OLBlog

Getting more people to come on to one’s blog in all honesty and sincerity is not a child’s play neither does it have to do with some miraculous fluke. It’s something that takes time and effort.

It requires focus, action plan and some elements of goal setting to attain it. We shall be examining other stuffs apart from some of the things stated above. As we consider them nonessential.

Reaching your prospects online is vital to the success of your business.
Attracting them with unique content that is relevant to the prospect’s everyday life will give you the opportunity to build a relationship with them.

In order to grow, businesses need to have a clear plan of action.
Here are some areas to focus on in order to grow your brand online. While all of these might not be right for every business, integrating some of these into your marketing mix will help you grow.

Landing Pages

Creating specific landing pages for special offers, events, downloads and promotions is a great way to increase your online real estate. Each landing page acts as another opportunity for lead generation and another entry for search results.

Content

One honest truth that will skyrocket the growth of one’s blog based
blog growth on my understanding of blogging is one’s ability to be able to come up fast and easily with quality content.

And like it’s often being talked about online that content is king one’s ability to creatively come up  with contents that rocks only shows that such blogger have taking time to do a good research and have read well to be able to rewrite good contents for one’s blog.

Make Your Contents Interesting

Making of content interesting is an aspect that involves the blogger or content poster to be able to inject his/her personality into whatever he/she is talking about.
This is like seeing things from another perspective. Seeing it from another perspective and still ensuring you’ve not totally digressed from the subject matter and also making sure that this content is been delivered in a conversational style. By so doing, it means you absolutely have your audience in mind.

Create more contents

Your ability to create more content rapidly and still ensuring that such content is rich in value without suffering or experiencing any form of  poor quality attribute is what most blog audience value.
And this in a way leads to the blog growth at a time.

Create quality contents

Creating a quality content lets people know that you are putting your heart into what you are doing and this consequentially will naturally bring more and more loyal fans your way.
Quality content is an essential and instrumental part of blog growth you don’t want to mess with

Leave comment on other blogs

Leaving comments on other people’s blog too helps to increase the growth potential of a blog exponentially over a period of time. You just have to keep at it to see the effect it’s going to have subsequently.

Engage In Guest Blogging

Guest blogging works well and is still working fine, all you have to do is indulge yourself in the process of writing a well thought out post and ensure that such post complies with the other blogs terms and condition and make sure the post is good enough to be on that blog.
With that being said your blog stands the chances of going live on that blog and guess what that means more traffic for your blog growth.

Connect With Readers

Connect regularly with readers of your blog and ensure you take time to appreciate them well enough to come back. This in a way will help in the growth potential of the site as well too.
Don’t forget that connecting with reader also entails responding to comments and visiting their site too.
Have Some Bloggers As Friend, Especially Blogs That Have Great Followers And Readership.
Having some blogger friend ensure that you get recommendation from this bloggers and you’re also been shared on the social media links/post especially when they can’t take their eyes of your content.
So kindly develop the ability of networking as they’re also there to help you resolve some of your blogging problems/difficulties too.

Do Some List Posts

Do list post as people like reading such form of blog post, such posts naturally get a lot of attention and before you know it, you end up realizing so much comments and more traffic on your blog post. E.g Create Some Kind Of Top 5/10/101 Posts

Allow Guest Blogging on Your Blog

Allow guest blogging on your blog to help you get more traffic down to your blog as this bloggers do write/post about whatever they guest post in their social media posts, status update.
By so doing they also help you to get more contents on your blog and this is basically some of the strategy required for blog growth. It’s possible that nobody might love to guest blog on your blog but with serious marketing and constant content updating you have nothing to worry about.

Read Well To Write Well

In other to be able to produce more quality and attention grabbing posts to increase our blog growth, ensure you read regularly to write well and doing research for accuracy, your blog reader don’t want to be misinformed.

Never Forget How you Needs To Promote Your Blog Post Regularly

Webinars

A webinar is basically an online seminar. Hosting a webinar is a great way to educate people. Make sure that those participating in your webinar walk away with more than just a sales message from you. Offer content and information that attendees will find some benefit from.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the place to go to connect with business professionals. You should not only have a personal LinkedIn page but your company should have a LinkedIn company page as well. LinkedIn is great for staying up-to-date with things happening in your industry.
Optimize your efforts on LinkedIn by staying active on the site.

Responsive Web Design

If your website is not responsive and mobile friendly then you are losing customers. In today's world most people access the internet from mobile devices. Consumers do not have the patience to deal with a site that is only able to be viewed on a desktop computer. Flash sites (while beautiful and expensive) are no longer relevant to the way people live. People are always on the go and your website should be too.

Calls-to-Action (CTA)

Having inspiring calls-to-action on your website tells people exactly what they need to do when they arrive at your site or landing page. All calls-to-action on your site should be easily found.
Make sure that you analyze which of your calls-to-action produce the best results for you. Sometimes just changing the color of the CTA or the location can have a big impact.

Link Building

Your standing in search results depends on many factors, one of these factors is what other websites link to yours. It is important to note that the quality and relevancy of the site linking back to yours matters. Only build links on quality sites.
You can build links through: infographics, guest blog post, contest, commenting on other blogs, and video.

Facebook

Looking to have a dialogue with your prospects and customers? Then you need to make sure you have a business Facebook page. Facebook is great for engagement.
Promote upcoming events, conduct surveys, or share stories on your Facebook page. The great thing about Facebook is that it easily allows interaction and sharing.

Blogging

Blogging is the best way for you to show prospects what you and your company are about. Creating unique content for your blog gives people a glimpse into how you operate.

A blog is not a pedestal for you to continually push your own agenda. Your blog content should offer value to the reader. Use your blog to answer commonly asked questions, or give instruct on how to complete a certain task. There are endless things you can blog about just make sure the things you write are interesting and compelling.

Google+

Google+ allows you to sync all of your content on the web, no matter where it is stored. It also allows you to connect with people and build trust directly from a search engine results page.
Google Author incentivizes people to build out their Google+ page by increasing their rankings.

SEO (search engine optimization)

Search engines rank websites. You can work to increase your ranking through search engine optimization. Being found on the first page of search results is very important because many times people will not ever click to page two.

There are many things that affect your search standings; keywords, links, content, and ALT tags, just to name a few. Focusing on these things can drastically help you increase your ranking.

Pinterest

Pinterest is growing in popularity. Start a company board on Pinterest and pin (and repin) content that your audience will enjoy.

Email Campaigns

Sending out email campaigns or newsletters is an easy and affordable way to reach prospects and customers (not to mention it is good for the environment). Regularly sending out correspondence can help you enhance the relationship you have with your audience.

Video

Creating video content is an awesome way to get noticed online. Video content is a powerful way to engage with your audience. Not only do search engines love unique video content but website visitors do too! Websites that have videos see that website visitors stay on their sites longer.
Videos allow you to visually introduce yourself and your company to your audience. They can act to humanize you and to make you relatable.

Twitter

Twitter allows you to send out information in realtime. Use Twitter to send out news and updates.
Your tweets need to be 140 characters or less so make sure that you are writing tweets that are short and to the point. To maximize your reach consider using hashtags (#) and at symbols (@).

If you want to grow your business online start with the items mentioned above. Incorporating all of these items at once may seem overwhelming. It is best to pick a couple of these to get started and as you master them add additional ones.

Taking your online efforts seriously and committing to work on them every day can help you generate more sales and leads.

Use Stories, Illustration, Pictures, Social Proof, and Videos in Your Post.

Are you ready to earn a heck of a lot more from your writing in 2016? Good!


You might think it would be impossible for me to write a single post that tells every freelance writer out there how to find better clients and get paid more in the coming year…but that’s exactly what I’ve got for you.
How can I do that, when some writers are brand new and others have been at this game for years? When some write for magazines and others for businesses? Well, I can do it because there are basically only three types of freelancers:

1. Aspiring freelancers who want to quit day jobs, but haven’t taken the plunge yet.
2. Freelancers who don’t have any good clients yet — they’re writing for $5 a blog post or $20 an article…that sort of travesty.
3. Freelancers who have some good clients, but need/want more or better-paying clients.

There is an approach to creating a freelance success plan that will work optimally for each of these types. Because ultimately, marketing isn’t that hard to figure out (though many writers whine constantly about how difficult marketing is, in lieu of actually *doing* marketing).
Let’s solve this today! Here we go:

1. Marketing for aspiring freelancers

Have you been learning, learning, learning, hoping you’ll discover the one best, fastest, lowest-cost, easiest and most effective way to find great freelance gigs?
Let me save you some time: It does not exist. Or it might, but by the time you figure that out, it could easily be 2025.

The way you quickly find your best niche — and find good clients — is to write a lot and start marketing.
When I’m asked where freelance writers should start, my answer is always the same: “Somewhere.”
Start somewhere. Begin taking action.

Whether it’s asking the local paper if they’d like coverage of city council meetings, or it’s pitching businesses case studies you could write, it’s time to stop fantasizing that the luck fairy will kick your freelance career into gear and start DOING.

The actions you take will give you vital information about what works and doesn’t, who hires freelancers and at what rates. That will allow you to start figuring out where you fit in the marketplace, and start finding paying gigs.

Finding a community

I know what you’re going to say: “But that will take a ton of time!” Yes, it might.
Unless…you connect with a community of freelance writers who can tell you about what’s working out there these days. What going rates are. How to negotiate the best rate. And so on.

Besides saving you oodles of wasted time falling for scams or pitching the wrong types of clients, joining a community will help you not feel like a lonely freakish weirdo that you want to freelance. Instead, you’ll be surrounded by other freelancers who completely get what you’re going through.

For many writers, that makes all the difference in giving them the confidence to keep going while they ramp their business. Start putting your name out there and letting people know you want to freelance, and I guarantee you, you’ll earn more from writing in 2016 than you did this year.

2. Marketing when you have lowball clients

I am constantly asked if I can provide a list of websites writers can ‘apply’ to where they offer fantastic pay rates and lots of steady, readily available work. Also, if I can provide a list of such websites that will hire ESL writers based in places such as Africa, India, the Philippines, or Asia, at great rates.

Sadly, no such lists exist. Mass websites where thousands of writers compete for jobs — from Elance to Craigslist ads to content mills such as WriterAccess or Demand Media — always have low rates by nature. This will never, ever change because the model of making writers compete by the hundreds for the same job drives rates to the floor.

Also, getting clients through an intermediary always means you earn less, because that platform is taking a nice, fat cut of the fee.

Please recall that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. Stop asking where the better content mill is — there is no such thing.

If you’re a writer who’d eked out a subsistence income on these sites, but you’d like to start earning a real living, you will have to change your whole marketing approach from passive to active. You’ll need to learn how to leave the underworld of freelance writing and find your own clients.
In brief:
“Passive” marketing is applying to online job ads you see, or responding to posts on Elance. You are at the mercy of whatever ads or offers get posted. Your freelance life is something that happens to you, while you stand on the sidelines bemoaning the lack of good offers.
“Active” marketing is things like:

• Building a great a great LinkedIn profile, and then being active on that platform
• Sending out queries and letters of introduction
• Going to in-person networking events and following up with people you meet

That sort of thing. You go out and beat bushes, look under rocks, put your writer website in your email signature, tell every warm body you encounter you want clients, until you find great clients who love you and pay you professional rates.

Making the massive mindshift

This requires a major mental shift. You need to stop imagining a great gig is sitting around on some wide-open website waiting for you, and start treating this like a business. In my Den 2X Income Accelerator mastermind program, we actually have a “Mindset Reset” training that’s one of the first steps in the course, where we retrain your brain with new concepts about how freelancing works and your value to clients.
Do the retail shops in your town just open the door and expect customers to flock in? No. They place ads. They sponsor events. Offer discounts. They blog. They’re on social media. They team up with other businesses and cross-promote each other. They do a million things, and they never stop doing them.
Take a page from their book and realize that if you want this to really pay some bills, you’ll need to up your marketing game.

If all your clients are crummy, you can’t rely on referrals. The good news is you CAN start with no clips, quickly build a starter portfolio, and find good-paying clients in a short period of time — if you know how. And if you start actively marketing your services.

Which of these proactive marketing methods will work best for you? Only trial and error can tell you.
Start with the marketing methods that speak to you, that seem doable and not terrifying. Try different marketing approaches and discover what types of marketing you find reasonably pleasant to do, and which make you feel like you may vomit.

Remember, the best kind of marketing is the kind you’re willing to actually DO.
Maybe for you, that’s LinkedIn reach-outs on InMail, or maybe it’s sending out email queries. See where you get a response, and where the better clients come from. Then, do more of that.

3. Marketing when you need more good clients

For established freelancers who have some decent clients, but really need to take it up a notch, the road to marketing success is a little different.

Begin by analyzing the clients you’ve had in the past year. See who your most lucrative clients were, both in terms of net dollars and hourly rate. Then ask yourself:

Where did my best clients come from?

This analysis should lead to a revelation about which clients you want to keep, which you want to drop, and what types of marketing have worked best for you. Once you’ve identified what’s working in marketing, do more of it.

The types of marketing that led to less-desirable clients, you should drop. Yes, it’s that simple!
The other trick to really moving up is that you’ve got to learn how to identify better-quality prospects. Once you learn how to locate the magazines that pay $1 a word and up, and the $100 million and up businesses, you’ve taken the first critical step toward marketing and getting hired by clients who’ll pay you well.

Set goals and get serious

One of the biggest problems freelance writers have is that they don’t understand the volume of marketing that needs to happen to really move your career forward.

I talk to a lot of writers who’ll tell me their marketing plan is along the lines of, “I plan to send out three letters of introduction this month.”

When the way to really make things happen is to send 300.
Or they go to one networking event or conference a year, when they should attend 12.
The way to ramp up your marketing is to start setting aggressive monthly (or even weekly) goals and getting accountability for them — find a freelance buddy, join a writer group, call your best friend once a week and confirm you checked off your to-do marketing items.

Yes, you may fall short of those monthly goals. But in the meanwhile, you’ll find yourself stretching and doing way more marketing than you ever did before as you strive to hit those targets.

Whatever type of freelance marketing plan you’ve created, if you want to earn a lot more, do a LOT of marketing. This is a numbers game. More lines in the water ups your odds of catching fish, right?

Tons of marketing = many nibbles = you have choices = you can turn down low-payers and only skim the cream.

That’s how you end up being fully booked, in demand, and able to name your price on rates.

Most digital marketing campaigns — SEO, Pay Per Click (PPC), display advertising, and others — fail to validate conversions. This puts an extra burden on the sales force, reducing productivity and close rates. Adding a validation process into your campaigns will make your sales team much more efficient.

What Is Lead Validation? 

Lead validation is the process of reviewing conversions to separate true sales leads from other types of inquiries.

A typical digital marketing campaign tracks conversions. When a person clicks on your link in Google organic search results, an SEO conversion is recorded. When someone phones your office using a phone number displayed on your Bing Ad, a PPC conversion is recorded. At the end of the month, a report is generated showing how many conversions were recorded. Sales and marketing personnel review these reports and make decisions about whether to ramp up or scale back campaigns and how to adjust them for better results.

The big problem: Many conversions are not sales leads.
A conversion could be a sales opportunity — or it could be a customer service inquiry, a misdialed phone number, a personal call, spam, or one of a hundred other things.

Failure to Validate = Failure to Generate More Leads
If you think this is a minor issue or a marketing nuance, think again. Our lead validation experience has revealed something surprising: As many as 45% of all conversions are NOT sales leads. 
Two bad things happen when all conversions are lumped together:

1. Companies are unable to accurately evaluate the performance of their digital campaigns. They may overestimate the level of success and continue to invest in campaigns that are not working nearly as well as perceived.

2. Companies are thwarted in their goal to improve the lead generating power of their campaigns, because their tactical decisions are based on misleading data.

From the salesperson’s point of view, these are very unhappy consequences. Not only does the stream (trickle?) of leads from digital marketing campaigns remain consistently modest, but also the salesperson may have to spend valuable time following up on non-leads rather than working on the real ones.

How Lead Validation Helps the Sales Effort
Lead validation is laborious but worth the effort. To validate leads, someone must listen to every phone inquiry and read every form inquiry — website contact forms and so on. 
The validator or validation team separates legitimate sales leads from everything else, and passes them along to the sales team as quickly as possible. This simple action has three big benefits:

1. Sales management becomes aware of leads quickly, while they are still hot.  Taking special action on high-quality leads increases the opportunity to close them quickly.
2. Sales personnel are no longer sidetracked following up on non-leads.
3. Sales management can listen to and evaluate recorded phone inquiries, gaining the ability to continuously improve internal systems for handling leads and non-leads.

How Lead Validation Generates More Leads
When leads are validated, digital marketing campaign reporting becomes more transparent and accurate. Managers see how many leads their campaigns are producing, not merely a vague number of conversions. This level of precision enables them to make better strategic and tactical decisions, both of which result in continually improving lead generation.

Strategically, companies accurately know if their campaigns are producing leads — and then can do something. Let’s look at a simplified example.

If a company saw (without validation) that every month its SEO campaign yielded 500 conversions and its PPC campaign yielded 300, it would invest more heavily in SEO. However, if the company saw (with validation) that SEO yielded 500 conversions and 100 leads, and PPC yielded 300 conversions and 200 leads, its investment decision would be to put more into PPC. Over a year’s time, this better decision produces 1,200 more leads — maybe more.

Actually, “maybe more” should be “definitely more,” since validation enables companies to continuously improve campaigns. In our hypothetical PPC campaign , let’s assume the company has set up accurate call tracking. Now it can do more than merely identify leads — it can also determine what specific PPC ad generated the lead, what time of day it was generated, what keywords were used, and more. This granular lead data tells PPC campaign specialists which ads work, what times of day are best to display ads, and which keywords generate the most leads. As the campaign progresses, it gets smarter — generating more leads more efficiently.

Very few companies validate leads, which is unfortunate but understandable. Validation is tedious, time-consuming and never ending. But interestingly, very few companies rave about the quality and quantity of their online leads, and very few feel they are getting the most out of their digital marketing investment. Why? Validation is the missing element. Add it to your marketing and sales strategies and reap the benefits from your more focused marketing and sales teams.