COACHING - BUSINESS - MARKETING

All posts by Joeri Van Overloop

content seo

Content and SEO –how to create and convert

Is there a way to make the most out of your content creation efforts? In the following lines, we will discuss how to align content creation with your SEO aims and user necessities for the best impact.

Experts predict that in three years from now, content marketing will become a $300-billion industry. Anyway, in case the content will not be found by the proper audience, optimized in such a way as to achieve maximum impact and measured in relation to business outcomes, the content will have limited value. In order to achieve the success of both content and SEO teams, you have to make sure that the content is search-engine-friendly and optimized in order to meet the visitor expectation.

All the major search engines are focusing on delivering users the highest-quality results and the most relevant content, with the help of certain algorithm updates. Increased search performance is awarded to the brands that have a good content marketing strategy, focused on people, process and technology, and which are also optimized for the best visibility across search engines.

Optimizing content for the search engines during the content creation process is practically one of the main problems for many organizations. Creating targeted, insightful and compelling for your audience is practically the best solution for the optimization process.

Bellow you will discover 7 important aspects that every marketer should take into account in order to optimize content from start to finish.

1. Prior to creating the content, you have to understand your audience and segment strategies

Over 70% of the content generated by B2B companies will not be used. It is important to understand for whom you are writing, and why before you start creating your content. In order to discover what types of content resonated best with your readers, you should audit your present content. Match content creation to buyer needs by creating a buyer persona and profile.

2. Find new opportunities by scouting the competitive landscapes

The following step in the entire process would be to comprehend the way your content stacks up in the marketing and against the competition. millions of digital dollars are lost to the competition by all the brands who neglect this step.

If you want to gain a complete understanding of your competitive landscape, you have to acknowledge what your competition is doing well and identify their weak points.

3. Plan content subjects to buyer personas and buying journeys

You can easily plan and optimize content assets in a way that will help you maximize conversions across all stages of the buying cycle if you understand what kind of a content that converts at various stages. Important boosts in conversion and revenue can come from the identification of previously hidden opportunities.

converting content

4. Allow content authors to match pages with the right topics and keywords

It is very important to ensure that content creators possess the necessary search insights that help encourage them to create valuable content, just like organizations search to scale their content marketing efforts. This part is very important for the content creation and web page development.

SEO and content marketing optimization process depends highly on Content Management System (CMS). As an example, at the Adobe Summit, the senior global SEO manager from Adobe pointed out the fact that the organic traffic has increased by 307% within a single year after implementing an SEO-friendly CMS and a 287% boost in rankings on Page 1.

5. Create your content in such a way as to meet the user needs and to surpass the competitor content

Nearly every company is making use of content to capture attention on the content marketing battleground. Only the most creative brands are in a position to make their content stand out from the crowd, considering the fact that too much content is flooding the market right now.

6. Amplify and share content

People will be able to read your high-quality content if you rely on social media amplification and distribution. Customers will definitely share the content if they get things that they appreciate or that are relevant on the social platforms. This will help with PR and Psychographic Segmentation as well.

7. Convert and measure success – link your results to business outcomes

In order to highlight the value of your efforts, you should have metrics in place and ensure that the content serves a particular purpose. To obtain a more holistic picture of how your audience interacts with your content and how results show up in the SERPs, you have to define and measure multiple touch points.

Round out your content optimization strategy by creating quantitative goals and matching these with key business priorities.

Conclusion

The right content will be created by the author that is empowered by the right SEO insights, and it will finally reach the right user. In order to find the topics that matter most to the consumer, you have to use search data. By using search data, they will obtain strong insights at the time of authoring and, furthermore, will lift their SERP position and the odds of converting.

If you want to share how you create content that converts please let us know in the comments below

great landingpages with the best conversion

Build great landingpages with the best conversion rate

In order to encourage visitors to make a buying decision, landing pages should contain every element intended for conversion. However, too many landing pages are created with a poor structure, and the success rate is not as expected.

In the following lines, we will examine some aspects that will teach us to create better landing pages that will bring better incomes.

Firstly, let’s analyze the main features associated with landing pages: heading, body, call to action, and above the fold. They work well for both generating leads and on-page actions. The following step is to analyze how to customize the landing pages in order to obtain the best results.

Begin with a Campaign Objective

When creating your landing page, you have to envision the end right before you even begin.

Here is what is very important...

  • - Always create a dedicated landing page for every marketing campaign
  • - Always think of a campaign goal before building a landing page

The action that you want visitors to take will be reflected by your page’s objective.

Therefore, when planning your objective, you should understand upstream traffic sources and visitor intent – to the context they came from.

In an ideal scenario, each and every inbound channel would have its own landing page since each page has different contexts.

  • - The intent is associated with Search.
  • - Conversation is associated with E-mail, and it can be segmented – in case you are performing marketing automation, you may have individuals in varying relationships with you when speaking about trust or the number of e-mails they have read

Manipulate Attention

In the online world, attention is a rare asset.

Therefore, you need to focus your visitors’ attention on what you want them to do on your landing page.

Attention ratio

There is just one objective associated with a campaign.

Therefore, there should be a perfect equality between the number of things that visitors can do on a dedicated landing page and the number of things they should do.

In case you send visitors from an ad to your home page that has several links, the equality does not exist. And this is why landing pages are so important.

Visual hierarchy

Highlight what is important on your page by using a good design. Focus on your call-to-action (CTA)!

Your CTA should be supported by your design elements, so pay attention to this aspect.

Proximity

People usually assume that there is a relation between the things that are positioned close together.

Closers are a term used to describe statements or design elements in proximity to the CTA. Closers can either persuade or deter a visitor from clicking your CTA.

As an example, people can be easily discouraged by a disclaimer, which you need to put in proximity to the button. In order to make more individuals attend your webinar and generate more leads, you can put a message like “Can’t make it? Sign up anyway and we’ll send you the recording”.

design-attention-conversion

Consistency

In order to avoid adding unnecessary cognitive load on visitors, you have to represent the same type of content in the same way.

Imagine you possess testimonials throughout your long page. In case you design them the same way, each time the person comes across one, they will not have to figure out what type of content the block is.

This will increase readability.

Anomaly

On the contrary, in case something important is going to happen and you want to highlight it, make sure you differentiate it from the rest.

Imagine you are running a conference, and you have the speakers’ photos on the page. You may put them above the rest or separate them in case you want people to observe certain speakers immediately. Place the photos you want to highlight in squares in case everyone’s photos are in circles.

You will surely grab people’s attention in case you interrupt a pattern or do something unusual.

Motion

Motion combines text and graphics.

People simply can’t resist looking at movement, so this is great at grabbing attention.

In case there is nothing more down the page, you can use a scroll trigger as a motion. Make it as a bouncing arrow to point out that it is a long scrolling page.

However, you need to know that motion is dangerous in general. Therefore, if it does not support your CTA, you should remove it from your page.

Information hierarchy

You have to tell the story the right way.

The structure and layout of the landing page design can make the information look like it is out of sequence on the page.

- Copy vs. Design

It is important to know that copy should inform design. Simply because the template of your page has 3 bullet points - that does not mean that you should have the same number on the final page.

Therefore ...

  1. Put down the campaign copy, then
  1. Express that copy visually with the help of an experience.

Clear vs. Clever

Many times marketers fail to arrange the headline and sub-headline.

Even though the headline may be clever, it is really unclear. Individuals usually use the sub-headline to clarify the headline. The clarity of the page may be easily doubled by reversing the headline and sub-headline.

The context will influence the success of a clever headline.

You can rely on creativity in case you are implementing an e-mail-driven campaign. On the other hand, in case you prepare a PPC campaign, you have to make the headline match with the ad.

CTA, headline, and sub-head

There are three major things that a direct response landing page has to tell the visitor:

  1. The theme of the landing page? – from the headline
  1. What are the reasons for which I should interact with the action block? – from the sub-headline
  1. In case I push the button, what will I get? – CTA

Putting it all together

Meeting the visitor expectation is the main driver of conversion.

Always examine the context when creating the landing page. Make sure you deliver on what you promised before the visitors made the click. Always focus people attention on what they are supposed to do, and you will easily boost your conversion rate.

Have a look at 15 of the best landing pages examples so you know what your aiming for in your landing page designs.

Do you have any suggestions on how to improve the conversation rate of your landingpages? Please leave your comments below and don't forget to check out the best landingpage software we could find.

webinar jam review

Webinar Jam review

This article will be reviewing Webinarjam Studio, the newly updated and upgraded webinar software that seems to be generating a buzz in the marketing world and among those savvy few who depend a lot on webinars to push their business brand and marketing message online.

Webinar Jam Studio takes the webinar concept and morphs it to deliver network broadcast features.

Let us now take a look at these amazing new innovations….

1. Attendee Spotlight

This amazing feature provides a platform through which a webinar administrator can invite ANY webinar attendee to become a guest, host or presenter at any time during the broadcast.

Remember that Webinarjam is equipped with the ability to deliver network broadcast features? Well, with this feature it gets more personalized.

What does this mean, you might wonder? It means you can get up close and personal with prospective clients such that you can ask them about their purchases or the things they found impressive about your product. It also gives you a chance to answer whatever questions they might have or listen to their opinions about your products.

This way, you are able to create authority and earn trust. I mean what better way can you think of to sell your product or service than with social proof to back it up. Just to have others put your products on the map for you is simply awesome!

Attendee Spotlight will work extremely well in webinars for the following broadcasting styles:

  • Q&A
  • Coaching
  • Hands-On Training
  • Guest Appearances
  • Demonstrations
  • Testimonials
  • Hot Seats

So now, the level at which you engage your audiences can be increased and much more meaningful than a PowerPoint presentation ever can.

What’s more, it’s really easy to set up and before you know it, you can start speaking directly with someone in the audience within seconds once they decide to share their webcam with you.

2. Video Engine For Hybrid Webinars

On a good webinar, you’re going to demonstrate, teach, interact and make offers, and finally, sell things. For a lot of the video conferencing tools on the market, you can carry out the above actions through the aid of your web camera and your presentation software. Well, Webinar Jam Studio takes it to a whole new level.

Imagine the chance to be able to prepare and present your demonstration perfectly as a live broadcast without errors or any form of technical problem, or maybe your best sales offers, pitch and closes without any mistakes.

With Video Engine, you can now carry out that perfect presentation on every encore webinar you do.

All you have to do is to begin your live broadcast. Give your salutations and greetings as the case may require. Then press play on a pre-recorded video, to broadcast that perfect pre-recorded presentation. Then at the end, make yourself available for the live Q&A.

So with this, you do not have to worry about making poor or bad live presentations but walk in with the confidence that your pitch is perfect and ready at any time it is needed.

This is like having your own personal On-Demand TV Studio.

Here’s how this works.

You can pre-load up to 5 videos with HD quality and High fidelity audio. Press play in the admin dashboard and it plays On Demand any time you choose with a small timer display that alerts you how long that video is going to last.

It also automatically mutes your mic and shuts off your webcam until you go back to Live screen mode at the end of the video.

Video Engine alone will be incredibly useful in teaching & demonstrating style webinars.

Or how about playing a video recording of a customer testimonial explaining how happy they are with your product or service.

….You decide the pre-recorded video that you want to introduce into your live broadcast.

3. Active Offers Display with Urgency Timer

With the original Webinar Jam, there was room to incorporate Add To Cart, Buy Now and other calls-to-action Buttons right within the webinar window of your attendees.

webinarjam product display

This eliminated the clumsy copying and pasting of URL links into the chat box or asking your attendees to click on a link that’s shown on their screen. Furthermore, there was no need to repeatedly answer attendee questions on where they need to go in order to get your offer.

It is undeniable that the original version of Webinar Jam was an incredible innovation but the recent one which is termed the Studio version now contains 2 very cool new tools to add urgency and scarcity to your live offers.

So now you can create urgency and scarcity just like with QVC?

The thing is that when an event or an offer is about to end, conversions tend to increase because of urgency and scarcity.

So here’s how it works:

Just like with the original version of Webinarjam, you are in total control of the time to incorporate clickable calls to action inside the webinar window where your audience can click and find all that they are looking for that you have to offer.

But now you also have the ability to add a countdown display that tells your audience that your offer is going away at the end of the timer.

Plus, you can include the Active Units Display which alerts your audience as to the number of units that are left of your special offer and that too in good time.

You can set this up to work automatically with a snippet of code and all you have to do is to copy and paste it onto your Thank You page or your Shopping Cart pages.

On the other hand, you can just adjust the unit display manually…

Basically, you are in total control of what is visible to your audience.

Just try to imagine the level of engagement that your prospects will have with your products when they can see these measurements right on their screen and the way that your sales conversions will be affected positively.

This is one feature that will really have a great impact when it comes to conversions on webinar front-end offers.

4. Feedback Flow

Ok, in no particular order of importance, the fourth innovation is the trade-marked Feedback Flow, which introduces a whole new level of engagement to webinars…

webinarjam feedback flow

This is just such an awesome idea.

So here’s what Feedback Flow is.

Imagine during your live Q&A that a key question already prepared by you could be displayed within the webinar window of your audience with just a click of a button and then at the same time, you can answer that question right on the screen where they can all see it.

But why stop there?

What if you could be more than that and it could actually be a way of socially promoting your product. For example, you see an attendee’s comment in the chat box saying that they just purchased and can’t wait to get access to your product.

With the click of a button, you can display that message right on the screen where the whole audience can see it.

That’s powerful social proof and engagement which will undoubtedly bring about incredible conversion rates.

The moderator is able to display any Feedback Flow text on the screen at any time, either to confirm the recording of the webinar or maybe it’s just a hashtag or an amazing comment from someone in the audience.

Also, that snippet code that was talked about earlier can also be used to add a comment on the live webinar screen automatically to tell your audience that another attendee has just purchased.

Now that’s how social proof helps you to garner responsibility. It’s really a powerful feature.

5. Jams On-Demand Marketplace

This next innovation is undeniably one that you will like and it is known as Jams On-Demand Marketplace.

What this does is that it provides you with an entirely new stream of traffic for your webinars made up of people who love learning and buying from webinars.

So now when you set up your webinar for live broadcast, your upcoming webinar is added to the Jams On-Demand marketplace, and as such anyone searching through the marketplace can register for your event.

In order to make this innovation more effective, the creators, Andy Jenkins, and Mike Filsaime, are going to be trying to close some deals with media outlets in order to ensure that the On-Demand marketplace turns into a recognized destination for great content.

And for those of you that are really into SEO, the Jams On-Demand Marketplace will be another great source of back-link for your SEO campaigns.

In addition to that, the On-Demand Marketplace will contain your webinar records where it can be picked up by organic traffic looking to purchase your products or services. Of course, if you happen to be a coach or perhaps deliver consulting services by making use of webinars, it’s likely that you’ll want to keep your sessions private. No problem, because there is a privacy option located in admin dashboard and once you click that, you’re good to go.

Also, you’ll find an affiliate link below the live and recorded webinars, inside the Jam On-Demand Marketplace, that anyone interested in promoting your webinars as an affiliate can click on the link to find out more……. Just like something similar to a Click Bank.

6. Replica Replay

webinarjam replica replay

This simply takes the evergreen webinar concept and steps it up a notch so that instead of having the recording alone, you get the recording with all the features you’d expect on a live webinar:

  • · Replays are presented in a webinar window just like the live broadcast.
  • · You get the original community chat along with the replay, and this will allow you to make use of the buzz of that live broadcast.
  • · You get to make use of all the features that have been discussed and it can also be live during your Replica Replay.

And that concludes everything on the Feedback Flow, the buyer alerts, Video Engine injections, your Active Offers with urgency timers and unit displays, etc. It includes everything to replicate the original broadcast giving a whole new meaning to encore webinar presentation.

7. The Studio Control Center

This is the newly-designed control Center for Webinar Jam Studio that gives you, even more, control of what’s happening in your webinars as it happens. That’s how incredibly powerful it is.

webinarjam studio control center

When things go live and you have a large audience filled with enthusiasm, such that they are asking lots of questions and generally interacting with you, you will discover that things can get a bit busy and sometimes a little out of hand.

With the new Studio Control Center, however, you can simply break everything down into different tabs which you can manage conveniently so that you are able to know exactly what’s happening as it happens without feeling swamped.

The concept is quite simple, all you need to do is just to take all the information that’s coming at you during a webinar, break it down into manageable bits, which you can then assign to different individuals to manage if you like. And these different segments can be viewed on different computers for ease of use.

Webinar Jam Studio – The Ideal Target Market

So who is this product designed for?

On close inspection of the main features and benefits of the updated version of this tool, it is clear that it will clearly work very well with pretty much anyone who is looking to sell products or services online or to reach a wider audience of live broadcasts. You see live broadcasts through Hangouts, which Google owns, tend to get better rankings on YouTube.

And when you throw some backlinks at your recorded webinars which are posted on YouTube and Google+ (if you want them to be), many times you can also get those same videos to rank in Google too.

Good examples of businesses that Webinar Jam Studio will work well for are product owners, teachers, coaches, public speakers, consultants, entrepreneurs, SME businesses, and of course, marketers.

Are you ready to setup  your first Webinar?

shopify review

Shopify review

When it comes to choosing the appropriate e-commerce online shop builder, it’s not really an easy choice because you are left wondering about the one that is right for you and your business. To further compound the problem, a lot of online shop builders with a great reputation recommend different types of tools and it all becomes confusing.

Well, no need to worry because this article will simplify that decision for you by telling you about Shopify in this Shopify review. It does not matter whether you are just starting a new online business, or bringing an existing business to the online world, Shopify is without a doubt one of the easiest e-commerce builders to help you create your online shop.

Shopify can help you save time which will then allow you to focus on other important aspects of your business. One important thing that we believe Shopify has done brilliantly is inviting other vendors (such as theme designers or online tools providers) to incorporate their services and products into Shopify, thus, making Shopify a 1-stop-shop for all the tools needed to create a successful online shop. More details to follow as we move on.

SHOPIFY ECOMMERCE SOFTWARE IS IDEAL FOR…

Shopify is ideal for you if you want to launch an online shop, or if you already have a physical store, but want to continue to grow your business by selling your products online.

Shopify caters for a broad range of industries, such as art & photography, clothing & fashion, jewelry & accessories, electronics, food & beverages, home & garden, furniture & household, sports & recreations, toys & games, etc.

Basically, if you are into the sales of any kind of gadgets or widgets or physical products, then Shopify can help make this an easier process for you.

Trying to deal with technology which is a major factor in running a successful business is not easy because sometimes, you might just feel ‘choked up’ but this is where Shopify can come in if you allow it. It helps you to manage the technology side of your business while you can focus on the other parts (such as marketing, product development, customer relationships building, administration, etc.).

Basically, Shopify simplifies your already hectic life.

IS SHOPIFY EASY TO USE?

Well, the answer to the above question is yes! All you need to do is simply learn the basics which require just a few hours and from there, you just sit back and enjoy the ride! (And if you happen to need help, there is a 24/7 online or phone support from them).

shopify dashoard

To make things more interesting, you don’t even need to need to know anything about some codes in order for you to set up your online store! Awesome right?

Shopify provides you with the tools to:

  • · Insert product images, descriptions / details
  • · Manage your inventory
  • · Organize your products into categories (easier for your prospective customers to find what they need)
  • · Discount code engine
  • · Create web pages and blogs
  • · Track customer and order details
  • · Accept payments from 70 different payment processors in different currencies
  • · Set up customer accounts (so your customers can login into their private accounts to manage their personal information such as address, credit card information, so it’s easier for them to buy next time)
  • · Sort your customers by location, money spent, etc., so that you can have a better understanding of where your customers are from and their spending behaviors, which will then enable you to employ a winning marketing strategy
  • · Manage multiple staff login – so if you have staff helping you, you can grant them different permission levels to help you manage your online shop

The general concept about Shopify is that the major part of the work is carried out by them while you get to focus on other parts of your business.

TEMPLATE DESIGN OPTIONS

With Shopify, you get more than 100 premium themes with which you design your online shop and give it a sense of visual appeal. Apart from the fact that it attracts customers, such a dedication to the outlook of your shop will only build trust and credibility with your customers. So, here, appearance is ‘everything’.

shopify themes

At Shopify, they are aware of that which is why they offer quite a number of professional themes to help you built trust, and sell products.

Some of the themes are free, and some have to be paid for in order to have access to them. The paid themes range from $80 to $180. The first thought that might come to your mind on seeing the price might be what, really, this is too much. But before you decide against using it because of the price, let me tell you this, the payment is for one time and one time only which means no need to renew payment. So consider it an investment in your online shop with which you are guaranteed to get incredible returns. This is because your shop gets a professional outlook which will attract customers and boost sales.

After all, it’s not like you must start with the paid themes since there are free themes that you can start with. And as you see it work and sales grow, then you can upgrade to a premium theme.

ABANDONED CHECKOUT RECOVERY

Did you know that for an average e-commerce store, 2 out of 3 of your potential customers actually place products into the checkout cart, then forget to complete the purchase process as they get distracted by emails, people, random things? This is actually true according to statistics and if this happens to you, you will be losing a lot of potential profits.

With an advanced shopping cart, you get to know who these people are, follow up on them to remind them to purchase the products that they initially added to the shopping cart.

Shopify also offers an abandoned checkout cart recovery service to you as part of their Professional and Unlimited plans.

With this tool, you get to automatically track and send an email to these potential customers to follow up and remind them to complete their purchases.

The tool works by keeping a record of the email addresses that were inputted during the checkout processes, and then such address will automatically get an email after a pre-determined number of hours. Each of the emails will contain links that are specific to each of them which will lead them straight back to the shopping cart with their products already added to the cart, for them to complete the purchase with relative ease.

This entire process is automatic, and statistically, you will see a meaningful increase in your sales without having to lift your finger or move an inch.

You know, it’s like they were potential customers who had set their mind to make a purchase but then got distracted; so this reminds them to complete their purchase which they do and for you, a quick and easy deal closed.

SHOPIFY APP STORE

Shopify offers you an extensive number of Apps (over 1,100) so you can add more functions to your online shop, and keep a lot of business tasks automated.

shopify app store

The tools are not just sales & marketing tools, they also include additional tools that help you manage administrative tasks such as inventory management, fulfillment, shipping, customer service, bookkeeping, etc.

While Shopify already includes basic functions for a lot of these areas, if you need more, these Apps can help you.

Now, these apps do have monthly fees, but if you feel the need for them and you try them out, you will be getting good value for your money and also saving your time.

MOBILE E-COMMERCE

An e-commerce shop builder is not complete if it lacks mobile features – and Shopify is brilliant in this aspect.

shopify mobile commerce

Shopify includes free, built-in mobile e-commerce shopping cart features so your prospective customers can browse and purchase from your store directly using their mobile phones. I think it is safe to say that this will definitely drive sales higher.

The mobile e-commerce settings are set up in a way that it works great with mobile phones such as iPhones, Androids or other smartphones.

Apart from the fact that Shopify presents your online shop professionally on a mobile phone, it also allows you to manage your store on a mobile phone. In case you want to, you can check your sales statistics, customer data and manage your sales orders on your mobile phone.

This way, even if you are not in the office, you carry your business with you wherever you go and also stay in touch with your customers.

SUPPORT

Shopify has one of the best support team in the industry. You can reach them 24/7 through the phone, online live chat, or email.

When you’re running a business, you really don’t want to troubleshoot technology yourself. This is why having a 24/7 support team to support you is so important, and you get this from Shopify.

HOSTING AND BACKUP OPTIONS

As part of your monthly plan, Shopify will host your online shop for you while at the same time providing you with an unlimited amount of bandwidth. So in theory, say you were to get up to 10 million visitors per month, you won’t have to pay extra on top off your monthly plan.

Shopify ensures the regular security upgrades for their servers are carried out while also taking care of all the necessary technical details to ensure your website is always up and running, and doesn’t get hacked.

PRICING

In reality, if you’re looking for a free plan, Shopify won’t be able to provide that.

shopify pricelist

But if you are looking for a guaranteed, robust, flexible online shop builder that can actually help you grow your sales and manage a lot of administrative business tasks for you, then I think Shopify might just be what you need.

If you’re going to build a business, the major factor to consider is value – does the price of having the online infrastructure and 24/7 live support justify your investment in Shopify?

Based on what has been made available and discussed above, it’s obvious that using Shopify can help you attend to and take care of a lot of administrative and technology-related tasks so that you can completely focus on building your business.

In terms of pricing, Shopify’s plans can range from $9 per month for their Lite Plan, all the way to $179 per month for their Unlimited Plan.

All Shopify plans allow you to sell through all sorts of channels such as Facebook Store/ Facebook Buy Button / Pinterest Buy Button / Twitter Buy Button / Point of Sale (making offline sales).

This consequently boosts your branding presence in a way you could only imagine thus making it easier for your customers to purchase (e.g. they can purchase directly on Facebook, and don’t have to visit your website).

You get more features and tools as you move higher up in their plans, and the credit card rate also reduces (which makes sense as you subscribe to a higher monthly plan).

Shopify’s credit card rate is pretty similar to what PayPal charges you in transaction fees (PayPal starts at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction as well, but then reduces as you begin to make more sales).

The “In Person” fee which ranges from 2.7% down to 2.2% relates to using Shopify’s Point of Sales (POS) system which enables you to power your offline store, or even host pop-up stores in order to process sales away from your computer.

Shopify Conclusion

Overall, it is safe to say that Shopify is a very strong e-commerce online shop builder. To be more specific, Shopify has got two things that are impressive:

1. Premium store front themes – this is to make your online shop look professional, which is a key ingredient in attracting more visitors and keeping them on your website in order to increase sales

2. Shopify Apps – to add more / extend functionality to your online shop as you grow your business

Shopify understands that their core strength is allowing you to build and manage a website with a secure shopping cart, rather than do everything for you. They also know that the different business tools needed for successful marketing and sales cannot be built by them for you.

This flexibility and the ability for Shopify to grow with your online business is one of the unique aspects that we’ve grown to appreciate, and I hope you do as well. You can simply start off with fewer features and tools, and then add more as you go on and your online shop expands.

Shopify offers you a risk-free 14 days trial to see for yourself if they fit your needs. So there is no financial risk to you to try them out.

coschedule software review

CoSchedule software review

Managing your business’ to-do list can sometimes be a difficult endeavor right? This is true particularly if you're in the business of creating content either for yourself or for your clients. The probability of losing focus, forgetting brilliant ideas as soon as they pop up in your mind and then being unable to keep up with life just because you have so much on your plate becomes high.

Well, as technology will have it, you just need a tad of solid planning to go with the organization in order to get you back on course with your content marketing plan. And all you need is just an editorial calendar.

This article will be discussing one of the most popular editorial calendars on the market and show how you can set consistent posting goals, plan out content ideas weeks in advance, get onboard with your entire team, and share your ideas with your targeted audience using one WordPress plugin: CoSchedule.

What is an Editorial Calendar?

Before we dive into what CoSchedule is, let’s get educated a little on what exactly an editorial calendar is.

Editorial calendars are tools that are utilized in the management of your daily task list needed to create content for the following: blog posts, newsletters, website information, and even social media. To be more precise, an editorial calendar of good value should give you the following:

  • Provide a platform for you to think carefully about post ideas and keywords
  • Allow you to dole out writing assignments/projects to members of your team
  • Create a publishing schedule that everyone can have access to
  • An easy user interface such that changes can be made easily
  • An appealing visual aspect such that your plan is easily laid out conveniently for you to access
  • Act as a platform for easy communication among team members.

So what is CoSchedule?

CoSchedule is a premium editorial calendar that allows you to organize blog posts, social media, team tasks, and more all from inside your WordPress dashboard.

How did it come about you might wonder? Well, it was born out of frustration of having too many things to do but not making enough progress on it regularly. So CoSchedule was thus created to tackle this problem.

The innovative mind of the creators of this incredible tool has paved a way for the elimination of a common problem that many website owners face from time to time. This tool helps marketers and bloggers to plan and publish ideas, share them with the world and save time and energy in the process. Simply amazing!

Main Features

CoSchedule is an exceptional editorial calendar due to the incredibly powerful features that it contains which makes it stand out among other editorial calendars.

Marketing Calendar

CoSchedule was designed as a marketing calendar that is visually attractive and quite straightforward to use as a result of its drag & drop abilities. As a result, you can now plan, publish, and promote all the content on your website straight from your WordPress dashboard.

CoSchedule has eliminated the period of having to open up multiple programs, logging into several accounts, and then losing track of the tasks that have been completed due to multiple entries. With CoSchedule, you get to see everything in one place at once and you are able to track your progress.

coschedule marketing calendar

Here are some other amazing things the marketing calendar lets you do:

  • Create a smooth workflow for your team while also allowing them to communicate using sections specially reserved for comments.
  • You can use the following to write content: WordPress, Evernote, Google Docs, or CoSchedule’s custom editor and once you are through with what you are writing, you can upload it directly into your calendar for publishing and sharing.
  • Easily drag and adjust publishing dates with the functionality of adding new projects with just a few simple clicks; there’s also no need to reschedule manually because CoSchedule does that for you automatically.

Social Media Calendar

Another great feature that CoSchedule offers website owners is the ability to share both your own and curated content on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+.

One social media content calendar has been provided to cater for it all so there is no need to log into multiple accounts and post everything separately. What an amazing time-saving tool.

Workflow

CoSchedule helps to eliminate snags like missed deadlines of tasks, continuous strings of email, missed deadlines, and inconsistent publishing of content because it allows you to assign tasks, add notes about projects, set deadlines which you get to meet, and finally send automatic email notifications for content publishing.

The CoSchedule has 2 major sections which are: the ‘My Upcoming Posts and Content’ section which allows you to know the content that is about to be published; the other section is one that is located in your dashboard tagged ‘My Tasks’. This section is meant for you to assign duties to your team members and yourself; once you log on, the duties become visible.

This provides a great way for you to evaluate and determine the areas that need to be fine-tuned as far as content publishing is concerned.

Headline Analyzer

Headlines are everything when it comes to web content be it email, social media posts or even blog posts; it is what drives traffic to your website. This is why your headline has to be captivating attractive such that people will have no choice but to click on your posts once they see the headlines.

coschedule headline analyzer

CoSchedule is equipped with a headline analyzer whose major function is to analyze and determine how strong your headlines are before publishing your content. It is scored and the score is based on following factors:

  • · Level of commonness
  • · Level of emotion it contains
  • · Power it contains

You can take it a step further by checking for stuff like optimal character length for Google search results and email subject lines which will then allow you to have a preliminary idea of how your readers will view your headlines.

Integrations

One of the great things about CoSchedule is that it is flexible as such that other tools that you use for your website can be easily integrated with it. The creators of the tool understand combined effort and as a result did not restrict usage of the tool to just its specific features but also allows the use of other tools while still achieving the desired result.

Here are a few examples of the tools and how you can use them with CoSchedule:

  • WordPress. After using WordPress to create drafts of content, you can then turn it into quality content by simply uploading directly into CoSchedule.
  • Chrome Extension. With this extension, you get to share your content easily without having to exit your browser for once.
  • Evernote and Google Docs. These are the two most integrated tools with CoSchedule such that you can drag and then drop your projects or assignments directly into your editorial calendar from external sources.
  • Google Calendar. Synching this tool with CoSchedule allows you to share your content marketing plans with others conveniently.
  • Google Analytics. By making the use of custom-made Google Analytics tags, CoSchedule provides you with an in-depth understanding of the rate at which your content is improving. It allows you to know where and how many times your content has been shared across the web thus giving you the platform to locate the audience that is best suited to your content.
  • Bit.ly. When you link your custom Bit.ly account with CoSchedule, then it makes shortening of permalinks possible and easy.
  • Buffer. This is for you if you are interested in spreading your content to Google+, all you need to do is integrate your Buffer account into CoSchedule which is quite straightforward.

Pricing, Documentation, and Support

CoSchedule is a premium editorial calendar plugin that offers a free 14 day, trial whereby you have full access to all the features. And your trial can even be extended by 7 days if needed just to ensure you get a real feel of how CoSchedule can help with your content marketing strategy.

Here is a look at their pricing levels:

coschedule pricing

CoSchedule is packed full of features and sometimes, those just starting to use it can have slight challenges at the beginning which is why there is an in-depth documentation section for users and it contains nothing but multiple articles on getting started, integrations, working with a team, accounts and billing, social media publishing, troubleshooting, and even include a video library.

Furthermore, there is a built-in Help Section in the CoSchedule dashboard where you can contact any one of their team members with whatever questions you may have.

Lastly, there are 7 video master courses available in the CoSchedule dashboard that you can follow along with so you can “master your editorial calendar at your own pace” and create an efficient content marketing strategy.

Key features

  • Drag-And-Drop Marketing Calendar 
  • Easy Social Media Scheduling
  • Easy Workflow Management For Your Marketing Team
  • Easily Reschedule Old Blog Content
  • Works Great With WordPress
  • Manage Google Docs Content
  • Manage Evernote Content
  • Lots Of Integrations That Will Simplify Your Life

Final Thoughts

It is safe to say that CoSchedule is one of the most comprehensive editorial calendar plugin solutions available for WordPress users. Considering that planning, publishing, and promoting content from one location without any stress is what all website owners are after, then CoSchedule offers just that.

What more, it provides organization of content along with the visual appeal, while also being quite straightforward in usage. This makes itstand out among its peers.

If you want your content marketing strategy to be on course for success and not lose focus, then you don’t need to look any further than CoSchedule. While you may experience slight challenges at the start, it gets better once you totally understand it and trust me when I tell you that at that point, you will not want to use any other tool for your content publishing.

Ever tried out CoSchedule as an editorial calendar? Then let us know the most useful part in your opinion. Kindly leave it in the comments below!

Want to sign up for your free trial account?

personal branding

Why is your personal branding just as important?

Looking for a new career or asking for a promotion would be a great starting point, but it does not stop here. It goes way further than that. It is very important to brand yourself as a person, and not only your company or your product. Besides the fact that it will contribute to your personal progress, it will also contribute to the growth of your product or service in several ways.

[Note “Nowadays, each and every individual must be a marketer for a particular thing, at least him/herself.”]

Why personal branding strategy is important explained in 9 reasons:

Personal Advantage

Are you on a hunt for a new career? Or maybe you aspire to a promotion? A great deal of help can come from a track record that can be proven and a personal brand. Through personal branding, you can easily interact with other people and build trust, even in your personal life.

Interacting

People love to interact. However, they don’t interact with products or services. One of the most important aspects of business and business decisions is interaction. You will surely benefit in the long run if you stay connected – and your business will definitely grow from your personal connections if you advertise a product or service.

A personal brand is practically the cornerstone of new connections, regardless if we are talking about personal or business partnerships.

Inbound Networking

inbound networking

Personal branding may help even if you are not so famous. It will help people to recognize you and engage in certain discussions. Considering the fact that it is simpler to start a conversation with a person than with a product, we can say that the principle of inbound marketing/networking is even more efficient with a personal brand. Since more people will want to connect with you, your network will grow considerably.

Influencing decisions

Technical differences or monetary benefits are two aspects that have a major important on the last buying decision. In case the individuals behind the products or services are nice, smart, helpful and informative, they can also influence the buying decisions. The connection to the person behind the product is very important when it comes to choosing between two products.

Be remembered

Remembering a person is far easier than remembering a product. Therefore, it is very important to brand yourself if you wish to enter on peoples’ minds.

Credibility

Compared to a robot, an individual will gain far more credibility regardless of his/hers faults, mistakes, and personal opinions. You have to highlight your personality through your brand, in a positive way. By doing so, you will gain credibility.

Even though you can find great facts in scientific papers or reference books, in business it is often not the facts that count but the promises made by individuals. To make your promises worthwhile, you have to build credibility.

Consistency

You will still be you after a certain period of time, even though a product or service that you offer may change. You have to brand yourself carefully since a personal brand will last for a long period of time. Once you have built your image, it will be really hard to change it. A mistake may last longer than you want – yet a positive impression may also remain in the head of your clients for a long period of time.

Added value to a brand

Imagine an influencer working for a brand; you will understand why persons offer additional value to a brand. In some particular situations, it can go as far as personal brand changing the stock market value. Regardless of the size of your brand – your employer benefits from having employees with a personal brand even if it is just through a little personal activity.

Be visible – Simpler promotion

Introducing yourself to new people is far simpler and nice compared to a product brand trying to enter a new market segment. A product is quite limited with it comes to connecting and talking to other people compared to a person – or it is simply ignored.

You should never underestimate the power of YOU and never forget to build your personal brand. You will benefit in the long run.

Do you have any comments on your personal branding,please leave your comments below

serpbook software review

Why I Think SerpBook Is The Best Keyword Ranck Tracker?

serpbook logo

Accurate Keyword Ranck Tracker

Features

With Serpbook you can track regional keywords, local keywords, Google Maps and YouTube rankings.

User Friendly

The Serpbook interface is very simple to use. It runs very fast and you can quickly access the data you need.

Price

The very reasonable pricing starts at only $9.95 a month which makes this product excellent value for money .

Summary: The best keyword rank tracker that's out there.. It’s simple, cheap, and fast. This is what I personally recommend to keep track of all of your keyword rankings across all of your personal and niche sites. Local keyword tracking, Mobile, YouTube, and Google Maps. Plans start under $10!.

  • Mobile Keyword Tracking.
  • Simle & effective solution.
  • Sophisticated charts & Powerful notes.
  • Very fast user interface.
  • Google Analytics integration.

Starting at $9.95/month

If you need to measure, evaluate, and rank for keywords as well as improve your website, then SERP Book is for you. This tool helps you find keywords that you will be able to rank for, which will improve your page rank.

The end result is that your SEO strategy is more effective and you get the traffic that you need to your website as you have a higher page rank in the search engines. You’ll have a competitive edge over your rivals in whatever industry you are in.

With the software, you can track your rank in Bing, Yahoo, and Google. You want to rank high in Google for example, as they only rank for the first 300 results for keywords.

SERP Book collects keyword ranking which you can then share with your clients. The results are quick and very reliable and will work on any device. You also don’t have to manually manage proxies as the tool will do this automatically for you.

The Plans

There are plans available to meet any need you have include Basic, Essential, Professional, Extreme, Ultimate, Enterprise and finally, Enterprise+. Then plans differ in the number of domains and keywords supported as well as in price.

They all offer daily Yahoo, Alexa, Backlink updates, PageRank, and Bing updates and bihourly Google updates so you’ll know where you stand. You get e-mail alerts, Excel reporting, white label PDF, and category link sharing.

Serpbook pricing

Basic

Essential

Professional

Extreme

Ultimate

Enterprise

Keywords/domains

50

100

200

500

1000

2000

On-demand updates

150

300

600

1500

3000

6000

Price per month

$9.95

$19.97

$29.97

$44.97

$79.97

$159.95

The Dashboard and Setup

It’s easy to setup as you do this via the web. The dashboard is easy to navigate and organized well. You can add domains, create a category, and submit your keywords to get started with SERP Book. To manage and monitor your keywords, you create a category. You can view keywords across many categories with the tool.

If you sell cameras, for example, you’ll be able to monitor and group the keywords across the major brands like Toshiba, Canon, and Sony. You can delete a keyword category if you no longer need it.

Charts allow you to view tracking details so you can view all the information you need in one location. You can view tracking easily for the Bing, Yahoo, and Google search engines.

serpbook dashboard

Sharing Categories

You can share a category with a client if you wish. You can provide a link to a category so your client knows what you’re doing to check and improve their rankings. You can also share the live results of the positions of keywords which helps you with your SEO strategy and planning.

Serpbook categories

Using Notes

With the SERP Book software, you can write notes related to keywords and campaigns in the charts. When you combine this with historical graphs, you can view what works and what doesn’t for that campaign. This helps you improve the ranking of the site.

Serpbook notes

Using Reports

With SERP book, you can create Excel ranking reports which provide you with important information such as week, day, page rank, month ranking, monthly search volume on Google, and backlinks. You can create PDF reports which can contain your own logo if you wish or name.

Instant Notifications

When a keyword submitted changed in rank, you get a notification via SERP Book by e-mail. This happens instantly so you don’t have to wait days or weeks to know your ranks which by then, would have changed again. The notification tells you if a specific keyword leaves the top ten or 100 ranking which you can set yourself.

API Access for Developers

You can use a custom application to access your tracking details if you wish. You can a build your own backend or dashboard or extend it with your own SEO applications.

Search Engine Rank Tracker Features

  • Email Alerts
  • Country Based
  • Whitelabel reports
  • Whitelabel Solution
  • Daily Tracking
  • Competitor Analysis
  • Developer API
  • 3 Search Engines
  • 2 Report Options
  • 14 Day Free Trial

Pros of SERPbook

The interface is fast, accurate, and mobile friendly. You get real-time updates, the ability to add notes, as well as e-mail alerts. You can view local ranking and share categories. There’s trial and error testing, integration with Google Analytics, custom white label reporting, full support, third-party API access, and the program is very affordable.

Cons of SERP Book

There're fewer domains and fewer keywords supported when compared with other programs. There’s less development as the program is still new. Despite the drawbacks, this program offers a lot for the price you pay. New features and more support will be added.

Conclusion

SERP Book is an amazing tool for improving and tracking your SEO efforts so you can stay ahead of your competition.

Starting at only $9.95 per month!

inspectlet software review

Inspectlet software review

Inspectlet is a website heatmap, session recording, and form analytics software that shows you the exact way your visitors use your website as well as the reason they carry out certain actions on your website.

The software is created by Inspectlet, a software company that has its headquarters in Palo Alto, California. The software focuses on helping website owners to understand the activity of their visitors which allow them to enhance user experience and consequently increase the conversion rate.

inspectlet dashboard

Session Recording

This is a feature that gives you access to the action of each visitor immediately they visit your website until they leave. With the opportunity to observe various visitors in their actions, you get to understand why some of them leave halfway into your website and why some others complete certain tasks on your website. Basically, you get to see and know what people that visit your site do.

It is so detailed that you can watch the movement of the mouse, clicks, and scrolls being carried out by your visitors down to the tiniest of details. Furthermore, the session recording lets you know exactly what your visitors see on their screen while they are browsing your website.

inspectlet recorded sessions

Powerful Filtering Feature

Inspectlet provides with a filtering feature that is quite powerful because you only have to watch the session playback of the visitors that carried out actions relevant to your analysis. So this way, you will not waste time in watching videos of visitors whose actions may be negligible on your conversion rate.

The filtering feature is advanced and it allows you to group the visitors that you want to watch into various categories based on the criteria of your choosing. For example, you can focus only on the visitors who are abandoning their shopping cart, leaving your website before completing the survey, or hitting the close button before they even scroll your web pages.

Heatmap Visualization

There are three types of heat map tracking tools provided by this software which allows you to accurately monitor the activities of your visitors. The three heat map tracking tools are eye-tracking heat maps, click heat maps and scroll heatmaps.

The eye-tracking heat maps make use of mouse movements to track your visitors’ activities. The click heat maps on the other hand function to show you the parts of your websites that are getting clicked by those visiting be it links, banners, images etc.

The scroll heatmaps then allow you to see and know the extent to which your visitors are scrolling your website thus showing the level of their interest in your website content.

Conversion Funnels

These function to show you the how effective your landing page. It shows you how and why your visitors carry out or complete certain actions when they visit.

This way, you are able to know the exact cause of a bad conversion rate on your website should you happen to have one. Furthermore, this feature allows you to track down lost sales while also providing you with the data needed to come up with a formula for better conversion rate.

inspectlet tracking

Session and User Tagging

This is a unique feature that provides you with the chance to tag specific sessions and users with the opportunity of reaching them some other time. For example, when you play the session recording of a particular visitor with a specific ID or email address, you can tag this user with a simple line of code and watch what this visitor is doing on your website the next time they visit your website.

With this, you are able to determine whether the changes you have made on your website has a profound effect on the decision-making of those who visit your website. You are thus able to capture interesting events.

inspectlet install code

Inspectlet features

  • Deep integrations with other analytics services
  • Enterprise grade support
  • Eye-tracking heat maps
  • Flawless form analytics
  • Mobile recording and tracking
  • Powerful conversion funnels analysis
  • REST reporting API
  • Seamless AJAX and single page app support
  • Session recording and visitor playback
  • User and visit-level tagging control

Good

It provides three important analysis tools in one software suite which are: session recording, heat maps, and form analytics. The powerful filtering feature is there as well to help you in locating relevant recording sessions of people from the visitors that do certain things on your website.

Bad

The great features of this tool which are unlimited session recording and unlimited website tracking not absent from the cheap plans so if you don’t subscribe to the premium plan, you won’t get to enjoy them. Also, the free and micro plans lack some core features, like multiple account users, conversion funnels analytics, and targeted tracking.

Conclusion

One of the most interesting features of Inspectlet is session and user tagging. This is because you are able to observe how your visitors modify their level of interaction with your website thus allowing you to measure the effectiveness of changes made on your website.

Overall, Inspectlet provides one of the best heat map and website analytics tools that you can use to measure your website performance, know your visitors better, and eventually improve your conversion rate.

Start understanding your users today 

start business no cash

How to start a business with almost no cash?

Do you want to start your own business? You may have a particular idea, or you are attracted by the idea of starting and growing your own company. You are prepared to take some risks, such as quitting your current job or spending less money for you for a period of time. However, there is something holding you back: lack of funds.

Even though this may seem like a big problem at the surface, you should not abandon your dreams because of the lack of funds. If you have enough confidence in yourself and know what you are doing, it is possible to start a business with little or almost no personal investment whatsoever.

Why is capital so important for a business?

Let’s discuss why a business needs capital in the first place. Each and every business will have different needs since there is no universal startup for building businesses. Before you start searching for alternative methods to fund your company, you have to precisely estimate how much you need for the startup.

Take the next uses under consideration:

- Permits and licenses. You may require special paperwork and registry in order to function, but it depends on your region.

- Supplies. Are you purchasing raw materials? Are you in need of PCs and/or other similar devices?

- Equipment. Are you in need of specialized machinery or software

- Office space. You simply can’t overlook aspects such as Internet Connections and utility costs, so this is quite an important expense.

- Relationships, subscriptions, memberships. Which are the publications and affiliations to which you will subscribe every month?

- Functioning costs. Don’t neglect marketing and dig into the nooks and crannies.

- Legal fees. Did you consult a lawyer throughout your business-creation plan?

- Employees and contractors. You will need individuals on your payroll if you cannot do it alone.

Therefore, there are 2 important paths of starting a business without a major capital: boosting your available capital from outside sources or lowering your costs. Here you have three options:

The first option: Lower your requirements

The first option would be to change your business model in order to request fewer things. You can easily reduce your employee expenses by being the only employee at the start, in case you are planning on starting a company of personal trainers. You can also work from home if you don’t necessary need an office space. In order to discover cheaper sources of supplies, you can do a little bit of research.

However, you won’t be able to avoid the following expenses. Regardless how much you cut down, you won’t be able to jump over licensing and legal fees. Numerous micro businesses will start on bellow $3000, according to the SBA. Moreover, the home-based franchises don’t need more than $1000.

Second option: Bootstrap

In this second option, you will have to consider a sort of warm up for your business. Take a moment and start with the basics instead of jumping right into the full-fledged business mode. In order to obtain a head-start, you should launch a blog and one niche service and decrease your scope and your audience. It is very important to avoid some of the biggest initial costs in case you can start as a self-employed individual.

You will be able to invest in yourself and build the business of your dream once you start making some money.

Third option: Outsource

outsource

Getting funding from outside sources would be your third option. There are numerous ways to build capital, regardless of the sum of money that you have at the beginning. Below you will find a list of potential sources:

- Family members and friends. You should never neglect the possibility of asking a friend or family member for some funds.

- Angel investors. These are practically wealthy individuals who invest in interesting business ideas. In exchange for their investments, they will partially own the company or business that you create.

- Venture capitalists. They are very similar to angel investors; the difference is that they invest in businesses that are already functioning.

- Crowdfunding. This implies attracting money from different sources.

- Loans and grants from the government. Small business can grow and prosper with the help of The Small Business Administration.

- Bank loans. In case your credit is in good standing, you can always open a line of credit.

You should be in a position to lower your personal financial investment to practically 0 if you benefit from one or more of these three options. If you have confidence and invest trust in your idea, you will surely succeed in your path. However, you have to know that it will take a lot of sacrifices from your part. The lack of capital can be easily overcome, even though it seems like a major problem in the beginning.

Did you have the right amount of cash to start your business? Please share your comments below

manageflitter software review

ManageFlitter software review

Are you really interested in getting more Twitter followers the right way? Then an in-depth review of the ManageFlitter is what you need which is a popular Twitter marketing tool.

Overview

manageflitter overview

In case you’re not familiar with ManageFlitter, well, it is a tool that enhances your work on Twitter by making it faster. With it, for instance, you can:

  • · Group your Twitter followers using a set of criteria
  • · Find new people to follow using a number of advanced search functions
  • · Take the time to know when most of your followers will be online so that you can schedule tweets appropriately with that timeline using the PowerPost feature
  • · Monitor those that unfollow you
  • · Manage different number of Twitter accounts
  • · Search for relevant accounts and tweets

 And much more!

Consider ManageFlitter as your ultimate secret weapon to achieve success in Twitter marketing. The next thing is for me to go into more details about some of the above-mentioned features but let me sound a note of warning before I do that.

Yes, without a doubt, there are some aspects of ManageFlitter that help you with the automation of your Twitter profile and this can be scary for some marketers. This is because over-reliance on automation might cause the shutdown of a social media account no matter the number of followers it has generated.

However, it only happens because people sometimes try to use this tool in a spam-like manner which is not advisable no matter the marketing strategy you decide to employ.

There are three simple rules to abide by when it comes to tools for marketing automation:

  • Don’t go overboard with any single tactic
  • Be authentic and transparent about what you’re doing
  • Have the right intentions in mind

For instance, you don’t have to follow a lot of people all at once because that gives Twitter an indication that something might not be right which might cause them to red-flag you.

The specific number of accounts you can and should follow in a given period will change from time to time depending your level of activeness, the number of followers, the age of account etc.

To this effect, a careful look at the ManageFlitter blog will show you that they have provided good advice when it comes to limits that you should abide within:

Every Twitter user is technically able to follow up to 1 000 Twitter accounts per 24 hours. We recommend that people only follow 100 users per day to avoid being flagged by Twitter for aggressive following or churn.

So there you go. Ensure that you do not follow more than 100 accounts per day and that should be enough for abiding by the first rule.

Next thing you need to know is that using a Twitter tool alone for your whole Twitter marketing strategy is never the way to go. You need to be engaging and highly active on Twitter while at the same time taking part in conversations as much as you can else you will be missing the bigger picture.

Lastly, don’t try to automate activity just so you can make use of automation just because you want to feel it. Your reason for using it should be to honestly connect with others and also to create or start conversations.

Now that we have gotten the simple rules out of the way, time to get back to our exploration of ManageFlitter.

Follow

This is probably the most popular aspect of the platform as you get to follow exactly the right accounts depending on your market goals. At least one of the best ways to make a wave on Twitter is to follow some specific accounts in the hope that a lot of them will follow you back provided there is an alignment of interests.

In order to do this successfully, you need to look for the accounts that have some things in common with your brand, product, services, or industry. Also, you need to eliminate inactive accounts, spam accounts, etc., so that all you have left is the perfect target audience to follow and engage with.

ManageFlitter allows you to do this by setting up a number of search parameters and filters in their Power Mode, which can be accessed from the Manage drop-down menu.

manageflitter follow

Once you’re in Power Mode (which is like an advanced search), just click on Create Filter in the upper left side, to begin setting up a new search.

The amazing thing is that there are over 35 different ways you can search or filter, hence the name Power Mode!

The search parameters and filters are prepared in two different sections, which are the Data Source section, and the Optional Criteria section.

Here’s an example of how to set up the Data Source section if what you want is to locate Twitter users that have an interest in inbound marketing:

manageflitter data source

As for the optional criteria, it is recommended that you check the following boxes:

  • · Active
  • · Profile image
  • · English (unless you’re looking for non-English profiles)
  • · Unprotected
  • · Most likely inoffensive
  • · You never mentioned
  • · Never mentioned you
  • · You have never followed

Lastly, in the lower part of the Optional Criteria section, you’ll notice some sliders. Here’s how to set up your own for any particular search:

manageflitter matches

Now, click Show Matches at the top, and once the processing is complete, ensure that you save the search and then label it with something so that it will be easy for you to locate if you decide to check it out again some other time.

Once the processing is complete, all the profiles that match your criteria will appear on the results page. Amazing right?

Next thing is to follow these accounts if you wish to by clicking the Follow button to the left of the avatars.

manageflitter avatars

You can also select multiple accounts at once if you intend to follow them at some later time. To do that, simply check the Batch Select toggle on the right side, click on the Select All Accounts button at the top of the list, and then click on Follow Later text on the right:

manageflitter matches

So easily, now you can follow accounts with more effectiveness and purpose. There are many other ways to set up the search parameters and filters, so you have quite a number of options at your disposal that you can check out and see the one that really suits you.

Instead of merely making it a search for keywords in account bios, you can take it to another level by using your search to target the followers of other Twitter members. For instance, another means by which you can get inbound marketers is to search for account users that follow the @HubSpot account. Reasonable right?

Unfollow

Talk about the other side of the river, unfollowing! Now it’s not pleasant but it is absolutely necessary so as to keep the following/follower ratio in line to prevent it from overshooting.

When it comes to unfollowing people on Twitter, there are quite a number of ways to get that done. Check out the column on the left side in the image below (in the blue box) and you will see some of the options.

manageflitter unfollow

The most helpful ones in this respect are the Not Following Backlist and the “Inactive” list.

To utilize the Not Following Back option, you need to arrange the list based on the date that you followed them. What this does is that it allows you to see the users that have not followed you despite you following them for a long time. That way, you don’t have to follow people who are not aligned with your interests.

Also, if it happens that an account is dormant and has not tweeted for quite some time, then unfollowing them might be the best thing to do in order to create space for more active accounts.

Unfollowing someone is similar to how you follow someone as well especially within the Manage Flitter interface. In addition, you can make use of the Batch Select feature to try and make it faster.

Search

Next up is the search functionality and apart from the Power Mode, here are some other ways by which you can utilize the search mode in ManageFlitter for searching Twitter accounts:

  • · Search for accounts
  • · Search for tweets
  • · Search your own account

For our example, let’s concentrate on the tweet search.

It is such that you can search by topic (or keyword) and/or location. Take a look at the image below as example, it shows the results of a search for inbound marketing tweets in any location:

manageflitter search

It is important that you bear in mind that the search is restricted to the most recent 1500 results or those in the last seven days for this keyword or phrase.

You can then follow the accounts that are relevant to your tweet search just like following any other account. Thus, you have the opportunity to relate with people that are talking about topics that are relevant to you, so ensure to make the most of this opportunity.

Okay, before we get done with search, let me leave a bonus tip. After carrying out a tweet search, you can make use of influence to find some high-value Twitter members to connect with right away as it will allow you to put the search results in order of importance. So there you go, try it and you will be amazed at the result.

manageflitter search result

PowerPost

What does this feature do you wonder? Well, for starters, it provides you with a platform to know the ideal time to release your and it does that based on your followers.

manageflitter powerpost

Simply put, “PowerPost helps you to boost your posts by ensuring that they are published at the best time that they can be seen and replied to.” So, going by the image shown above, the best time for this account to send out a tweet is noon on a Tuesday.

Analytics

Lastly, we have analytics and this functions to track all your activities on Twitter marketing in order to ascertain the level of progress being made. Here’s a snapshot of what an account analytics dashboard looks like at a glance:

manageflitter analytics

Furthermore, you can get analytics data about specific words, hashtags, usernames, or websites, and also monitor them over time.

If you are really concerned about data, then the analytics section should catch your attention.

Alternatives

Now, you might be thinking, apart from ManageFlitter, what other tools can be used for Twitter marketing?

Some of the popular alternatives that you can make use of are Buffer, Hootsuite, and Sproutsocial.

Pricing

Currently, ManageFlitter offers three main plans:

  • · Freebie which is, of course, free
  • · Pro which starts at $12 per month
  • · Business which starts at $49 per month

Some of the features I touched on above can only be done when you have a Pro or Business account. However, with the freebie plan, you can get to check out the overall usefulness of ManageFlitter and once you see the value that it holds for you, you can just upgrade to any of the two remaining plans.

Conclusion

Well, there you go. Now you are more knowledgeable about ManageFlitter and I hope you get to try it particularly if you want your Twitter marketing to be more successful.

The only thing that seems to be lacking is a mobile app, which is probably being worked on but I guess we’ll have to keep our fingers crossed for that.

If you this article to be of any value, then kindly share it. And feel free to leave a comment below or on Twitter with any thoughts or questions you may have.

Are you ready to grow your Twiiter following ?