This is a guest post by Daniel Cassady from BenchmarkEmail.com

How’s that blog going? Good, you say? Same here. Of course, I could use some more readers, but then again, who couldn’t, right?

Does this sound familiar?

If you’re a blogger – especially one that is trying to make money with your blog, there’s a good chance that you’ve spent your fair share of time trying to figure out how to lure new readers to your blog, and with varying amounts of success.

Most people tend to move toward social media sites like Facebook and Twitter when they want to increase their readership, and they are right to do so. The world of social media, if you didn’t already know, is growing by leaps and bounds every year, and with smartphones and tablets with built-in social media apps becoming as common as the rhinovirus, you can be sure that the influence social media has over the decisions people make will only grow stronger.

Then, of course, there is old reliable – email marketing. Not too long ago, email marketing was considered a passé tool for promoting and marketing. But, take a look at your inbox. Email marketing is back and in a huge way. Groupon and Living Social are two perfect examples of email marketing at it’s most successful.

So what does this mean for you, the blogger looking to hit it big?

It means that if you want to make the most of your promoting buck (an odd choice of words, I know since both social media sites and email cost little to nothing), then wouldn’t it make sense to combine the promoting power of social media and email marketing?

Of course it would. And here are a few ways to do just that.

Share-Worthy Content

This first tip is pretty simple. People are more apt to share exciting, fun content like videos or podcasts than run of the mill blog posts or price lists. Think about it this way. What are you more likely to forward to a friend, a photo ad or a funny video? If you keep your content in your emails interesting and engaging, the higher the odds of your content being shared on social media sites.

Encourage The Sharing Mood

As much as you would like them to, people don’t generally pass on promotional emails to their friends with excitement. Maybe once in a while, a blog post or coupon will be so fantastic that the person may share it with a friend or two, but that doesn’t really build your brand in any significant way.

Now – if you simply add social sharing buttons to your emails, that’s a whole different story. By adding these social sharing buttons, you’re inviting you’re readers to share your content with all of their contacts with one swift click of a button.

Start An Archive

So, you have a backlog of promotional email that you’ve sent, all of which have social sharing links attached. Now what? Do you just let these past emails dissipate into the ether until they’re forgotten? No way! Those emails still have a lot of life in them.  You just have to know how to coax it out.

Start an archive on your website of all the past emails that you’ve sent and put those emails to work. The great thing about archiving your emails is that you increase the odds of someone finding your blog via a random web search because you’ll have that many more pages on your website. More website hits means more visitors.

Develop A Sense Of Community

In the same way that there are bloggers just like you out there who want to build an audience, there are social sharing communities all over the web that are looking to help bloggers do just that. It’s a beautiful concept. A group of like-minded bloggers and business folk upload their emails and newsletters to one specific site, making them available to every member of the communities audience because it’s a shared site. Minimal work, maximum payoff.

The Mobile Solution

I mentioned mobile devices at the beginning of this article and how they seem to be everywhere these days. A great way to combine your emails with social media is to optimize your emails for viewing on mobile devices. There was a time when people only checked their email at work or at home. These days, people check their email in line at the ATM or waiting for their meal at a restaurant.

Make your emails mobile friendly, don’t forget those handy social sharing buttons, and you’re sure to see a spike in your email views.

Promote Yourself

For my last tip, I’m gonna go a bit old school. Every time you send out a new email, get on Twitter and let your followers know. Log into Facebook and plaster it on your wall. With all the work you are going to put in trying to use other people’s social networks, it’s easy to forget that you’ve got a social network as well. Don’t forget to use it.

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Article Written By Daniel Cassady

I am an experienced freelance writer and frequent contributor to an email servicesblog, hosted by Benchmark Email.

Daniel Cassady has written 2 superb article(s) on this blog

This is a guest post by Noah Mark Rodolfo from BestOnlineBusinessGuide.net

Social networking is one of today’s biggest arena when it comes to online marketing. It’s been an effective gauge for Internet businesses, not only for e-commerce sites but also for bloggers. Facebook, Twitter and even Google+ are making a big impact on the Internet and many practical users are taking the bait. So the question is – “does SEO still have relevance for your online business?”.

SEO against social networking is an interesting topic especially if you are looking for the best way to market your website business. If you want to promote your brand using social medias, then you certainly have to build your social network profile to develop both yourself and your site. Otherwise, you’ll have to stick with search engine optimization which is more complicated compared to social network marketing.

If you have a brand new site, the first thing that comes to your mind is to optimize every page of your site to increase its search engine rankings. Ironically, social media networks can highly aid your SEO needs when it comes to off-page optimization. It is good to note that search engines especially Google, gives a lot of attention on these social networking sites. So instead of focusing in SEO, you have to first try the waters of social networking because it also benefits your off-page optimization efforts.

So is SEO really the thing of the past? No, not yet! While it is easier to carry out a large social network marketing campaign to increase your site or blog’s traffic, it still has its limitation. Plus, not all people in your network are “targeted” people for your business. Social networking needs to be maintained through expanding continuously without delay. If you are unable to cope up with every changes in the social networking landscape, your business will also be affected. This is the reason it is called “networking” in the first place.

But SEO can be a daunting task as well especially if you are a newbie. There is two types of SEO namely – on-page and off-page. Google is not highly particular with on-page factors these days so off-page method should be your number one priority. Off-page means link building and that is the hardest part. If you know various tricks on how to get backlinks from various authoritative sites, then your site will become popular in just a few months. I mean “months” because you will have to wait for your turn to get higher rankings in the search engines. This is another drawback when it comes to SEO.

So What Is The Catch?

With search engine optimization, you can be a big player if you obtain good rankings in a certain keyword which gets millions of searches per month. But profitable keywords also have stiff competition from thousands of websites. So if you want to be a dominant site in the search engines, you have to take a lot of effort to build thousands of backlinks for your website or blog.

With social networking,  you also start small and you have to build your network in a slowly but surely manner. What I meant was to get people on your network which has similar “interests” as with your business. Your site’s traffic has potential to receive tons of daily traffic if you have a big “network” on each of your social media profile. If you were able to achieve a big network in a short span of time, you can build good reputation about your site and your business as a whole to all those people within your network.

In summary, SEO and social networking methods are both essential to your online business success. If you can do both, then you will have better marketing program for your blog or e-commerce business. Remember that a business takes time to nourish and should not be rushed. Whether it’s SEO or social networking, the important thing is that you have to strive harder and put a lot of effort to reach your goal.

Do you imagine what your business can achieve if you were able to reach your goal in both SEO and social networking? Yes, Internet business can overwhelmingly reward you financially. So which is better, SEO or social networking? You decide!

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Article Written By Noah Mark Rodolfo

Noah Mark Rodolfo is a Filipino blogger who loves to share information online. Learn free tips and strategies when it comes to blogging, SEO and other make money online topics on his website at Home Based Business.

Noah Mark Rodolfo has written 1 superb article(s) on this blog

This is a guest post by Jesse Langley from TechNected.com.

Along with other social tools, every blog in existence has an email sign-up. Signing up for an email is a sign of faith in the blog from the visitor. They’re putting their faith in you to give them interesting, relevant content.

Like any social contract, though, there are consequences if you break that trust: the dreaded unsubscribe button.

If readers unsubscribe, you can pretty much guarantee they won’t be coming back to your blog. Most people passively cut through their email content. Once they’re annoyed enough with you to actually go through the process of unsubscribing, they’re annoyed enough to stop visiting your site. Email marketing is only as valuable as its content.

The worst thing you can do is tell your readers every single time a post goes up. The truth is, they may love your site, but no one but your mother cares that much about your site. The trick, then, is to find a balance between overwhelming your readers and not communicating with them at all.

If you’re using email in a way that engages and draws your readers in, though, you’re going to see a sharp uptick in readers and in your traffic statistics.

Be Valuable

For marketers, this principle is simple. If they have a coupon or a sale notification, most readers will appreciate an email from them. If they don’t, consumers don’t want to hear from them. Blog owners have a different line to walk, though.

Instead of notifying readers every time a great post goes up, notify them at the beginning of a series so they can catch the whole thing. You shouldn’t send more than two emails a week as a blog owner, unless you’re advertising giveaways and promotions.

Be Timely

Another great place to notify your blog readers is around the holidays. If you feature crafts, obviously you can get pretty good mileage out of telling people they can learn how to do Halloween makeup or Christmas cards. If your blog is more business oriented, you can talk about holiday sales and tell readers how to leverage them either from the business or the personal side.

Receiving an email with a holiday notification gives the reader the sense that they’re getting information that’s relevant to them because of the timing. They’ll be able to use your post quickly, and it should ideally prepare them for something coming up.

Be Personal

Ask for a birthday when people sign up for your email newsletters, and reach out to them to tell them how much you appreciate them throughout the year. Larger sites should consider having a designer create an embeddable JPG or PDF that can be personalized and sent along for birthdays. Of course, a personal note from a site owner to a faithful reader can go a long way as well.

If someone spends a long time commenting on your blog, consider both answering them on the blog and sending a note thanking them for their interaction via email. The time spent creating relationships won’t be wasted.

Be Wanted

Seth Godin’s book about permission-based marketing came out more than 10 years ago, but it’s still incredibly relevant today, as marketers find new ways to reach consumers. A company may think that sending out SMS text alerts would be helpful to consumers who provided their phone number on an email form, but chances are good that’s not what the consumer wanted at all.

Consumers are naturally a little sensitive when it comes to businesses reaching out to them. They want it to be on their terms, the ones they agreed to when they originally subscribed. Take that out of its context, and you’re going to be left with a lot of unhappy customers.

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Article Written By Jesse Langley

Jesse Langley lives near Chicago with his family. He writes about technology, blogging, and the job search on behalf of Colorado Technical University. He also writes for TechNected.

Jesse Langley has written 4 superb article(s) on this blog

This is a guest post by Blake Sanders from Maxymiser.com.

The human brain is a phenomenal thing. It solves problems in ways incomprehensible to most people, and it responds to some information better than others.

Understanding this nature is helpful when website, business, and blog owners look to convert more of their visitors into “customers”. One tool that helps us understand this is multivariate testing.

Unlike A/B or “split” testing, multivariate testing (“MVT”) tests many aspects of a system at a time to learn of the relative impact of that change. The impact of these tests oftentimes leads to higher conversions in the form of newsletter signups, sales, feed subscriptions, and other pivotal elements that increase conversions.

In this article we’ll touch briefly on the impact of multivariate testing.

Who Is Multivariate Testing For?

Multivariate testing can be used by individuals and businesses big and small who want to see how small improvements or adjustments can impact their conversions.

Generally, MVT is best suited towards those who are already generating decent traffic, as this will determine the optimum combination of website elements in the shortest time, giving you significant results to your website’s performance. If you’re not sure the optimum amount of traffic required, multivariate testing calculators are available online and free to use.

Reasons To Test

1. When you’re fine-tuning: If you want to fine-tune for maximum effectiveness after conducting a/b testing, multivariate testing can work for you.
   
2. You want to determine variables that influence each other: If you want to test more than 10 variables at a time, multivariate testing will produce faster results while producing less testing bias.
   
3. You’re only able to test specific variables: If you have design restrictions, multivariate testing can be a more efficient strategy than the A/B or “split” testing method.

What Should I Test?

You should first figure the key elements that turn visitors into conversions. Each website’s goals vary, so this varies from business to business.

Are you trying to increase newsletter signups?

Perhaps you want to grow sales?

Say for example you want to test a headline, call to action, and image and the variations of each. Your variations will look like this:

• Headline:  headline 1 and headline 2
• Call to action:  call to action 1 and call to action 2
• Image:  image 1 and image 2

The multivariate tests aims to see which combination of these versions achieves the highest conversion rate. Traffic is split between the following to see which combination produces the highest conversion rates.

8 Testing Variation Combinations -:

1. Headline 1 + Call to Action 1 + Image 1
2. Headline 1 + Call to Action 1 + Image 2
3. Headline 1 + Call to Action 2 + Image 1
4. Headline 1 + Call to Action 2 + Image 2
5. Headline 2 + Call to Action 1 + Image 1
6. Headline 2 + Call to Action 1 + Image 2
7. Headline 2 + Call to Action 2 + Image 1
8. Headline 2 + Call to Action 2 + Image 2

Multivariate Testing Tools

To create your multivariate test, first choose a framework that supports it. Afterwards, choose which sections to include in it.

Google Website Optimizer is a free basic multivariate testing tool by Google. It’s the easiest way to see how making changes to page elements has on conversion rates.

Conducting Test: Some Tips

Remembering these simple details can go a long way towards making your test a successful one.

• Reviewing your data is of the utmost importance. Keep track of reports via spreadsheet and pinpoint the elements that are causing the biggest swing in conversion.
• Keep up with your competitors. They very well may be testing elements of their own.
• Be patient. Results come over time. Testing pages that get a lot of traffic and determining the proper length for running a test will give data for measurements.

Conclusion

Multivariate testing is crucial in the evolution of your website to attract new leads. This easy to use tool has the ability to affect businesses revenue and profits. Use multivariate testing on your next online marketing effort to gain insights into customer preferences and user behavior.

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Article Written By blakesanders

Blake Sanders writes for Maxymiser and is an expert on multivariate testing. Blake enjoys discussing various topics on increasing website conversions.

blakesanders has written 1 superb article(s) on this blog

Infolinks is one of the most established and oldest in-text monetization companies. Infolinks used to be the only in-text monetization company that really mattered.

Companies with fresh ideas have painted a target on Infolinks’ back, seeking to take down the giant much like how Android and iOS tablets have cracked Microsoft.

However, instead of introducing a new technological platform like Google and Apple did with tablets and smartphones, Infolinks competitors aren’t even using substantially newer technology.

In-text advertising technology is pretty much the same everywhere. So why is Infolinks losing ground to these perky start-ups?

Infolinks: Bloggers Want To Make Money

Infolinks’ rigid payment model has been both praised for its simplicity and criticized for failing to reward bloggers who successfully convert clicks to lower points in the sales funnel.

Competitor INTENTclick has used a different payment model to pierce Infolinks’ armor. While Infolinks uses pay per click, INTENTclick uses performance-based RPC (rate per click), which means that the amount you get paid per click is higher if a lot of your clicks convert to a sale. Also, INTENTclick and other competitors have commission programs so that you can get paid directly for each individual sale, in addition to getting a higher rate per click.

Infolinks: Advertisers Want To Make Money Too

Infolinks used to be praised by advertisers for having a low cost per click when it had a higher conversion rate, back in 2007. However, Infolinks made two mistakes that have decreased the quality of its clicks over time:

Advertising Relevancy

Infolinks produces ads that are not relevant to the site’s readers and have nothing to do with the site’s content. Infolinks produces both a low click rate and an even lower conversion rate, so both advertisers and publishers lose out.

On the other hand, networks like Kontera and INTENTclick deliver targeted ads that match both individual readers and the site’s content. INTENTclick is a network for coupon sites and making money online sites that tailors ads to users depending on what they like. This creates a higher click-to-conversion rate, so advertisers get paid more money each time somebody clicks.

The Payment Model

The Infolinks payment model discourages publishers from generating clicks with a high conversion rate since it fails to reward publishers for converting clicks to sales.

As a result, they begin to produce content toward people who like to click links a lot but don’t necessarily shop online very much.

This isn’t detectable as click fraud since all of the clicks are from legitimate readers who are simply disinterested in the product.

The low per-click payout amplifies this problem since advertisers need to produce a lot of clicks to get paid near what they would get paid by a niche or targeted ad network that mixes in a commission-based system with a pay-per-click system. Although advertisers like paying publishers as little as possible per click (this is one of Infolinks’ selling points), advertisers don’t like to pay for clicks that don’t convert to points further down the sales process.

Conclusion

To recap, Infolinks isn’t targeted toward any particular type of site, so it doesn’t target ads to potential buyers very well.

On the other hand, INTENTclick works with making money online sites and coupon sites so its advertisers cater toward people who read these types of sites.

Furthermore, INTENTclick utilizes a payment model that both pays publishers more money and encourages them to produce clicks that convert to sales, so both publishers and advertisers stand to make more money with INTENTclick.

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Article Written By Murray Newlands

This is a guest post by Murray Newlands, the CEO and Founder of Influence People. Influence People is an online marketing, video marketing, and blogger outreach firm that works with a variety of clients.

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