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Harvesting Demand vs. Creating Demand

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When it comes to most digital channels (think your typical online marketing activities), the focus is often on getting in front of customers who know they need your products/services.

Here’s the catch: eventually, you run into limitations. Why? Because you’re working with existing demand, and existing demand is always limited.

Which means at some point, you’re going to have to create demand for your offering.

But how do you do that? And do you have to choose one versus the other?

Before we dive in too deep, let’s break down the difference between harvesting demand vs. creating demand.

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How To Use Quora For SEO & Content Marketing

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Quora is the largest question and answer website on the internet. It has been around since 2009.

While Quora never achieved the cultural prominence that it was hyped up to be in the mid-2000s, it has become a staple of the internet.

Quora allows you to get answers from real experts or at least people in relevant industries. Unlike Google, Facebook or Twitter, it allows you to get more nuanced answers.

But like any giant website with lots of user-generated content like Wikipedia, Pinterest or Reddit, it’s an absolute gold mine for SEO and content strategy.

Here are some ways that I use Quora for SEO, content development and Link building.[Continue Reading]

GoDaddy Email Problems: Solving Issues w/ Forms & Not Receiving Email

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For years, I’ve had issues with email forms on websites hosted at GoDaddy. Whether I was trying to get a contact form in WordPress to work, or simply forward emails within cPanel, the whole troubleshooting process was just a pain.

The GoDaddy email issue especially pops up when a client switches from GoDaddy email hosting to a 3rd party email host like Google, Zoho, NameCheap, etc.

And it turns out that it’s not just me. It’s a documented issue with everything from WooCommerce to other non-WordPress software.

But GoDaddy’s documentation is straight-up horrible and poking around StackOverflow / Googling developer forums gets old after a while. So here’s a short guide to GoDaddy form email problems that I wish I had several years ago.[Continue Reading]

How to Build a Minimally Viable Website

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So you want to get your product/service/thoughts in front of an audience, and you need a website. Time to buckle down and create a massive, beautiful site, right?

Wrong.

When you’re launching anything, the most important goal is to get data. Without data, you can’t possibly make something as good as it can be — and that applies to your website, too.

One of the biggest mistakes business owners make when launching a website is starting too big and too well designed (especially ecommerce sites).

You don’t need pages and pages of content or some fancy design. What you do need is a minimally viable website.

Here’s how to build one…

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How to Write Better Email Copy for E-Commerce Stores

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Email can be a powerful way to connect with your e-commerce customers. But you already know that.

Chances are, you’ve landed here because you’re looking to make your emails better.

In order to keep your email list engaged and taking action, your actual emails have to be good… which means the copy (AKA the words in the email) needs to get the job done.

So, how do you improve your email copy for your e-commerce store? Here are 5+ email copywriting rules to follow.

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Essential Guide To Choosing A Website Designer

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So you need to know how to choose a website designer.

But here’s the problem.

“It depends” is both the most correct and the most unhelpful answer.

There has never been more choices in the website design industry than now. But paradoxically, all those choices make actually choosing more difficult than ever.

The secret to choosing wisely is to understand exactly what you need rather than attempting to sort & filter all the choices on offer.

Like any other large purchase like a house, car, appliance, etc – if ditch the idea of a “best” – and instead, write out your exact needs, requirements, and goals, then the best option for you will usually self-select itself.

In other words, choose a website designer through elimination based your goals rather than searching out the one right fit.

With that concept in mind, here’s how to walk through the process of elimination to choose the right website designer for your project.[Continue Reading]

139 Business Quotes to Inspire and Execute On

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Entrepreneurship is a bit like running a marathon — you have to keep pushing forward to get to the finish line, even when you’re out of breath, cramping, and on the verge of walking off the path and saying, “Forget it, I quit.”

To help you keep running, I’ve compiled a list of 139 motivational business quotes you can use to inspire and execute on.

And if you want to take your motivation a step further and start getting your entrepreneurial tasks done, you can sign up for my newsletter, which curates and summarizes the best marketing articles every week so you can read less and learn more.

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How to Retain Email Subscribers

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Did you know it costs five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain one? Or that by increasing your retention rate by just 5%, you can increase your profits by 25-95%?

Now that I’ve got your attention, let’s talk email marketing.

Email marketing is one of the top ways to retain customers. But in order to do that, we’ve got to keep people on our list.

Unfortunately, a lot of business owners put too much emphasis on growing the list instead of retaining the subscribers they have. Meanwhile, they’re losing subscribers left and right, sometimes before they even get the first welcome email.

In order to make email marketing an effective retention technique, we’ve got to retain subscribers. Here’s how to do it.

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Google Sites Review: Pros & Negatives of Using Google’s Website Builder

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Google Sites is Google’s free website builder software that it offers as part of the G Suite of Drive, Email, Hangouts, etc.

Sites has never been highly publicized like its other products. I’ve always thought of Sites as part of the bucket of products like Drawing, Blogger, and Correlate that sort of come as part of other, well-known product lines but are otherwise forgotten about…yet still awesome in their own way.

If you have a Google Account, go check out Google Sites here.

I’ve written about Google’s Domains product and Blogger – but have never looked at Google Sites specifically.

My experience with Google Sites began back when I first started my web design business years and years ago. I never used Google Sites for my projects until I came across it when a client of mine was using it and needed a few tasks done.

But since then, better competition has popped up from Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, WordPress.com and other website builders. And Google has upgraded the product I originally used. They’ve streamlined it to make it supposedly the “effortless way to create beautiful sites.”

See Google Sites here…

Skip to the Conclusion & Next Steps

So for a personal project of mine, I decided to try it out again and see who the product would really be a good fit for – and not just compared to other hosted website builders.

I also wanted to compare Google Sites to other website solutions like hosting your own website or using a hosted ecommerce platform.[Continue Reading]

15+ Ideas for Using Search Analytics More Effectively

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Search Analytics is one of the most useful tools in Google Search Console’s suite of tools. It provides a lot of data about how your website is performing in Google’s organic search results.

But like any data source – it is useless, unless you know how to put the data into action. Even though the best ways to use Search Console are specific to your website, there is a myriad of ways to put the data into action.

As of 2018, Google has launched an all-new Google Search Console. The software is still in Beta. You can get access at search.google.com. It is different on multiple levels and is still not completely built. I’ve added in a section at the end about how to use the current beta Search Analytics features. I highly recommend using both the old & the new until the new one is completely built-out.

Until then, you can use the following 15 tips in both the old & the new. In fact, the new version has longer reporting times (a full 16 months!!). Once the new one is fully built-out, I’ll revise the screenshots.

Either way, here are 15+ ways that I like to use Search Console to solve SEO problems. Hopefully, you’ll be find something to use or build on to put your own data into action.[Continue Reading]

How To Use Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools) Effectively

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Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) is Google’s suite of tools, data & diagnostics to “help you have a healthy, Google-friendly site.”

It’s the only place to get search engine optimization information about your website directly from Google.

Side note – Bing has a separate but similar tool suite at Bing Webmaster Tools.

Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools) is free. Any website can use it. But, simply installing it will not improve your SEO, or your organic traffic. It’s a toolset – which means you have to understand how to use Google Search Console effectively to make any difference on your website.

As of 2018, Google has launched an all-new Google Search Console. The software is still in Beta. You can get access at search.google.com. It is different on multiple levels and is still not completely built. I’ve added in a section at the end about how to use the current beta features. I highly recommend using both the old & the new until the new one is completely built-out.

That said, both can be a bit daunting to understand. This tutorial will go through what each feature is, what you should be using it for, and some ideas on being creative with it.[Continue Reading]

7+ Ways To Do Better Competitor Research for SEO & Content Marketing

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You won’t get ahead in any industry if you simply copy your competitors. And this is especially true in SEO & content marketing.

Competitor research for SEO is really tough because…

  • Nobody truly knows what they are doing.
  • Confirmation bias is the default.
  • Being different has a bigger payoff than being better.
  • Your competitors are probably copying you.
  • And a myriad other reasons.

But – you’re probably going to do it anyway so here’s a few things I do to make it a little more useful.[Continue Reading]

How to Boost Your Productivity at Work

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Boosting productivity is a hot topic, especially for business owners and entrepreneurs who find themselves doing a ton of work.

The whole time is money adage is true, but here’s what your run-of-the-mill productivity article won’t tell you…

Productivity means nothing if you’re doing the wrong things.

This is where so many people go wrong. They focus on being efficient but don’t stop to think about being effective.

In order to boost your productivity, you’ve got to do both. But before we go into how let’s talk about what makes them different.[Continue Reading]

How to Promote Your Website Online (for free!)

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So you want to promote your website online…for free, preferably.

By now, you probably know from experience that the “build it and they will come” philosophy is flawed. You can have great content — in fact, you need at least “good” content — but unless you know how to promote it, your site is a ghost town. But you also don’t have the budget to go straight to advertising online.

You don’t need a grab bag of tips and tricks. You don’t need best practices to “go viral”. What you need is an actual process to follow consistently to create a “flywheel effect“.

Here is an exact, step-by-step strategy that I recommend to anyone who wants to promote their website online. The specific details vary, but it’s a pretty tried and true path for anyone who wants to promote their website.

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WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org: Which Should You Use?

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So you’re exploring starting a website. And you’ve chosen WordPress as your software of choice. It powers more than 25% of the Internet. It’s famous for its versatility and ease of use.

But for anyone unfamiliar with the WordPress world – there’s a point of confusion. WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org – which should you use? What’s the difference? What’s the best fit for your website?

Here’s a concise overview of what you should think about before getting started.[Continue Reading]

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