicate more with people in foreign countries than the Americans.

Why did Facebook spend so much to buy it?

Facebook paid $12 billion in Facebook shares, $4 billion in cash and $3 billion for employee retention for a total of $19 billion, about 8% of Facebook’s total worth. That is to say $345 million per employee (55 people) and $40 per users so why pay this cost?

First, WhatsApp could have represented a threat to Facebook. Facebook tried to push its own messenger services but did not meet much success so far. With 465 million users,

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WhatsApp was too far ahead for Facebook to catch up.

Second, it matches Facebook strategy to focus on mobile. Indeed, more than two third of its users log on the site from a mobile device and mobile ads represents now 41% of the company’s total ad revenue. It bought Instagram last year in this perspective.

Finally, it is also a way to reach into Europe and emerging markets since WhatsApp dominates outside of the US, especially in Europe, India or Brazil. What’s more, it is impossible for Facebook to acquire its Asian competitors like WeChat, owned by the Chinese Internet giant Tencent who count up to 272 million active users (doubled in one year) and who is now focusing outside of Asia.

What will WhatsApp become in the future?

With Facebook’s motto to “make the world more open and transparent” one could be worried about privacy issues. Everybody knows that Facebook collects personal data from its users and sells it for advertising.

However, Jan Koum, who is now on board insisted that its company would remain autonomous and independent and that therefore its users could still count on absolutely no ads interrupting their communication.

In the future, WhatsApp will certainly keep growing. The servers crashing that happened after the news of the deal and made it inaccessible for 3h30 attests of its success since during this time it was getting 100 signups each second. IMM

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ONLINE PRESS RELEASE

EFFECTIVE ONLINE PR IN 2014

By Jason Hulott

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f you thought writing and submitting a press release was simply about gaining links for your SEO campaigns then this might be a good time to reflect. 2014 brings with it a large number of new SEO challenges and simply sending out monthly boilerplate PR to gain links will do you more harm than good.

I want to give you some more ideas and techniques to turn your PR activity into something much more effective, that as well as links, can drive social media interaction, actual press coverage, traffic, newsletter signups and

even sales. It can be the marketing activity that really keeps on giving.

What To Write About Product Releases Sometimes you might have the next best product out there, but be realistic, if you are looking for a huge uplift in traffic and exposure you maybe be barking up the wrong tree unless you are Apple. A product release would be good for some local or trade press coverage internet marketing magazine april 2014

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ONLINE PRESS RELEASE as well as an excuse to share with users, relevant bloggers, and forums.

New Functionality Again, new functionality is one of things to be proud of and shout about but reach again is most likely to be local or trade related. So be focussed on what to share with users, bloggers and forums.

Research and Surveys - the big one!

The beauty of research and surveys is that it can be the stuff that keeps on giving. Stats are a journalist’s and editor’s friend as they are easy to slot into a story or provide a small piece if there is space. Surveys can also have a much wider audience depending on the results.

But how do you run a survey and get results quickly?

There are a number of tools you can use to create surveys or carry out research: • Survey Monkey • Kwik Surveys • Google Surveys • Usurv These will provide you with the ability to set up a questionnaire and in the case of the last two you can easily buy respondents, so you can get feedback within an hour in some cases. That is certainly my experience with Usurv.

Preparing your release So now you have a release idea or some data.

There are plenty of templates you can use to craft your release: • http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/ press-release-template-ht • http://www.smallbusinesspr.com/prlearning-center/diagrams-templates/pressrelease-template.html

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Once written, make sure you have spell checked it, then do it again. Then get someone else to spell check it. It is hugely important in that once you syndicate your release, it is out there and potentially that could be in hundreds of places, so make sure it is spelt correctly.

Do you need to create any additional resources to go with the press release? Hint - Yes you do.

Make sure you have copies of logos, any author images you wish to use, any royalty free images you decide to use. Did you use data? Did you create a presentation out of it or a bunch of graphs to show what the data found?

If not - get it together now.

WARNING: If you have all these additional documents please do not attach them via email as a massive file and email it to journalists, bloggers etc... Simply add them to your website and provide links in the footer of the email.

Bloggers and writers around the world will thank you for that.

Syndication There are a number of different methods of getting your release out there and you will need to explore each one to make sure you maximise the reach of your release.

> PR Sites • PR Web • PR Log • PressBox • 247 Press Release You don’t need to do all of them as some are paid for so test, test, test what works best for you.

Newswires • Cision • PR NewsWire A newswire can help syndicate your release on lots of sites and put it in front of lots of registered bloggers and site owners. Good for impressions and views.

Websites / Forums/ Blogs You will know the main players in your industry.

If not, find them. Carry out Google searches, use social media, look at industry websites to find guest bloggers and writers. Basically the idea here is to build up your own press release distribution network. This will take time the first time you do it, but will be worthwhile for subsequent releases.

ONLINE PRESS RELEASE

And you thought we were just going to submit it to PRWeb Bonus Points Make sure it is on your website in a newsroom easily findable by Journalists. Build up a press or newsroom; link to it from your navigation.

Don’t tuck this stuff away.

If you have syndicated it make sure any place you find it used (in part or in whole) you share or like on your social media. So, yes, promote the promoters.

After the dust has settled, do make sure you reference the press release and link to it in blog posts, and any further offsite work such as guest posts.

If you have used survey data or research there is a huge number of things you can do to further its reach: • Presentations - share and embed via Slideshare.net • Infographics - create and syndicate out • Social Media updates - 22% of users said... and link to the main release onsite • Content / Blog Posts / Guest Posts - any new related content you are creating, why not refer back to your research, and add a link as a footnote. This can also be used in guest posts get attract more deep relevant links.

Summary I hope this gives you some ideas to use PR effectively in 2014. It’s not just about keyword linking. As you can see it can take on a life of its own and become a great source of traffic and links for your business. IMM

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ONLINE VIDEO

IF A PICTURE SAYS 1000 WORDS, THEN VIDEO IS… PRICELESS

By Neil Patel

hy do you use pictures on your website?

Because they can help illustrate the message you are trying to get across, right?

Although that is true, have you thought about using video instead?

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purchasing your product or service by 64%.

Not only do videos provide a 74% increase in your visitors’ understanding of your product or service compared to pictures, but they also increase the likelihood of your visitors

If that doesn’t convince you to start using videos on your website, hopefully the infographic below will.

We experienced a similar effect when we created an explainer video for Crazy Egg and saw a $21,000.00-a-month increase in revenue.

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ONLINE VIDEO Conclusion Hopefully, the infographic above convinces you to start leveraging video. When I started leveraging videos a month ago through Quick Sprout University, I didn’t know what results to expect.

But since the launch of it, I have gotten more appreciation – from you and other Quick Sprout readers – than I’ve ever had.

The praise has been so good that I am spending another $50,000 on Quick Sprout University over the next few months to release even more educational videos.

Give it a try…What do you have to lose by trying videos on your site?YouTube is the second most popular search engine. So, in the worst-case scenario, you will end up getting more traffic. IMM

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FREE TRAFFIC

THE SOCIAL MEDIA FREE TRAFFIC GALLEY SHIP

By Perry Marshall

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ny business built exclusively on Social Media or Free Content or Free Traffic is a GALLEY SLAVE SHIP. The common wisdom in Social Media is: Just generate lots and lots and lots of GREAT content and you will be popular and successful!

That is a LIE. It is not true.

Now Ariana Huffington got super rich on free content. And do you know how much she pays her bloggers?

ZERO. I personally know six of them and none of them get paid a penny. Zilch.

Do you get it?

The chances of you building a big prosperous business exclusively on free content is about 1 in 10,000. And you will have your tongue hanging out your mouth if you pull it off.

All wrong.

The 80/20 way of Social Media is: The top 20% of the top 20% of your content – the 4%

that is REALLY GOOD – you PAY to promote it and you use it over and over and over and over again for the endless passing parade of millions of people out there.

And then you get them into a sales funnel and you sell them.

You put a dollar in and you get two dollars out.

Anybody who tells you that a real business is anything other than putting a dollar in and getting two dollars out has no idea what a “real” business actually is. IMM

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