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"Because there's so much competition online, I send my best content in Private to give you a better chance of success. A free expose on the truth about buying marketing products from the Warrior Forum is waiting for you..."
June was the first time in the history of this site where the blog gained over 1,000 subscribers in a month. To be specific, the final increase count was just over 1,300. Even though I’m posting as infrequently as I ever have, traffic levels are at their highest, and the blog is converting visitors into subscribers better than ever before.
I’m not saying this to brag, but to show that the changes I’ve slowly been implementing are having a big effect here, and I want to share them with you all today. If you haven’t been getting the results from blogging that you were hoping for, or you just want to fine-tune things a little, then this post is for you.
Very recently I talked about a huge flaw in blogging, which I’ll get to in a minute. Even though I self-referenced this, a few people emailed me to say it’s strange that I am promoting a blogging product and then talk about the downsides of the platform. I wasn’t sure about whether or not I should start this post off with a snippet of the things I love about blogging, so let those emails be a nudge to do exactly that.
Because, let’s be clear, I do love it. I owe so much of where I am and what I have done to this mode of publishing that I don’t even know where to start. I will say that two highlights of my blogging “career” include getting to work in South Africa with huge brands for 18 months and having my Dad phone me in Paris to say that he just heard someone talking about me on the radio when driving to work.
I could go on, but I’ll just add that blogging has changed my life in a vast number of ways, and I still love writing in public now as much as I did when I clicked ‘Publish’ on my first ever post in 2006. Did WordPress look ugly back then or what?
I will reiterate what I’ve said before which is that I don’t think blogging is the thing to focus on if you want to make money online quickly. Blogs take a long time to build, since they’re very much relationship focused, and just relying on RSS – like most bloggers do – sets you on a horrible path when it comes to converting readers into buyers.
I offered the alternative CloudBlueprint strategy, which has proven popular, and two women making $5K per month proved that you can implement it into a blog as well. I want to take my recommendations for this further than ever before, and focus on both plugging the “flaws” that your blog has as best as you can and making sure it’s converting for you better than ever before.
Though I’m sure you take this as a given for ViperChill content by now, the article below is very long and contains a lot of different recommendations. Since my aim with this post is to help you, the last thing I want to do is overwhelm you with too many ideas and things you have to implement.
If you’re one of these people who are new to this whole blogging thing, then just take my top three recommendations and put them into action, and come back to this post another day for the rest.
Create a Page to Emphasise What’s Hot
Over the last year I’ve experimented with the “Popular posts” section of this website quite a lot. In the old ViperChill design I had a gradient-yellow column showing my top 10 posts. But, it was static and I had to make the headline text really small for it to look good in the design.
When I updated to my new theme, the popular posts were now automated, and I could easily set how many I wanted to show. These headlines were originally accompanied by images, but now you will just see them as the blue links in the right sidebar here. I removed the images recently and found that doing so not only speeded up the site but also improved it aesthetically, in my opinion.
I’ve now put less focus on that element of the sidebar, and put a few hours into a page you’ll find in the navigation bar here under the guise of ‘Viral’. The resulting page reveals a list of the most popular ViperChill posts I’ve written in terms of the number of comments that they’ve received. Since it’s highlighting the posts that have already proven popular with readers, it’s likely that at least one of the headlines will entice visitors to click on them, as they have done for so many others before.
I added a visual element to the page for people who are more stimulated by graphics. Not everyone likes to read text on a page, with many opting to look at a cover of something out of habit. I turned my top three posts into small magazine style graphics for this very reason, as you can see above.
I’ve noticed a clear increase on the number of comments this page has generated on older posts, so already know it’s working well in terms of directing visitors around the site. Though I haven’t done this at the time of writing, I’m going to be adding a link to the bottom of all ViperChill posts that takes people to this page.
This will be useful for people who have already opted-in to my ViperChill offerings and just want to read more of my free content. There are 19 posts listed (odd number, I know) so far, but I’ll probably extend the list to the top 30 posts in total.
The Getting Started Page
I’ll continue by looking at what is probably the most prominent change I’ve made to the site recently: The creation of a ‘Start Here’ page. I have Pat Flynn to thank for the inspiration, and his video critique with Derek also gave me the push I needed to finish some other changes I had planned to make for far too long.
Pat found that creating the page meant that people stayed on his site much longer (a 90% increase!), and his overall bounce rate was much lower. This makes sense, since people leaving the site quickly are usually first-time visitors. If they see a page that appeals to them “New Here?” then there’s a good chance you can get them to stick around.
There are some great tips in the video, so definitely check it out. I do want to say however that there are a couple of things that I disagree with. The first being on the way Pat should act on his About page. Derek suggests that Pat should change his wording to focus more on what he can offer the site visitor in terms of benefits, which I think is good advice in most cases.
However, I’ve personally found – especially in the niche that myself and Pat are in – that people are far more interested in hearing about the person behind the site, so they can quickly decide if that person is worth listening to or not. There are so many shady characters in this industry that will more than happily say what they can do for you, so I think his current page is perfect.
I also disagree with constant focus on getting an email address on a lot of pages. Sure it’s highly effective, but if you haven’t converted someone the first few times they see an opt-in box, then you’re missing some other key element. Perhaps what you’re giving away just isn’t enticing enough.
Pat’s “Getting Started” page was created in addition to his About page, where as I have replaced my About page with more information about me and the site. My reason is that I simply like to get to the point when I’m talking about myself, and the ‘philosophy’ of the site is very focused around me, so it made sense to combine them on one page.
The aim of my New? Start Here page is to really take new visitors to ViperChill by the hand, explain more about me and the site, and then offer more content. I am personal (read: cat pics) on the page as I always want my writing to feel as if I’m talking to you one-on-one. Note that I will be updating that video that’s on the page, but it’s a decent placeholder for now.
It was important for me to try and make the page appeal to a wide variety of audience types. For people who are really interested in ViperChill, they can watch a five minute video, find out about some of my top content, and even watch a 24 minute blogging video on that page if they want to. Other people might be enticed by the email subscription box, while some people mentally answer which “level” they are and click links to Beginner, Intermediate and more Advanced content.
I’m sure there are tweaks I’ll make to the page as time goes on so keep checking back, but even if there are possible improvements to be made, what I have now gives me a far more stable and efficient funnel than I had before.
Logic Prevails: A Simple Lesson from Book Covers
One of my favourite books on business and marketing, Rework, also happens to come from one of my favourite companies to follow online, 37Signals. They’re the guys behind Basecamp and some other popular online tools. I’m going to use their book cover as an example of how powerful one testimonial from an outside source can be.
Though I’m a big fan of 37Signals originally and would have purchased their book anyway, seeing the one line quote from Seth Godin at the top of Rework has a huge effect on how people, who stumble across the book randomly, perceive it.
Testimonials work because anyone can hype up themselves, so having other people say nice things about you instantly makes you more credible. And, if you can get someone like Seth Godin to hold you in such high regard, then you’re going to get the attention of his fans and more.
Since testimonials work so well on sales page and squeeze pages, it only makes sense to put them on areas of my blog near where people have the option to subscribe to something. I’m fortunate to have had some well-known publications say some nice things about me, and that’s powerful. If you share too many then you definitely run the risk of showing off or alienating current readers, so sprinkle them in your current design if you have some to share.
A few people on Twitter noticed my sidebar testimonials / quotes have been up for a few weeks now and asked me how they were converting. It’s hard to tell since I’ve added more opt-in boxes to the ViperChill and don’t have split-testing in place for my sidebar yet but I can see a clear difference when I look at my ‘Daily New Subscribers’ chart in Aweber. I went from getting 30 opt-ins per day on average to over 60 on weekdays now and hundreds on post days.
What, those three weren’t enough for you? It’s a good thing I have a lot more to share…
Discover Why People Are Unsubscribing, in Seconds
If you do have a lead magnet in place, which links to something like Aweber, then it’s very easy to see which emails you’re sending out result in people unsubscribing from your updates. If you know you’re sending something that people don’t like, then you can tweak that message in order to keep more subscribers on your list in future.
I have 28 unsubscribed people on my list at the moment. By going to Subscribers then selecting the Unsubscribed drop-down in Aweber, I can see exactly which emails people read before unsubscribing. You can see this data for various emails below…
- Email One: 14
- Email Two: 3
- Email Three: 1
- Email Four: 1
- Email Five: 1
- Email Six: 3
- Email Ten: 5
Nobody unsubscribed from emails 7,8 and 9, so obviously people enjoy the content found inside them. Email one gets a lot of unsubscribes as people often just sign-up for a freebie (such as my 10K eBook) and cancel their subscription straight away.
When I looked at email six, I actually think the content is excellent, so that wasn’t a concern. The only difference between email six and my other emails is that it is set to send out 7 days after the previous one, instead of every 3 days like my other emails.
I did this to give people a little break from all of the information they were getting, but instead I think people are confused by the delay, and unsubscribe. I put this back to being the same delay as other emails, and there has only been one unsubscribe from this message since.
Email 10 is actually the last email in my queue, and I haven’t followed up to it for at least two weeks. My thinking is that people still see the email in their inbox, with no follow-ups, and then unsubscribe. Any other theories on this are welcome in the comments below.
Since I’m getting dozen of opt-ins per day on this list, and sometimes over 100, my email unsubcribe rate is pleasantly low. That being said, any little tweaks – like I made to email six – can still have a positive long-term effect for me, and hopefully for you as well.
Different Sidebars for Different Site Sections
I’ve recently taken advantage of the ability to have multiple sidebars throughout your WordPress website, and I really think that the result is optimal for my current situation. When people are reading your blog posts, they’re getting value, so you want to take that opportunity to either get them to buy something, opt-in to something or read more of your content.
When people are on my About page, they want to know more about me. This shows me that the visitor is engaged. Because of this, I don’t want to still be in their face with an opt-in form which they’ve already seen on my blog posts. So, the sidebar used for posts and static (contact, about, etc) is now totally different. It also has an interactive element where I ask what level the visitor thinks they are in terms of marketing skill.
Each link then takes them to a section of links that are most useful for their level. Finally, I also have a separate sidebar for people following CloudBlueprint as I need to be able to show different information to those people. Ideally I want “CloudBlueprinters” to either share the course around, download the videos, or opt-in to get more information from me.
I put a lot of hard work into CloudBlueprint so it’s important to be clear about what I want people to do after they’ve watched it (if they enjoyed it, of course).
For those of you who don’t have multiple sidebars built into your theme, I have sadly failed to find a good updated guide online that shows you how to do this. However, thanks to the ViperChill forums, I recently learned of ‘Widget Context‘, a plugin that lets you specify which sidebar widgets show on which types of pages on your blog. You can specify them by a number of factors, which should help some of you easily replicate the type of thing I’m doing here if you see value in it.
I can’t say that this has had a huge effect on my conversions, since I’m not yet tracking it perfectly (it gets quite complex since I’m working on yet more sidebar pages). Logic and first impressions tell me that it’s going to have a far better impact than having the same sidebar all over my site, but I’ll let the results tell you all in a few weeks.
If You Don’t Have a Lead Magnet, You’re Missing Out
A big problem I’ve spoken about when it comes to blogging is that when a new visitor lands on your site, you’re often sending them away in order to monetise them. If someone comes to your site for the first time and clicks on an affiliate link or goes to your product page, and doesn’t buy anything, then there’s a chance you’ve lost them for good.
This is why I spoke about squeeze pages being such a huge benefit over regular blogs for collecting subscribers in CloudBlueprint. The $5K Case Study I also shared looked at taking this approach and applying it to blogs by adopting a “squeeze header”.
One way to fix this is to put more emphasis on creating a lead magnet. A lead magnet is something you use to entice people to give you their email address. I’ve talked time and time again about how email subscribers (in my experience and for thousands of other marketers) tend to buy more products and stay more engaged than any other type of audience.
I tend to go above and beyond for email subscribers, since I love the closed off yet personal nature of the whole system. The three most common types of lead magnet, which I unconvered in my pro blogging video tend to be:
- Podcasts
- eBooks
- Videos
If you don’t know how to create any of these then definitely go and check out the video above. You can create them all for free and they’re all effective freebies to giveaway online. I’ve recently heard of people having success with more obscure items, such as a “million dollar business card” with an idea on it, and having those work well.
If you have the time, then definitely be creative.
In my own split-testing I’ve found that adding a graphical element to your giveaway can give you a huge boost in conversions. Not only does it work on squeeze pages, but it works on sales pages as well. You can see I’ve already started adding graphics for the first few modules on the CloudBlogging sales page.
Not only do I have a lead magnet in the sidebar for all blog and post pages, but there’s an eBook graphic in the site footer here which takes you to my 10K subscribers page. My lead magnet is a 30+ page eBook on how I grew VieprChill to over 10,000 subscribers. Since this is a real case-study it’s quite rare to see, and I’ve been told by hundreds of people that they were blown away by how much work I put into it.
As I revealed on this post, I have tested a ton of titles on the page, and found the current header to be the best wording for conversions. Since the page is static (also talked about on that linked to post) I can easily tweak certain design aspects to help conversions even further. You’ll see that page has a very minimalist header and footer, as my main aim is to get people to fill in the opt-in box to receive the eBook.
Even if they just download it and unsubscribe straight away, there’s a chance they will come back to ViperChill in the future if they just open the PDF I sent them as it contains so much value-giving information.
As I stated earlier, not everybody is attracted to text and would be happy to read your content. New visitors are especially likely to skim your page and look for anything that catches their eye. Using a graphic next to an opt-in form or other call to action gives that CTA more chance of being seen.
Test Your Funnel
What I like to do when I think I have my whole lead generation funnel in place is to test my site in full, as if I’m a brand new visitor. I like to turn off any toolbars (even the address bar) in my browser, so you really just get to see your site and nothing else on the screen. The funnel that visitors typically go through is as follows:
- Step One: A new visitor lands on your site and notices your opt-in form
- Step Two: They enter their email address. As soon as they click the submit button, you should be taking them to a page that at least reminds them to check their email address. I say “at least” because visitors are usually in a very engaged state at this point, so may be happy to do more things. One option is to then offer a free eBook, and use a service like Cloudflood to make them tweet or Facebook share it (which gets you more traffic) in order to get the download link. I’ve used this to good effect.
- Step Three: They then visit their inbox and must click on a confirm subscription link. Make sure your text here has been customised in Aweber. Make the confirmation redirect go to a page on your where you give them what they opted in for. By default I had set this to go straight to my About page, but received a few emails from confused readers asking where their eBook was. Finally, remind visitors to once again check their email and to expect another one from you in a few days (if that is the case).
- Step Four: You continue to follow up with relevant and valuable content.
If you don’t have pages on your site for steps two and three then set them up right now. Just a few minutes work can ensure that you don’t lose subscribers unnecessarily.
Utilise the Power of Old posts
One benefit of blogging over a strategy like email marketing is that you constantly receive a trickle, if not a flood of visitors still looking at your old content. There are dozen of posts on this site which get 50+ views every single day because of links pointed here from other sites, search traffic, and people exploring ViperChill.
It’s important to focus on the fact that people coming from search and referring sites are highly likely to be brand new visitors to your website. This means that your blog post is possibly your only chance to give a good first impression and capture their attention. Below I’ll highlight a few common ways to tweak your old posts to get the most out of them…
Get Their Email & More with Shortcodes
With the help of my friend Joost, I recently created a simple WordPress plugin so that I could easily show certain style elements in any blog posts of my choice. I can do this by utilising shortcodes – little codes you use to call the contents of a file – so that if I want the same message on a lot of posts, all I have to do is type a short code, such as [SEOeBook] and an SEO eBook opt-in form would display. If I ever want to tweak this opt-in form in the future, then I just edit the plugin, and don’t have to tweak every individual post.
The great thing about shortcodes is that they can be used for tons of things. For example, they have the ability to easily show an RSS box or a category specific opt-in form which can convert readers much better. You could even create a list of links to your top posts in each category that shows on relevant posts.
At the moment all my plugin does by it output a date. It’s currently being used on my Viral page in order to show how frequently the comment counts on that page are updating. They aren’t automated yet, but I’m working with a programmer on it, so they should be very shortly. Hence the timestamp.
You can download my plugin here, and install it like any other WordPress plugin. At the moment all you have to do is type Wednesday, 28th of January on any post or page text, and it will always show yesterday’s date on that post. I won’t go into detail about programming or editing pages, but those of you with a little tech skill should be able to see how you can duplicate the plugin and create different shortcodes e.g. [SEOeBook] to show opt-in forms and more.
Change Your Ending Paragraph
When you first launch a post, your aims with it are usually different to its purpose a few months down the line. For example, you may be advertising a product you no longer have for sale, or asking for comments when you’re not actually looking for them anymore. Since people will still be reading your old posts, tweak your ending paragraph and ask them to do something else next.
Your best option is to send them to a page that is as relevant as possible to the topic they’re currently reading about and offers an enticing freebie.
Show Related Articles
Though I don’t do this personally, it’s a popular choice around the blogosphere so that’s why I’m covering it. Various plugins allow you to easily show articles that are related to the one you’ve just written. These plugins are considered good for SEO and they can help you to generate more pageviews.
The reason I don’t do this is because I ultimately want to take visitors through a different funnel. I would rather send them to a page which offers a ton of value (like a video course or free 30+ page eBook) and then entice them to subscribe or just send them to a page which highlights my best content in all categories.
Interlink
If you don’t want to use a related posts plugin, then another way to improve your internal SEO and keep people on your website longer is to interlink your articles. If you’re anything like me then every post you’ve published in the past can probably be tweaked to include more links to your other blog posts on the same topic.
This task is a little time consuming but if you’re willing to put the effort in then it can definitely be worth it. At least do this for your highest trafficked pages to start with. A few people out there use plugins for this kind of thing but the result isn’t always great. Tweaking things manually would be easier for me since I write less, so do try out the plugins out there and see if any are for you if post by post editing seems too much.
Link to a Product
If you’re not as focused on collecting emails as me and just want to go for the sale, then that’s definitely an option as well. When people take the time to read about a topic online, they’re in an engaged state where they’re happy to read more information on that subject. This is especially true if your blog post didn’t quite cover everything that they wanted to know.
Putting your own products on these posts can result in more sales for you, or you can even promote affiliate products here from the likes of Clickbank as well. If you are going to do this then I recommend that the product offering is highly relevant to the post, and not something you should add to all posts en masse.
Just Get Things Done
You’re going to reach a stage in your marketing career where there is very little for blogs to teach you. The best course of action you can take at this point is simply any form of action. There are a lot more people who know how to make money online (at least in theory) than people who actually do anything with their knowledge. Since you’re a ViperChill reader, and I’m here to help you, then I don’t want you to become one of those people.
Mostly out of personal curiosity, I decided to record myself writing during a Pomodoro. A pomodoro is simply 25-minute time slot where you take productive action. In this case, I wrote an article. I speeded up the typing and you can see how I wrote over 1,000 words very easily in the video below…
My apologies in advance for the cheesy editing. I needed something to make all of that writing a little more watchable ;]. The point I want to make is that you can get a lot done in a short period of time. All that’s needed is for you to just…start (!).
Display Social Proof
I very rarely (if ever these days) find myself subscribing to new blogs, so I always take note when I stumble across a new site and end up adding it to my feed reader. In most cases I’ll enjoy that sites latest posts, but often also see that thousands of other people are regular readers, which shows me there must be more good stuff to come.
If I removed any evidence of social proof from ViperChill – such as my feed subscriber and comment count – then I would still have the exact same content on the website, but people would be less inclined to subscribe.
I believe that your content is everything, first and foremost, and you all seem to do a pretty good job on that front, but if you have social proof that you can show off, then do so. My own WordPress plugin ViperProof (demo in the bottom right corner of ViperChill) is free and allows you to do this with ease.
It’s not so easy to show social proof when you start your blog, but if you’ve been running it for at least a few months then there should be some things that you can share with the world.
Use Heatmap Tracking to Monitor your Visitors
I’ve talked about Heatmap tools on this blog a few times. Right now I have heatmap tools built in to other services I use like Google Analytics and Visual Website Optimizer. Even so, I still opt to pay $9/m for Crazy Egg (no affiliate link) as it’s interface and analytics data is far more advanced than the ‘add ons’ mentioned for two prior services.
An example of something I changed after using CrazyEgg is the word ‘Glen’ in my site footer. According to my heatmap tracking results, that word would get clicked on more than most other links on my page. Yet, it wasn’t a link. Just some bold text.
So, I changed that word to a link (even though it looks the same) and now people can learn more about me when they do so. Though this was a little change, it can have a big difference when thousands of people are visiting my site, so it’s always worth trying to improve usability.
Implement a Feed Footer
Something a lot of bloggers could benefit from – but don’t implement – is a feed footer. A feed footer basically allows you to add HTML to the end of your blog posts that people receive via RSS. This may be in the likes of Google Reader, or in their inbox for people who subscribe that way.
I tweak my feed footer fairly often, and even created a plugin for free to help you tweak your own. I prefer to direct people to areas of my site whether they can either get something for free, or get more content from me.
I’ve noticed other bloggers pitching products at the bottom of their feed – which is fine – but it’s not something I have any plans (or need) to do personally.
Mine Your Data: What Worked?
One thing I know a number of bloggers get caught up in when they first start out is in trying to be everywhere, as often as they can. I’m personally a much bigger fan of narrowing where your spend your time and focusing on creating stronger connections. If you’re someone who really has given everything a try, look at your top referring traffic sources for the last year, to see which actions were the most helpful.
Commit to spending more time on the things that actually worked well for you. It may be that Tweeting is a good use of your time, commenting on a certain blog sends you a lot of visitors, or that you have a few keywords which are bringing in a good amount of search traffic and they could use a search boost.
You will get to a stage where you need to stop looking to others to see what to work on and start using your own real-world results to give you an indication of what is working in your niche. No marketer has operated in every industry out there, so there’s a good chance you’ll discover secrets about your industry we just couldn’t have told you about yet.
Give Your Blog Some Juice
I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks ensuring that my blog is as fast as it can be. There is still a lot of work to be done but I managed to take the load time on a slow conection from 12.5 seconds to just over 5. The two biggest changes involved me first of all cleaning up my code, removing CSS files I don’t need, and removing any Javascript calls that aren’t being used.
A good tool to give you an indication of which files are taking the longest to load on your site is this one, from Pingdom. My theme by default (before I massively tweaked it) had no less than 7 CSS files and about 12 Javscript files, which were massively slowing down my pageloads.
A few months ago I also started using Amazon’s CloudFront service. They basically host a few files for me (such as my CSS and javascript) and I handle the rest of the blog loads with my usual hosting. Amazon’s has CloudFront “clusters” in various locations around the world, so when you’re loading files from this site you’re actually pulling them from servers which are closest to you.
You are charged based on how much bandwidth you use, and my biggest bill so far has been just $2.17 for one month.
Next Stage: Flagship Categories
I wanted to leave you all with the final recommendation on what I’m going to next, and if you like the idea, then it may be something you want to do as well. I already my homepage optimised for a keyphrase I want search traffic for – viral marketing – so now it’s time to start branching out on the phrases that I want to try and rank for.
I’m going to replace the ‘Topics’ in the sidebar with links to flagship content, rather than category pages. I’ll create a great guide on various subjects, and then do some smart interlinking from relevant post pages. Since I’ll be sending traffic to these pages, they’ll also be optimised to convert new visitors into subscribers.
For people who are already subscribers and want more content, I’ll still be pulling in each category’s RSS feed so the pages are constantly updated with relevant links to my latest posts. This is something I’ve only ever seen done on a couple of websites and definitely has the potential to be another powerful page idea, just like the “Getting Started” page recommendation.
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below as always. Are you going to be making any changes to your site now? I would love to hear what you have to say…
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Great work Glen,
All of these are excellent tips that definitely go beyond the basics. I think we’re going to see a much larger push for getting started pages in the coming months.
A few months ago I made a getting started page on one of my blogs and it increased the engagement exponentially. On the page, I have a great list of items related to the hobby based on different price points (I used Quantcast to find out the demographics and average income) so this takes care of the 3 types of people visiting the site. I follow this up with an affiliate offer for quickly getting started (which converts quite well) and then some of the essential posts on the blogs.
I’ve also been tweaking a few things such as adding a helpful imagine in the sidebar for new comers to visit the getting started page. Also added additional information to the confirmation page for the email opt-in (including an affiliate link to product previously mentioned).
The issue, with blogging as I see it, is that it’s hard to find out where to start when you first land on a blog. The top posts certainly help but it doesn’t paint the full picture. Having ‘resource’ style pages that list the series and best of posts is a much better form than just having a resource page.
I plan to do major revisions for my blog Murlu and the PLR freelancing site I’ve created. Going for full on empire with this one. Spent the last 3 weeks working on a strategy for the sites so the remainder of this year is going to be quite busy and exciting.
Hope everyone else is aiming to go large. Remember, you could have a blog or you could build an asset. Go with the later.
I’m a little ashamed to admit that it took me far too long to implement what I knew from the affiliate marketing world in terms of conversions and making $ and apply it to blogs. Since I’ve been putting more and more focus here I’m experimenting like crazy (with the Viral page, for example) and the new footer, and things are working out really well.
I have quite a few more ideas up my sleeve, but I’ll save that for a future post.
Thanks for sharing your own experiences Murray. It’s good to further see that this really is solid information that people need to use, because it works, rather than just hype you’re going to see regurgitated for a while – a commonality in this industry
Appreciate the comment!
- Glen
Glad you didn’t retire after the last post Glen.
BT
Nope, but I just might now…
That’s one of those awesome benefits of having a successful blog, Glen.
When you first start blogging all you can really do is experiment and try to learn as much as you can but since you have a small audience, when starting, it’s hard to truly gauge the impact of what you implement.
A high traffic blog, on the other hand, gives you a lot of feedback nearly instantly.
You can then take what you’ve learned and apply it to other projects, websites and business practices.
Successful blogging, in my opinion, is really about reading between the lines. I learn a hell of a lot more by trying to understand a bloggers reasoning behind what they do than what they write, more often than not.
Develop a system and you can apply it to literally anything online; that’s the power.
Good point. You should be writing more about this stuff.
Don’t be ashamed Glen. Shame should never take part on your road to success because every lesson you learn brings you much closer to living your dream.
@Murray,
What is the conversion rate of the affiliate offer you referred to? If this is a URL you’d share, I’m sure many besides myself would like to see it. Maybe some of us will buy
I definitely share your view on building an asset. This was a topic of a past post of mine. Its so easy to do “busy work” instead of “building work”. For me, I focus on the building in the morning when I’m the sharpest, and then as I become less productive, I shift to the other stuff.
@Glen,
Clearly you love to write, mate. I love your stuff, but would love it more if it was shorter!
Seriously though…you have terrific ideas and I’d love to have you on an upcoming episode of my podcast. Ping me if you are interested.
Thanks,
Trent
Hey Trent,
It’s a bit shockingly low, probably around 0.5% actually from the total traffic but I understand that the income plays a huge factor. Since many of the blogs’ visitors are generally 15 – 21 the offer of $67 is a bit high especially when the physical products they need to get started can run anywhere from $300 – $1000. They go for the products way over the Clickbank offer. However, the CTR on the email side is much higher (I need to check and figure up the stats). It’s doing well but the one problem with the niche is that there really aren’t many competitors in the market that have products on Clickbank so there’s not a lot of ways to maximize the back end.
The good thing is that Amazon Associates does really well which gets about a 1.5% conversion rate. It’s been puling in an avg. of $300 a month and seems to be climbing about $50 every month.
I’m constantly updating and tweaking things. Got a few new elements to add to the blog.
It really is unbelievable how much there is to know to be a successful blogger. I feel like more new bloggers just fail to plan and therefore wander around in the blogging nether regions until they burn out and quit.
It’s cool to see well thought out plan for where to go next.
Thanks Graham,
There’s a lot involved, but just take it all one step at a time. There’s no rush
So true, the idea is to take it slow like Glen said, you may find tons of information at your fingertips, but it doesn’t mean you have to digest it all at once.
Thanks a lot for the awesome post Glen!
You made a really great point about changing the ending paragraphs of your blog posts and I have a lot of blog posts getting a constant stream of visitors from Google everyday but the ending aren’t that okay – I really need to change those soon.
Concerning the feed footer plugins, I noticed that by adding a feed footer to your RSS feed people who are not subscribed to your blog but are just accessing the URL directly through a browser can see what you want only subscribers to see. What do you think about this?
I can also reason with your flagship categories tip and I have just included it in a list of my next blog redesign – I will be creating flagship pages like with Copyblogger and I will be focusing on increasing SEO traffic to it.
This content really rocks and you’re also a master at making people read your whole content, irrespective of the length!
Thanks so much and keep up the great work!
-Onibalusi
BTW I forgot to ask. In the Video was it Darkroom you’re using (I started using Darkroom based on your recommendation and its awesome how it works – I even used it to write one guest post for Problogger which was accepted instantly)?
I’m using Writeroom since I’m an Apple whore
Hey Oni,
Thanks for the comment
You said:
“I noticed that by adding a feed footer to your RSS feed people who are not subscribed to your blog but are just accessing the URL directly through a browser can see what you want only subscribers to see. What do you think about this?”
Do you mean by accessing the feed URL? If so, that doesn’t concern me at all. I’m just linking back to my own website…
Yeah. I mean by accessing the feed URL. I give people some free bonuses if they subscribe via RSS but people who are yet to subscribe are still able to see it.
Oh, I’m not sure how to protect against that I’m afraid.
it seems like a bit of a long workaround though, so if people are willing to go that far for your products, they’re not going to disappear anytime soon.
That’s right Glen. I guess one just have to live by it.
Nice post Glen (as always).
I’m going to have a try at implementing a ‘getting started’ page on one of my sites to see how it helps.
Also it’s cool that you’ve started putting your word count in the title so we know how long it’s going to be before we get started
Hah. My original title was “Blog Boosting: Taking Your Site to The Next Level” but I didn’t like it enough to click Publish. This was a last-minute alternative
Not much to say about the content of this post. It’s just brilliant as usual.
The video of you typing the post is very original, lol. I actually watched it all! I liked the music…
Thanks for another amazing post,
Cristina
Hah, somebody actually watched it?!
Thanks for stopping by, Cristina
Wow, Glen – Epic post, although we’ve come to expect no less from you
A lot of these things are on my to do list right now, but I know it’s going to be a long process to get them in place. The last thing I want to do is rush through and sloppily add a bunch of new elements without testing which ones give the biggest return on my particular site.
But then again, my blog is still young, so at this point, any changes I implement now that make it better in the long run will hopefully pay off in a year or two.
Keep the good stuff coming!
Hey Sarah
Good to see you back over here again!
Go with your gut, and then backtrack
I will definitely be experimenting with these suggestions!
Thanks Glen,
Craig
You’re welcome Craig!
Thanks for the comment.
Posts like this are why I buy your products Glen. I get so much value from the content you give away, that I really want to pay you back. All of the extra content in the products are just icing on the cake!
Thanks for the hard work! You are helping a lot of people!
-Richard
Very kind comment Richard, thank you.
It’s good to see you back here
Even though my site is about my insights as a writer and record producer, and doesn’t have any focus on making money, your posts keep nudging me to monetize…
I’m tempted. Seriously, I’m tempted. Working with musicians isn’t as fun as it sounds. Maybe funny, but not always fun!
Haha, I like!
What is holding you back?
Not having products to sell, I suppose. Can anyone here see my site and help me figure out something suitable?
What is the one thing you can do all day where time just disappears…
First, thanks for the link my man! Much appreciated :-D.
And you’re right. In this niche people like to read all about the person behind the site, which is why I tend to follow this formula:
Section 1: A short introduction (less than 100 words) that explains what the site is all about, and what that means to the reader. In your case, I saw you used a video, and that’s better than 100 word introduction.
Section 2: Social proof that reassures the reader that you’re qualified to teach them what you promised to teach them. I personally use testimonials, but you can launch into an “about me” that bonds with the new visitor, while also reassuring them you’re the perfect person to teach them what they want to learn. In your case, you do the about me, and I dig it.
Section 3: More social proof, but in a different format. If you haven’t used testimonials yet, do that here. If you haven’t wrote the “about me” part, do that here.
When I was talking to Pat, I suggested that he add section 1 to his about page, because he started off the bat with section 2 (which works great obviously, but I suspect with some split testing, he’ll find the new version will work a bit better).
Also with regard to email sign up forms… I don’t think I communicated that well in Pat’s video. I don’t really mean people should overload their site with opt-in forms. That’s annoying.
I mean that you should structure your site in a way that has opt in forms in all the right places. Like here, for example, you have one right after the post concludes, and in your sidebar. Then you have your lead magnet pages that you link to throughout your site.
Unfortunately, most people only have forms in their sidebar and they leave it at that. They don’t have Start here pages, they don’t have lead magnet pages, they don’t have forms after the post concludes, and etc. They leave it at the sidebar, and that’s it.
Anyway, I better wrap this up, now that I wrote a book for a blog comment, heh. And again, thanks for the mention :-).
P.S. I’m totally jacking your idea for a what’s hot page. When I saw you launch that, I knew I was going to have to make one too, heh.
Hey man,
I really appreciate the comment and will reply in more detail, but I’m curious to see what you think of the following, while you’re here:
“Email 10 is actually the last email in my queue, and I haven’t followed up to it for at least two weeks. My thinking is that people still see the email in their inbox, with no follow-ups, and then unsubscribe. Any other theories on this are welcome in the comments below.”
Do you agree with my guess, or have any thoughts?
Basically I get a lot of unsubscribes on my final email…
Do you mention anywhere in your email sequence that it’s a 10-part email series? If so, people tend to unsubscribe after they receive the “final” email, which would explain your higher unsubscribes for email 10.
However, if you don’t mention it’s a 10 part series, I’d suspect that its the email itself. People don’t usually unsubscribe because you don’t email them enough. They unsubscribe when they feel you email them too much.
To test, I’d just move email 9 to the email 10 spot, and see what happens. Or, you can simply remove email 10 from the sequence, and see if the unsubscribes transfer to email 9.
Overall, I wouldn’t be too concerned just yet though. There are still very few unsubscribes, and while the number is larger than the other numbers, I don’t think you have a large enough sample to draw meaningful data… yet.
I had to take a 30 minute break to finish reading this beast of an article
Do you have any tips for donation conversions?
Thanks!
Sadly I have only received one myself
Well, I had to take ane hour to finish reading this article, but I thing this is valuable article that we should read to the end. Right?
If you want to
I’ve only ever received one (though to be fair the link has been live for just a few days) so I can’t really give you any tips on that
Provide so much value that you make people feel obliged to pay you? How’s that for a direction…
Steve Pavlina tweeted in June how he’s received $5,000 in donations from his site for the year.
I agree with providing so much value that people feel obliged to pay.
Wham bam thank you, ma’am, my qeustonis are answered!
Hah it’s all in the guilt trip right?
Glen, thank you for yet another awesome piece. It’s so amazing the depth, frequency and altruism of the posts you keep putting here. I feel quite lucky knowing people like you before starting out.
Thanks buddy, I appreciate that.
Congratulations on yet another fantastic and indepth post Glen! As per usual, I will be bookmarking this and coming back to it – there’s too much advice to take in one sitting!
Thanks Tom!
I’m glad you liked it.
Hey Glen,
I admire your ability about blogging, walk around on the ViperChill I noticed that from the beginning you wrote the quality articles, and have to say is super long.
For those not fluent in English like me, with the articles too long will make me easy depressed, and I’ll leave it. However, I must to say that your article is very attractive and valuable. It inspired me to read your article to the end because I feeling It is a perfect guide.
As you said: “Blogs take a long time to build, since they’re very much relationship focused, and just relying on RSS – like most bloggers do – sets you on a horrible path when it comes to converting readers into buyers.”. To make money online from the blogs is not easy work. I started blogging for 1 year ago but still not earn any money from my blog. I think I have the mistakes, and that is reason I relaunched my blog. To fix my mistake.
Now I read your article about blogging conversion and I think this is best guides that I need at the time. Just want to say thanks so much about your free tutorials, Glen.
Thanks.
Thanks Trung,
I appreciate the feedback especially since English isn’t your first language.
You’re very welcome. It’s good to have you here
You a millionaire yet Glen?
Erm…no…
Not sure I get the joke / relevance, sorry.
Just commenting on your hard work and knowledge of marketing
Thanks for the heads up on “widget context”, Glen! I’ve been looking for something like this ever since Derek analyzed Pat’s and Corbett’s sites.
I love the Viral page and it just begs to be clicked when you see it in the nav!
I’m curious how you’re going to approach split-testing your autoresponder series. Will you be playing with the delay first and then content?
Thank you for all the hard work you put into this post Glen, I (we) really appreciate it!
Good Vibes~
Vic
Sweet. Glad you’ve sorted it.
If I do play with the delay, all I will do is actually send out emails sooner, but I have no plans to do that just yet.
BTW, come on buddy. You know better than to put your name as ‘internet marketing’ by now
Just wanted to add that you can use custom fields to help pick which sidebar you want to use for whatever page/post.. saves adding another plugin
Thanks for the heads up!
Hi Glen,
Great post – stacked with great information – I love tracking email unsubscribes – tells me a lot about the quality of subscribers and the quality of my emails
Congratulations on the massica traffic growth and your continuing success – you deserve it.
All the best
Cathy
Thanks Cathy, I appreciate the kind words.
Glen
The information and ideas in your post are terrific for someone like me who is just starting out on blogging and I offer you my sincere thanks. I have printed out this post for my files but wonder if there’s a chance of a printer friendly button in the future?
Hi Joe
I used to have one here but literally nobody seemed to click it.
If there are more requests I’ll definitely add it back. Thank you for the kind words!
Great info as per usual.
I’m going to digg into that shortcode thing you were talking about.
That can be a huge timesaver!
Thanks mate!
Agreed.
Thanks for the comment buddy
Thanks Glen, you’ve inspired me to get my finger out and give my blog some more attention!
How long are you coming back to Newcastle for then? Are you going to any events when you’re here?
Not certain at the moment. it could be a month…it could be two weeks.
Thanks for the comment!
Hey Glen
You just keep giving!!! Awesome post and even at 5867 words, a pleasure to read.
My ‘beginner’ page on my cheese making website is by and far the most popular page so I totally agree with your advice on implementing a Start Here page.
You’ve reminded me again that I have to get on with creating my lead magnet but with only 3 months of blogging seriously, there has been plenty to do!!
And your posts like this one keep on giving me more to try!
Anyway, thanks for all the great content and I look forward to your next post.
Thanks Rachael,
And congrats on making it to three months. Don’t worry, these are the hardest stages
Hey Glenn,
Have you thought about *not showing* the optin box to those already subscribed?
I mean, is not that difficult and you can take advantage of that prime real state …
Cheers,
JP
It isn’t?
Tell me more…
Thank you Glen. Wow – info overload but really valuable content. You are one of just a few internet marketers I follow (including Pat!) and you never dissapoint.
I have already made a few changes to my site which will be going live next month after reading your post, mainly – removing the opt in box on my About Page (was too pushy), Making my “popular posts” blue font like yours with a black text one liners. Other tips such as book cover images, adding testimonials, changing last paragraphs of posts – so many things I can and will implement. I will definatley be bookmarking this post and going back to it.
Thanks and please keep these great posts coming.
Emma
Thanks Emma,
That’s the kind of feedback I keep writing for. It’s appreciated!
I like your blog and have been following for a while but considering the vast majority of readers subscribe and read blogs via their mobile device and/or via a service like Google Reader, all of these design elements are not really that important, especially if what you’re offering is information, advice and not an actual product. The only time I actually get on an actual blogger’s site is to comment, like I’m doing now. Otherwise, it’s all on my mobile device or through Google reader, where I might add, it’s not easy to comment from which is why it’s hard to GET blog comments in the first place.
Hey Farrell,
Judging by my blog’s stats…plenty of people still come to the blog to consume the content, so I think Glen’s suggestions are still very worthwhile. I have already implemented a few of them.
Trent
Great Post as usual GLEN……thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome.
Thanks for the comment!
Congratulations Glen for this in-depth and wonderful post. I must say that you have achieved tremendous level of in-depth expertise in understanding blog elements.
Learnt a lot from you. More to come.
Keep rocking
Those are some great tips, a lot that I am not currently using and your site looks great. Very clean. That is the biggest problem with mine right now. I really need to get someone in there that knows code really well to do some specific ideas I have in mind. I will start with your suggestions. Thanks!
Glen.. AWESOME post, these last two have been pure gold. Thanks so much for sharing.
You told me on my last comment you are going to be in Newcastle this month… I’ve been an avid VC fan for about a year now and would LOVE the chance to hook up briefly and get some IM advice. Would buy you a beer!!! Give me a shout if you fancy being a legend.. mishreki@gmail.com
Would be massively appreciated as I would love to pick your brain..
Thanks man
James
Another amazing post Glen, you just keep pushing the bar up
Thanks Chris,
Really glad you enjoyed the post!
Hello! Glen i was searching the net all around and now just visited your blog .Awesome your blog design and yes one thing your Post size!!!!!Its too long, however just read the whole informarive and 10 on 10 .
Thanx
Hey buddy where I can ask query related to viperbar?I installed it but cant modify it,I am usng the latest wordpress version cant save the things moreover save button doesnt work in it for me
http://www.viperchill.com/vip/
If there is one blog that I suggest my readers go to, this is probably in my top 3, and I’m not saying this to be nice. Overall, one of the best and I’m not just saying that.
Wow. Awesome post. I like how detailed the information was. I really liked your section on using the power of old posts. It gave me a few ideas that I am going to incorporate into my new website.
I always enjoy your long detailed posts and this one is one of the best you’ve written so far for sure.
i would like to see a post about efficient landing pages from you though
I’ve just gone through a total site redesign and picked that as the time to add in the viral link at the top of my page. Out of 1000+ views per day, I’m averaging 4 clicks on that link each day. I’m wondering if I should change the link name or if it’s the nature of my audience.
How many links do you have on the page?
Hey there Glen, I had been following your blog for quite sometime. I love the way you writer your blogs. It’s impressive and gives me a boost to work more harder. Other than that, I love the ideas that you share throughout the blog. Looking forward to more and more of your blog posting.
Cheers
NgPillai
The idea of multiple sidebars is really interesting – you could tailor it to the type of post you are writing. I tend to have everything in my one sidebar which can get way too long and cumbersome, so this is food for thought!
Hi!! glen, my name is Alex and i came across your blog a few days ago, and i have really enjoyed reading all your post since I am barely new to the blogging world, that’s is why i want to ask you for your permission to let me use your entries images in my website. I already used some of them (just to see they look in my site
If you do not want me to use them please let me know and i will immediately remove them. just wondering…did you create them or did you downloaded them from another site?
omg glen you are too good i love this post i will implimant all what you share here bro thanks a lot
Blimey – what a cracking post, makes me think I’ve got a lot to adopt with my blog! Really good read and thanks for sharing!
Hi glen. I’m from Indonesia. I can understand your post 80 %. I am really interested your post. I’m new blogger. I just created blog with blogspot flatform. now I do research what content my blog. the problem like me is I’m not fluent English. all websites almost use English. I have to write in English if I want to follow these programs (PPC, adsense, and afiliate marketing). I know It’s so hard for the people who dont know english very well. hehehhee.
if you use wordpress i think you can translate it to any language pretty much, or search for themes that are already translated in your language
Hey, i have one little question, which programm do you use to make, pictures like
http://i.imgur.com/Rzfht.jpg
or
http://i.imgur.com/8itH2.jpg
Photoshop for Mac OSX
There are lots of scripts for Photoshop that you can get for pretty cheap for e-Book covers, just check GraphicRiver (owned by Envato).
Great content here Glenn, as usual. Just one thing.
Your logo’s been bugging me for months. The “VC” part is cool but the shadow disappears to the left, where it’s abruptly cut off. Get your designer to fix that?
I still can’t believe you’re younger than me… what a guy – great tips, as ever Glen!
Just wanted to add that you can use custom fields to help pick which sidebar you want to use for whatever page/post.. saves adding another plugin
Hahaahha. I’m not too bright today. Great post!
Hi Glen..
I really love to read your blog, you share so much nice info here..
This post is very nice, and i love to read it..
Keep up the good work Glen
Awesome Job man
what is that program or BIOS .
where were you typing your post
no distractions
i want that too
Great post!
All those tips are just great Glen. I had not come to your blog in a while because I’m so busy, but I am coming back and enjoying your super long great post.
Hey Sylviane
Good to see you back here. You’re forgiven
This is the first post I’ve read on your site, but am planning on working my way through it all. Discovered your site after reading the article in the Guardian on 03.09.11 – looking forward to seeing how your tips help Andrea (and, therefore, help me!)
Cheers
John
Hello Glen! It is a very long but yes informative post.Glen I want to ask you one question as you listed Interlinking in this post,so can we use gadgets like Dhiti to interlink.One more ques. where can i fing viperbar as seen on many blogs???
Thanks for the post…Waiting for reply………
Thanks Glen, I have applied the above tips to our copy writing in our blog posts and already seen a noticeable improvement. Read your write up in the guardian and have been following your posts since. Ive requested all my content team to bookmark your blog. Thanks again Glen. Mark
“Thank you Glen. Wow – info overload but really valuable content. You are one of just a few internet marketers I follow (including Pat!) and you never dissapoint.”
Absolutely agree.
M
Wow! Hell of a post!
Some fantastic stuff in there, thanks! Might I suggest an iPad friendly eBook? Would have made reading it on the commute easier!
Great post, did you are launch the Viper Bar for Word press mate? I thin you were testing it last time I messaged you.
Amazing stuff here Glen. With all this great content I am shocked you don’t want to do any affiliate marketing on VC, but that’s what makes you the most genuine guy out there. This information will help me in so many ways.
I’ve seen pay with a tweet before, and it blew my mind when you didn’t like it and you created your own and are giving it away for FREE on top of that. Unbelievable dude. keep it up
I actually really like the “getting started” or “new?” page idea. Initially I thought it wouldn’t work on some of my financial sites but after thinking about it it could work quite well. We already get a pretty good page impression and low bounce rate but I am sure there must be some who arrive at the site and think “this is all a bit much, can’t be bothered”. But I think page design would be key. You don’t want the ones who have landed on what they are looking for to get distracted and leave the site without a sale or in my case a click through.
This is a fantastic usability guide! If I may suggest an addition, this would be to carefully monitor user behavior in each page (navigation paths, entrances etc.) in order to be able to decide what to promote as cross link elements in each template or page of your blog!
Hey glen really a great post,
first i thought it’s too long but after started reading i enjoyed a lot and learned so many points here.
This information helps me a lot, once again thanks for the great stuff i liked it.