How to Implement Kinder, Gentler Marketing: 4 All-Natural Truths

I have a love/hate relationship with a soap company.

About five years ago, I stumbled across their products online. They boasted rare and unique scents and naturally-sourced ingredients. They were irresistible (to me, anyway). And their prices seemed reasonable.

So, I placed an order. And that’s when my troubles began.

I had to share my email address to complete my transaction. You know, to “receive an order confirmation.”

Within days, I found myself receiving marketing email after marketing email. Coupons. Special sales. New soaps. New scents. Free shipping.

I imagined their marketing department high-fiving one other and saying, “We’ve got one on the line. Quick! Reel her in!”

And you know what? The products I received were exceptional. They smelled amazing (I’m a sucker for a unique scent). So, I stuck it out for a while. But not forever.

Because I knew how wrong my experience was. I knew there was a better way to market your business. A kinder, gentler way — one that doesn’t alienate the very people you want to nurture.

Time went on.

I sent dozens of their catalogs to the landfill — a new one came in the mail every few weeks.

Finally, I gave up. After placing a few orders, I contacted the company and asked them to please — for the Love of All that Is Holy — stop sending me catalogs. I clicked the unsubscribe link in one of their many emails and used the form on their site to let them know why I was unsubscribing.

Then, I stopped hearing from them.

Here we go again: relearning a lesson

A lot has happened in the meantime. Life went on, and I forgot about this company’s overzealous marketing efforts.

A few weeks ago, when my husband asked me what I’d like for Mother’s Day, I said, “How about a gift certificate to (The Soap Company in Question)?” And my husband — smart man that he is — got me the gift certificate.

And guess what? It started all over again. Within just a couple of weeks, I have received three catalogs.

I take full responsibility for the situation. I got myself back on their radar and now I’m paying the price. I do still love their products, but I wish they understood modern marketing techniques as well as they clearly understand the soap business.

It’s obvious to me that they don’t read Copyblogger. Because if they did, they’d know the four basic truths of modern content marketing.

Let’s review them.

Truth #1: Content pulls; it doesn’t push

Rather than blanket prospects in catalogs and crowd their inboxes with sales emails, modern content marketing offers valuable, helpful, and even entertaining information.

The information is so helpful that prospects purposely sign up to receive it. And they stick around when the content they receive is consistently useful.

Read these posts to learn more about creating content that pulls (and doesn’t push):

• How to Attract, Nurture, and Grow the Business-Building Audience You Want
• 5 Remarkable Qualities of Effective Online Content
• 5 Ways to Get More of the Online Attention You Crave

Truth #2: Content offers; it doesn’t demand

Solid, effective content marketing doesn’t stomp its foot and demand in a whiny voice that you pay attention to it.

Instead, it confidently offers a hand — the exact information you need, right when you need it.

One way modern content marketers do this is by using marketing automation.

If my soap company had sent me a little brochure about how to save money on laundry day (and a coupon for their laundry soap), I would have held on to that piece of content. I might have posted it next to my washing machine! It wouldn’t have gone to a landfill like all those product catalogs.

Read these posts to learn more about making offers (not demands):

• Landing Pages: Turn Traffic Into Money
• How to Be a Copywriting Genius: The Brilliantly Sneaky Trick You Must Learn
• 6 Proven Ways to Boost the Conversion Rates of Your Call-to-Action Buttons

By the way, our Rainmaker Platform makes marketing automation a snap.

Truth #3: Content entertains; it doesn’t annoy

One of the foundational truths about content marketing is that it must serve your audience if you want it to be effective (more on this below).

And one way to do this is to meet your audience — wherever they are — with content that is so compelling they want to consume it.

At Rainmaker Digital, we do just that with our podcast network, Rainmaker FM.

Podcasting isn’t a requirement, but it’s a great fit for those who are comfortable with audio — who are more comfortable talking than writing.

Read these posts to learn more about creating entertaining (not annoying) content:

• The Art of Being Interesting
• 22 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue [Infographic]
• 58 Ways to Create Persuasive Content Your Audience Will Love

Truth #4: Content is about the consumer, not the producer

Please repeat after me:

“I will resist the urge to constantly write about me, my offers, my company’s history, our goals, our mission statement, or our new products. Instead, I’m going to focus on writing about topics that serve my prospects and customers.”

It’s tough for traditional marketers to wrap their brains around this one. But your customers’ #1 concern isn’t you … it’s them.

That’s why, for example, if the soap company had sent me information about alternate ways to use their soaps (Perfume your pajama drawer! Hang one in your closet! Use it to repel mosquitos!), I would have stayed subscribed.

And an occasional offer woven into the helpful content wouldn’t have fazed me one bit.

A highly effective technique for serving your prospects’ and customers’ ongoing needs is creating a series of cornerstone content pages on your website.

Cornerstone pages serve up foundational information that your prospects and customers need to understand your field of expertise.

Read these posts to learn more about creating cornerstone content pages that serve your audience:

• A Practical Approach to Using Powerful Cornerstone Content on Your Site
• Your Cornerstone Content Blueprint: Answers to 9 Common Questions
• 11 Essential Ingredients Every Cornerstone Content Page Needs [Infographic]

True confession

Here’s the painful truth: I spent the first part of my career creating exactly the kind of marketing materials my soap company is annoying me with now. Direct mail postcards. Sales catalogs. Promotional brochures.

But now I know there’s a better way. A kinder, gentler way to market your business, serve your prospects and customers, and create marketing that is valued, not sent straight to a landfill.

That’s the kind of marketing we teach inside our Authority program. To learn more about it, click the button below.

Learn to create kinder, gentler marketing
inside Authority

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A Day to Be With Family and Remember

“At the grave of a hero we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. fought in the Civil War, enlisting with the Massachusetts militia during his senior year of college. He suffered numerous wounds and nearly died of dysentery.

After three years, in 1864, Holmes was able to walk away from military service. He would go on to live another 71 years, ultimately becoming one of the best-known and most oft-cited U.S. Supreme Court Justices in history. (He defined “clear and present danger,” for example.)

Holmes would serve all the way until just a couple of months before his 91st birthday. His was a full and vibrant life.

Unfortunately, so many of the men Holmes fought with and against in the Civil War did not make it home. Nor have so many of the men and women who have fought in the wars that have occurred since. So much life unlived. So much potential unable to be fulfilled.

Today, those of us in the U.S. pause to honor these men and women — those whose lives ended, as Holmes wrote, “at the grave of a hero.”

As Ronald Reagan said, “It’s a day to be with the family and remember.”

We’ll be back tomorrow with our usual content schedule.

*****

By the way, if you’re interested in learning the history of Memorial Day — did you know it was originally called “Decoration Day” or that a national moment of remembrance takes place at 3:00 p.m. local time? — here is a short video and article from the History Channel.

Flickr Creative Commons Image via A Nowak.

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Rainmaker Rewind: Henry Rollins on Entrepreneurial Art

We have a special treat for you on Rainmaker FM this week …

Music legend and entrepreneur Henry Rollins joins Brian Clark on Unemployable to discuss how his career (including his role as frontman of Black Flag) has thrived due to a DIY-producer ethic, why he formed his own publishing company, and how he became a self-made media personality.

There’s a lot of other great content on the network these days, so be sure to check out the rest of the shows highlighted in this week’s edition of Rainmaker Rewind.

1. Unemployable. Henry Rollins joins Brian Clark for a second time to discuss music, entrepreneurship, and the art of self-promotion: Henry Rollins on Entrepreneurial Art
2. Copyblogger FM. Sonia Simone dives into why focusing on email opt-ins is one of the most important content marketing practices: Content Marketing Best Practices: Getting Email Opt-Ins
3. The Digital Entrepreneur. Brian Clark and Jerod Morris explain how you should be using social media to connect with your audience: Does Your Social Media Strategy Need a Mindset Shift?
4. Hack the Entrepreneur. Jon Nastor chats with Paul Kortman about the transition from office life to entrepreneur life: The Reluctant Path to Becoming an Entrepreneur
5. Elsewhere. Charlie Gilkey welcomes Sonia Simone to The Creative Giant Show to chat about marketing, careers, and digital business: Sonia Simone on The Creative Giant Show
6. The Missing Link. Jabez Lebret and Steve Anderson discuss building authority and becoming an influencer on LinkedIn: An Influencer’s Guide to Building Your Authority on LinkedIn
7. Zero to Book. Jeff Goins and Pamela Wilson review the various means of publishing and identify which route is ideal for authors — especially first-timers: Artisanal Publishing and the Hidden Power of the Beginner’s Mind
8. The Showrunner. Jerod Morris and Jon Nastor explain how and why booking guests for your podcast is well-worth the sometimes overly complicated booking process: How to Execute Engaging Podcast Interviews
9. Confessions of a Pink-haired Marketer. Sonia Simone talks web traffic, sales pages, and the one element you need to master if you want your content to work: The Context of a Successful Content Strategy: The Harpoon and the Net
10. Youpreneur. Chris Ducker shares the top five reasons why originality is so important in business and gives away one of the keys to long-term business success: How Being ‘Original’ Can Boost Your Business Faster than Anything

And, one more thing …

If you want to get my Rainmaker Rewind picks of the week sent straight to your favorite podcast player, subscribe right here on Rainmaker FM.

See you next week.

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The Price of Digital Commerce Academy Goes Up Today

The day I first told you about last week is now here.

It’s Friday, May 27, 2016 … which means that the price you will pay for an annual investment in Digital Commerce Academy goes up today at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time (6:00 p.m. Mountain Time, 7:00 p.m. Central Time, 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time).

The current price is $395 per year. That’s still our early adopter introductory price.

Today at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time, the price will go up to $595 per year.

The crazy thing about the price is that when we start selling the full courses that are inside of Academy on their own, we’ll charge $495 per course. So the current annual price ($395) is less than the price of one course — and you get immediate access to all four courses.

Plus, you get access to all of the courses we add in the future, plus all of the weekly case studies and coaching Q&As, as well as the community. And it’s a fact … current members tell us that these aspects of Academy are even more valuable than the courses!

To get started with Digital Commerce Academy right now, so you can lock in the low price (for the lifetime of your account, even when the price raises again, which it will), click the button below:

Digital Commerce Academy
Build the Digital Business of Your Dreams
If you’re interested in creating digital products, please don’t hesitate. Your first step will never be this affordable again.

So take this step (before the price goes up), or keep hoping and wishing you’ll someday have the digital business of your dreams, instead of doing what you probably already know you should be doing … which is actually building it.

We’re here to help you with the how, which can sometimes be tricky without a proven plan and some ongoing guidance. We know. We’ve been there.

I hope you’ll take us up on this offer to help.

Click here to learn more about Digital Commerce Academy and join today.

Take action today. Lock in the low price. Then take your next step by digging into the course or case study that is most appropriate for you at this moment.

There’s zero risk with our no-questions-asked 30-day refund policy. Try Academy out and see what you think:

http://ift.tt/1NvJNur

I’m looking forward to interacting with you inside Digital Commerce Academy!

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Landing Pages Defined in 60 Seconds [Animated Video]

You’ve probably heard us talk about landing pages a lot around here.

There is a good reason for that.

When executed correctly, a landing page is a powerful tool that helps you gain new subscribers, sell your products, and more.

But what exactly is a landing page?

Watch our short, fun video about landing pages

With help from our friends at The Draw Shop, we whipped up 12 definitions from our new Content Marketing Glossary into short, fun whiteboard animated videos.

Here’s our video for the definition of a landing page:

Animation by The Draw Shop

And for those of you who would prefer to read, here’s the transcript:

A landing page is any page on a website where traffic is sent specifically to prompt a certain action or result. Think of a golf course … a landing page is the putting green that you drive the ball, or prospect, to.

Once on the green, the goal is to put the little white ball in the hole in the grass. Likewise, the goal of the copy and design of a landing page is to get the prospect to take your desired action.

The goal could be to sell a product. It could be to get email newsletter sign-ups. It could be to download an ebook. Watch a video. Sign a petition.

The variety of landing page goals is endless, but the important thing to remember is to have one goal per landing page.

One page, one goal. Nothing more.

Share this video

Click here to check out this definition on YouTube and share it with your audience. You’ll also find 11 additional Content Marketing Glossary videos.

Learn more from the Content Marketing Glossary

We’ll feature the rest of the videos soon, but if you’d prefer not to wait, you can watch all the videos now by going directly to the Content Marketing Glossary.

If you would like to learn more about landing pages, visit these three resources:

• Landing Pages: Turn Traffic into Money
• The Savvy Marketer’s Checklist for Seductive Landing Pages
• 3 Surprising Stages of Successful Landing Pages

By the way, let us know if you have any definitions you’d like us to add to the glossary! Just drop your responses in the comments below.

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How to Calm Your Content Anxiety in 5 Simple Steps

It was an early morning of coffee, loud music, and blasting the internet with everything I could muster.

I had already published a few articles on my website, skipping the draft process. Then I scrambled to share them on every social media network and group chat that I could think of.

Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Slack channels, Facebook groups, email newsletter(s) — you know the drill.

It was a copy/paste nightmare, but that’s what the “experts” had told me to do. The familiar phrases of “Content is king!” and “Blog every day!” were among the many maxims running through my mind that morning.

We are often told that your frequent presence online is vitally important. More interaction, more connection, more conversion.

This is partially true, but experience has taught me that excessive presence damages both your authority and your own personal fulfillment.

More content is not always better content

I was on a content-production rampage during this particular reinvention (yes, I’ve done this “online thing” quite a few times, and from scratch). Yet, I was just as internally frustrated as when I wasn’t producing any content at all.

The problem — obvious now in hindsight — is that more does not always mean better.

It’s the most basic of truths, known by everyone you’ve ever met, yet contrary to the mainstream teachings of many online “gurus.”

Instead of wasting your time with fruitless effort, here are five steps that will help calm your content anxiety and safeguard you against our shared tendency to believe frequency trumps quality.

Step #1: Adopt the “One-day-queue” rule

Slowing down might sound easy, but it’s far from it.

If you’re like me, your typical routine is to go from inspiration to creation to production in the same morning (thanks to that gallon of coffee).

That habit makes sense when you’re passionate about your project. Unfortunately, it may stunt your capacity to produce meaningful work for your audience.

Instead, live by what I call the “one-day-queue” rule:

When you are inspired, resist the urge to create and publish on the same day.

This includes blog posts too  —  don’t rush to publish an idea that you haven’t fully developed.

Hold back to ensure you’re publishing the most relevant, useful content.

Step #2: Work with an editor

If you write any type of content, working with an editor should be a priority.

Your editor can shield you from your own impulsiveness and prevent you from publishing a post on your blog or sending your email newsletter in a fury.

When you get in the habit of having someone else review your content before you publish, you’re forced to slow down your process.

Editors also don’t have to be expensive. If you ask a friend, coworker, or family member, he or she might even review your work for free to support you.

An “editor” who has an eye for polished content will help you craft your best work — and any cost will  be money well-spent.

Step #3: Schedule social media updates

This is quite difficult for me because I impulsively tweet a lot, but scheduling your social media updates helps you practice something I like to call “funneling your impulse.”

What do I mean by that?

Let’s say you’re scanning — you guessed it — your Twitter timeline, and you get an idea for a tweet.

Instead of satisfying the urge to post that tweet immediately, funnel your impulse through a filter by scheduling it for at least 10 minutes in the future.

In that time, you might rethink posting that tweet and therefore have time to delete or rephrase it.

That’s an option you wouldn’t have had if you just impulsively posted the tweet.

Step #4: Learn the art of observation

Simply observing may be difficult for some creatives, but it’s undeniably required.

Discovering and examining your audience’s needs will help you serve them better.

Spend more time watching and less time building.

Don’t build for the sake of production; build for the sake of creating a solution.

Solve your audience’s problems, and you won’t have to shout so loud.

Step #5: Focus on the entire process, not just the product

I once mentioned in a newsletter email on mobile-first design that web designers should focus more on the process than the product.

It’s understandable that we have a natural tendency to be preoccupied with that glorious finished product — part of the process, even.

But our motivator can often become a distraction and we neglect other important steps.

Aim to balance the time you spend on your marketing efforts and creating your products.

Better content, at a manageable pace

Following these guidelines has allowed me to craft high-quality content at a more regular pace, and with less effort.

I don’t write a blog post and publish it the same day, or blast out an email prematurely, just to find several typos in each of them the next day.

Instead, I feel confident knowing that the content I do publish (or cancel) has been carefully reviewed.

In turn, those who follow me receive better content, read articulated and refined writing, and experience an overall stronger presentation.

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One Skill that Will Take Your Writing from Good to Great

Halfway through the writing course, our instructor — not known for being one to sugar-coat — threw out a challenge:

“Send me a favorite piece of your writing and I’ll critique it; I’ll tell you whether or not it’s any good. The only catch is, I’ll be critiquing it in front of the entire class.”

A surprising number of us (bristling with hope and hubris I suppose) took up the offer. The ensuing session was, to date, the most illuminating experience I’ve had as a writer.

The key message we all took away?

Not that we needed to self-edit more tightly or have better ideas. It was this:

If we wanted to be truly great writers, we had to first write many, many words. And then we had to be willing to walk away from the majority of them.

Back to the session …

Find the single, golden line

The first thing our instructor did was throw most of our work straight on the scrap heap:

“Completely vanilla. If you have nothing new to bring to this topic, don’t add to the noise out there in the world about it.”

Next came her response to a 1,000-word piece of text. From it, she identified a single, golden line — the seed of a big idea:

“Start again with just that line. Throw away the rest.”

A rambling 900-word tribute to someone dearly departed? Ruthlessly whittled down to 250 emotion-laden words that cut the reader to the core.

At the end of the session, our instructor told us not to feel dismayed. She applied the same ruthlessness to her own work; three out of four blog posts she wrote never saw the light of day.

This was revolutionary to me. Previously, I assumed that if I’d spent any amount of time writing and editing it, then the content was worth publishing.

After? I discovered the truth in her lesson and found that throwing away words made the difference between simply creating content and creating content that resonated deeply with the world.

I also found that while my “throwing-away-words muscle” was pretty weak initially, the more I used it, the stronger it got.

So, how do you exercise that muscle? These three activities helped me.

1. Make time each day to free write

As someone with limited time on her hands, I always felt pressure to make the most of my precious writing hours.

While I was making time to write every single day via a daily Morning Pages habit, I’d spend that time writing first drafts. (Not really in the spirit of Morning Pages!)

I decided to stop with the “first drafting” and instead use Morning Pages the way they were intended — as an exercise for writing 750 stream-of-consciousness words.

It was astonishing to see the incredible thoughts and ideas that emerged from that pressure-free environment; they were ideas I’d never have accessed without the time, space, and permission to write hundreds of words I might never use elsewhere.

2. Write first drafts longhand

I always used to type first drafts on my computer … and I also would edit along the way.

This is bad form: Editing as you write is not terribly efficient, but worse than that, I was extra reluctant to let those words go — even if I knew they weren’t working — because it had taken so much effort to produce them in the first place.

So, I tried writing my first drafts longhand, and one of three things started to happen:

1. I was more willing to let an idea go if I realized I couldn’t effectively communicate it.
2. I’d start writing about one idea and then another, much better idea would emerge.
3. I’d write my first draft at night and my subconscious would ponder it while I slept. The next day, my second draft was always infinitely better than if I had typed the first draft.

3. Give yourself time to do complete rewrites

I remember reading a post by Leo Babauta about the iterative approach he took to writing Zen Habits: Mastering the Art of Change.

He initially wrote what he called a “minimum viable book,” put it out in beta to a select group of readers, and gathered their feedback. Then, after a considerable amount of editing based on their feedback, he started again from scratch.

He started again from scratch?

That sounded like a nightmare.

But then I started giving myself more lead-time when I wrote articles.

Having considerable breathing space between each draft helped me see when I needed to start again in order to communicate an idea more clearly.

The key was, I now had time to do a complete rewrite instead of trying to edit the existing piece into something workable.

The path to great words

Many writers I know don’t complete their final drafts until the last moment, fooling themselves into thinking they work better under pressure. I used to think that too.

And, certainly, I’ve always been able to produce work that is “good enough” while under pressure.

But I want certain content I write (like this article for Copyblogger) to be better than “good enough.” I want my writing to change how people think and move them to take action that makes their lives better or easier — or makes the world a better place.

For those pieces of writing, I make sure I set aside enough time to write thousands of words to start.

Because I know that’s the surest path to the words I really want. The ones that are great.

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7 Keys to Creating a Successful WordPress Plugin

If you want to build a software business, there are a lot of advantages to the world of WordPress plugins.

To begin with, you have a built-in audience of committed users. That audience is massive — around a quarter of the planet’s websites use WordPress. And that number is growing every day.

But we all know that “Build it and they will come” is a myth — for software or any other business.

There are tens of thousands of plugins with just a few downloads, and a few successful standouts.

Here’s how to put your awesome plugin in the second category.

#1: Start with the user experience

User experience should drive your code, not vice versa

Successful plugins are built on a foundation of excellent user experience.

WordPress expert and evangelist Chris Lema sees an awful lot of popular plugins.

He had this to say in his article on The one thing many WordPress plugin developers seem to forget:

“… Most developers seemed to think about the user experience only after most of the development of their plugins was complete.” – Chris Lema

His recommendations include:

• Getting users involved early on — don’t try to design your plugin in a vacuum
• Measuring the number of clicks to complete each main task — keep tasks as simple as possible
• Designing the screens and experience before you write your code — experience should drive your code, not vice versa

Sometimes technical folks are tempted to start with the functionality first, then “figure out the user experience part” later. That’s a recipe for expensive mistakes and a less-than-awesome plugin.

#2: Design matters

Successful plugins leverage great design.

Starting with the user experience will get you a good way down this road, but if you aren’t a strongly visual person yourself, make sure you get one involved.

Even if your plugin works perfectly, it only makes it harder to get traction if it’s ugly and visually disorganized or cluttered.

It’s not about eye candy for its own sake — it’s about careful design thinking that reinforces your plugin’s functionality and makes it a pleasure to use.

#3: Serve a real need (or want)

Successful plugins address a real-world user problem or desire.

If you’re not building something WordPress publishers actually want, you’re going to have a tough time.

You may have a highly technical improvement that you’re sure all WordPress publishers should add to their sites. But if it’s solving a problem they don’t care about, you’ll never get any traction.

Get to know lots of WordPress users and you’ll quickly learn what they want from their sites. Great plugins usually make WordPress simpler or more powerful.

Some examples include:

• More easily customizing the look of the site
• Improving the site’s SEO
• Enhancing the audience experience with community-building elements
• Reducing spam
• Adding a complex and desirable feature, like a membership site

If your plugin is on the technical side, remember to translate the benefits for non-techie users.

A plugin that “improves origin caching” is great, but make sure you also translate that to: “Makes your site load a lot faster.”

#4: Have skills (or know where to get them)

Successful plugins have rock-solid code.

If you’re new to programming, working on plugins can be a fun and interesting way to get better.

But if you want to create a truly great plugin, you need to pay your dues and become an excellent coder. (And no, this does not happen overnight.)

If that isn’t you yet, you can shortcut this by partnering with an excellent coder. You might supply the vision, the marketing mind, and the business knowledge, and they bring their sweet dev skills.

Solid developers don’t just write great code, they also work within a defined process to make sure they’re releasing a quality product.

“Beyond your standard programming best practices, I think the best thing to do is to test, test, and test. Keep up your code. Have development environments with commonly found themes and plugins. Test against different configurations. If it’s a commonly used theme (like Genesis), make sure it functions as expected and if not, see what needs to be done before releasing it.” – Andrew Norcross, founder of Reaktiv Studios

#5: Carve out your position

Successful plugins stake out clear positioning in the WordPress marketplace.

Just like any other software product or service, your plugin needs to occupy a well-defined position in the market.

You need to be able to communicate in an instant:

• What your plugin does
• Who it’s for
• What specific and remarkable benefit it brings to sites

Keep the simplicity factor above in mind, if your plugin is intended to reach a broader audience than the most tech-savvy users.

#6: Consider working within an ecosystem

Successful plugins are part of a greater ecosystem.

Every WordPress plugin, of course, benefits from the overarching ecosystem of users and developers.

But in an era of so many plugins, many developers niche that down further, coding for a particular framework such as Genesis.

For example, one of Andrew Norcross’s most popular plugins is Genesis Design Palette Pro — that lets users change the look of their Genesis sites with just a click or two, without any coding.

You might think that working within a niche ecosystem would result in fewer users, but often the opposite is the case. You’ll stand out more easily, because you’re crafting more specific solutions to your users’ desires.

#7: Recognize the community

Successful plugin developers respect the WordPress community.

Along with the many benefits of the WordPress ecosystem, there are also community responsibilities.

Here’s how Andrew Norcross put it when I asked him about the importance of nurturing the relationship with the community:

“I firmly believe it means the difference between success and failure, overall. While you can easily make a living cranking out WP code in themes or plugins for clients or agencies, there’s a definite ceiling (in my opinion) with how far you can progress without being at least somewhat active in the community. More importantly, however, having a bad reputation can be a career killer. Many people put personal recommendations above all the marketing they see, and once someone develops a bad rep, it’s really hard to shake it. We’re beyond fortunate that at Reaktiv Studios, we have developed a solid reputation with our clients, in that many of our new leads are referrals from our previous clients.”
– Andrew Norcross, founder of Reaktiv Studios

Want some help with that?

You may have seen Brian Clark mention last week that we have a brand-new course on how to create a successful WordPress-based product or business.

When we added this course to the schedule — even though we have a wealth of in-house WordPress knowledge — we knew we wanted Chris Lema to lead it for us. In addition to being a great teacher, Chris has worked with just about every significant WordPress company on the planet.

His detailed perspective on the WordPress premium market is even broader than ours, and his experience really shows.

Here’s what Chris covers in this brand-new course:

• Understanding the Size of the WordPress Ecosystem
• Determining Realistic Market Potential
• Evaluating the Competition
• Shaping Your Idea for the Win
• Scoring Your Ideas for Validity
• Understanding Estimated Cost and Potential Revenue
• Building Your PR Channels
• Finding and Hiring Developers
• Buying a Product
• Planning Your Launch

Snag the best price this week

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1. Invest $395 for a year of full access to everything in Digital Commerce Academy. You remain at that pricing for additional years no matter how much the price rises and no matter how many new courses we add. Cancel any time and never be charged again.
2. Register for our live Digital Commerce Summit happening October 13-14, 2016 in Denver, Colorado, and get your first year of Academy free. After the first free year, you’re grandfathered in at $395 for additional years no matter how much the price rises. Cancel any time and never be charged again.

On May 27, 2016, at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time, the Academy-only price goes up to $595, and the free year of Academy bundled with the Summit will be eliminated. As always, we have a hassle-free and no-questions-asked 30-day money-back guarantee, so there’s no risk to you.

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Google’s “People Also Ask” (Related Questions): What Are They, and Why You Should Care

If you have recently put in a search term in Google, you may have noticed the results containing an expandable grid box. In this box are a series of questions involving the search term you looked for.

Each of these questions can be expanded using a drop down menu to see the answer. The answers offer a link for continued reading in the page they have been drawn from as well as invite you to search for that specific question:

As you can imagine, this offers some great information to users that want additional questions answered without hunting for them.

The boxes never come on the very top of of search results: Instead, they come further down the page inspiring the user to dig deeper.

Finding The Right Query

The related question boxes don’t show up for every search term.

More often than not, Google only creates question boxes for the most general, often searched terms. The more narrowed the search term or phrase, the less likely it will be to have question boxes.

To filter our your keyword list to only those triggering the “People also ask” box, use SERPstat, a cool keyword research tools with some innovative functionality.

To access the filter:

Click “Organic queries” -> Expand “Filters” -> Check the box “Also ask for”

Relying On Authority and Quality

Your authority is important here. Looking at the related questions sources, they tend to be drawn from the most popular results from a search. For example, if you search for [chocolate diamonds], the “related questions” box contains answers from a museum, a recognized diamond expert, and a very old diamond company.

Interestingly, these are not the ordered results of the search, but they are within the first page. So at least some of the priority seems to come from the strength of the content.

Obviously the quality of your content is going to matter a lot here, and probably more than whatever algorithm beyond quality Google uses. The more clear, well-structured and informative your content, the more sense it will make for Google to choose to use the info over other websites.

You also want to be careful of where the content is, and how it is presented. You need to have clear questions and answers in the text itself.

Notably, most pages (but not all) featured in the “related questions” box also rank in quick-answer boxes in the corresponding query.

Here is the question – answer in Google’s “People Also Ask” (Related Questions) Box:

And here’s the same page featured in the quick-answer box for that linked query:

So the two features are somehow connected.

Notice also: In the above example that company has a mini-site jump link within the search snippet taking you to the answer of the question within the page.

This one originates from on-page table of contents that works as an anchor link:

So in this case, here’s what the optimization strategy and the results looks like:

1. Write indepth content covering a number of related questions;
2. On top of the page, create a table of context, each jump-link taking you to the part of the page answering each question;
3. Enjoy additional exposure in search results:
   1. Get featured in quick-answer boxes
   2. Get featured in the “People also ask” box
   3. Get an additional mini-site link in the search snippet

Should Schema Be Included?

Rich markup may or may not be needed here. I was never able find any correlation between having Schema markup and being featured in the related question boxes.

But it doesn’t hurt, and you want to do anything possible to improve your chances of being understood by a search engine better.

We have a very handy infographic on how to use Schema.org as well as a number of free Schema generators to help you out.

Schema.org Cheatsheet from Ann Smarty

Conclusion

Using Google’s related questions have a two-pronged set of benefits. On one hand, you are going to drive organic traffic by offering up a link to more information on a topic the searcher is already looking for. On the other, you are building your site authority by being one of a few to be chosen to provide answers to those common questions.

Trying to navigate the murky waters of how this algorithm works is going to be a hit and miss process. But that is something that is going to help you with your overall marketing strategy, so you are accomplishing a few important goals here (including creating a one-stop resource, attracting links, enjoying additional exposure in SERPs).

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Rainmaker Rewind: How Advice Columnist and Author Heather Havrilesky Writes, Part One

We always have great guests on Rainmaker FM, and this week is no exception …

This week’s Rainmaker Rewind features an interview on The Writer Files with advice columnist and author Heather Havrilesky who chats about her writing process as well as the many hats she’s worn over the last 20 years.

Plus, I’ve included my favorite Copyblogger post from the last week and eight more must-read articles for you.

1. This week on Rainmaker FM, Kelton Reid interviews advice columnist and author Heather Havrilesky on The Writer Files: How Advice Columnist and Author Heather Havrilesky Writes, Part One
2. This week on Copyblogger, Pamela Wilson explores how business owners can keep up with the demands of content marketing: The Content Marketing Continuum: How to Create Content to Meet Customers’ Needs
3. Paul Jarvis explains why you should try giving notice every single day: I’m giving notice
4. Managing creative teams effectively may require additional skills. Here are six from Fast Company that you might need: 6 Habits Of Creative Managers
5. Set yourself up to win with seven practical work-from-home tips from Business 2 Community: Get On the Productivity Train: How to Successfully Work from Home
6. Listening to music may make the daily commute tolerable, but streaming a podcast through your headphones can make it disappear. The New York Times explains what’s happening: This Is Your Brain on Podcasts
7. Success in life and work is often a matter of attitude and beliefs, and YFS Magazine explains why that applies to entrepreneurs: Dear Wantrepreneur: These 4 Toxic Thoughts Are Killing Your Success
8. Intelligent people’s good habits are often highlighted, but this visual from Tech.Co explores the good and the bad: The Bad and Good Habits of Smart People [Infographic]
9. From infographics and SlideShares to articles and memes, marketers and bloggers can never have too much help coming up with ideas for compelling, relevant content. ProBlogger explains how to decide which type to use for your business: The Best Research Tools for Finding Kick-Ass Content
10. Marketing Profs looks at what neuromarketing can teach us about consumers: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About Marketing

And, one more thing …

If you want to get my Rainmaker Rewind picks of the week sent straight to your favorite podcast player, subscribe right here on Rainmaker FM.

See you next week.

The post Rainmaker Rewind: How Advice Columnist and Author Heather Havrilesky Writes, Part One appeared first on Copyblogger.

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Good News, Bad News, Long News: Weekly Forum Update

We bring you three types of news from our communities this week, as well as plenty of engaging discussions! Let’s start with the good news – Twitter’s character limit will be expanding… sort of. URLs and photos will no longer count against the character limit, leaving users a little more room to express themselves.

In bad news, we’ll bring you coverage from WebmasterWorld about the recent security snafu at LinkedIn. The website was hacked back in 2012, but many believed it was a small incident. Now, four years later, it looks like it was a much bigger breach. And the “long news?”

That’s the news from PEW Research that mobile readers spend more time engaged with long-form than with short-form articles. Now, let’s go in-depth!

URLs and Photos No Longer Count Towards the Character Limit on Twitter

URLs and Photos No Longer Count Towards the Character Limit on TwitterClick To Tweet

Remember a few months ago when Twitter was talking about expanding its character limit to 10,000 or more? Remember the uproar that caused? It was pretty crazy – Twitter users and market observers seemed to feel that such a huge expansion would turn Twitter into Facebook clone.

But everyone did agree – some extra characters would be nice. This is Twitter’s compromise: URLs and photos no longer count towards the 140 character limit. Still, it makes you wonder how much even a small expansion will change the way Twitter looks. What do you think?

117 Million LinkedIn Account Emails and Passwords Leaked Online

Back in 2012, LinkedIn’s database was “the victim of an unauthorized access and disclosure of some members’ passwords.” At the time, it seemed like a small hack. LinkedIn invalidated the passwords of affected users, asked them to reset, and everyone moved on. But just recently, it’s come to light that the hack was actually much bigger. Even though the passwords stolen are encrypted, hackers have supposedly cracked quite a few of them in the last 72 hours.

Users on WebmasterWorld are discussing the hack. Admin engine adds context by saying,

“It’s not just the fact that the same passwords may be used on other sites, but an e-mail address can give thieves pointers to other services, and, of course, help towards identity theft.”

Martinibuster shares a story about the relationship between security and user experience:

“I did a site audit for a company and noticed their password requirements were weak. They balked at requiring difficult to guess passwords and a minimum number of characters because they felt it was a poor user experience.”

With hackers as powerful as they are today, it seems like site owners balk at their own peril.

Longer News Articles Favored By Mobile Users

Here’s that study from the PEW Research Center, as discussed on Cre8asiteforums. The stereotype of today’s young people, and by extension of mobile users, is that everyone wants something quick and snappy. But PEW presents some evidence that contradicts that stereotype:

“Overall, our analysis of nearly 75,000 articles finds that mobile users spend more engaged time with long-form (1,000 words or more) than short-form (101-999 word) news stories – 123 seconds compared with 57…”

The study also compares Facebook and Twitter engagement. Give the studies a read and share your thoughts!

What Are “Rich Cards” in Search Console?

WebmasterWorld newbie NSikes found “Rich Cards” referenced in Search Console, “…but the links to get more information are broken.”

So, what are they? Users Andy Langton, rainborick, and engine provide some helpful blog posts from Google with more information. Basically, they’re a special kind of structured data. As the name implies, they show up as “cards” instead of the traditional snippet blocks. The example engine gives in his post is for recipes – they seem to put more emphasis on the image than on the text.

As it turns out, Rich Cards are quite new and still being tested. User Wilburforce writes that

“The scope is limited, however, and there’s no indication of when it will be extended…In my case, I can’t even test it, so including it in GSC seems a bit premature.”

Andy Langton agrees, and also wonders

“…if they’re ditching ‘structured data’ for ‘rich cards'” based on Google saying “We plan to migrate all errors from the Structured Data report into the Rich Card report.”

So could this be the future of structured data?

Weigh In: The Web And World In 10, 20, 50 Years?

Where have we come from and where are we going? That’s the big question in this Cre8asiteforums thread! Not just about the web, SEO, and advertising, but also about the “real world” and how those two spheres interact. User EGOL writes that

“Competition on the web is becoming more intense as more and more companies are spending millions per year on their online marketing efforts. As that happens, organic traffic is becoming harder to get, not only because of the competition, but also because Google is formatting the SERPs to grow their income…”

And of course, ad blockers are becoming more popular. According to EGOL,

“Anyone who stops shoveling fuel into their web engine will see their traffic and income go down.”

It’s a brutal world out there, for some! Share your thoughts about the web – or free energy, or anything futuristic that strikes your fancy – in this thread!

Are Monthly SEO Contracts A Scam?

Every now and then on SEO Chat, someone starts a topic about freelancing or how to do business as a professional. I look forward to these threads, because they present a different angle of SEO other than “how do I get to the top of Google?” Newbie muzzchat writes that, in a LinkedIn discussion group, someone told them

“We do SEO for several clients and once we do the initial work, we only need to analyze it from time to time. Any monthly contract is basically a scam.”

User Test-ok responds that,

“It really depends what one is doing. The onsite can be done quick but there’s a lot more that can be done on a monthly basis.”

ThomasHarvey writes that while they might have a point – most SEO auditing and changes can be done as a one-off –

“…What a monthly contract does offer you… over a one off payment/audit is the contact with an SEO. You can ask them whatever questions you may have, ask them their thoughts or ideas before you proceed with it.”

It seems that there are many different approaches and opinions! I always love seeing some nuance in a discussion topic.

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Cut the Crap and Write Better Now

“Composition is a discipline; it forces us to think.

If you want to ‘get in touch with your feelings,’ fine — talk to yourself; we all do.

But, if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts.

Put them in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce.

The secret way to do this is to write it down and then cut out the confusing parts.”

– William Safire

That’s one of the best quotes about the craft of writing that I’ve ever read, particularly that deceptively simple final line. But then, it’s always the simple stuff that trips us up when we think we’ve got it covered.

Why is cutting out the crap in our writing so difficult?

More importantly, how do we do it? Let’s take a look …

Writing is a mind meld

You already know you should be writing to just one person, right?

If you’re, say, the Pope, feel free to pontificate (the verb was named for you, after all) and address the masses with all the eloquent turns of phrase you can manage.

Assuming you’re not a major religious figure, just write to me, your one, single reader.

Even if you have a massive audience, one person at a time reads your work.

It’s nice to think that crowds are huddled around a computer screen raising a toast to your just-published post, but that doesn’t happen.

In order to communicate with this single reader, you’ve got to organize your thoughts before you send them on the journey from your mind to your reader’s mind.

The act of writing forces you to do this.

Determining your message, ordering its presentation, and refining it until it’s crystal-clear all help to facilitate the trip.

Aim your pen

Aim your writing pen at the goal you’re trying to accomplish with your content. Your objective will determine the path it takes.

Do you plan to persuade or instruct?

Why not do both? Even learners need to be convinced your instruction is worth spending time to consume.

Do you want to discover something new?

The research needed to produce effective writing is a great way to expand your own knowledge. That’s why the Latin proverb says, “By teaching you will understand.”

Do you want to seduce and convince?

Use time-tested techniques to persuade with the one-two punch of logic and emotion.

Establish your authority, provide proof in the form of testimonials, and weave it all into a compelling story line.

Think you’re done? Now … cut the crap

You have it. I have it. We all have it. Crap happens.

Every piece of writing starts out suffering from excessive verbiage, woolly thinking, and confusing tangents.

And that’s okay. Write everything down, crap and all. Then cut out the confusing parts. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

Edit your writing by removing unclear, ambiguous, or overly complex phrases.

Remember, using more words doesn’t make your writing better.

You’ll hold your reader’s interest if every word justifies its existence in your post by adding meaning and moving your reader closer to your point.

William Safire calls this “the secret way” to lend order to your writing so your message reaches your reader intact. But it’s not a secret anymore, is it?

Want to keep these concepts in mind as you write?

You can download and print our poster of the William Safire quote above (86 KB). It’s perfect for taping next to your computer screen.

Become a better writer inside Authority

Authority is our content marketing training and networking community designed to help you build the skills you need to profit online.

Put your name on the Authority interest list by clicking on the button below. We’ll let you know when we open our doors.

Join the Authority interest list

Editor’s note: The original version of this post was published on March 30, 2011.

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Infographics Defined in 60 Seconds [Animated Video]

Way back in 2011, Steven Bristol and Allan Branch, a couple of strapping entrepreneurs with in-vogue facial hair, decided to poke fun at infographics — with an infographic.

The title said it all: “Infographs are Ruining the Internet.” (“Infograph” is their terminology used for the purpose of their content.)

Now, the Bristol and Branch infographic simply amounts to amusing facts about infographics — none of which are true.

Here are some fake-fact highlights:

• 23 percent of infographs cause puppies to cry
• 67 percent of people who read infographs love them
• 356 calories are burned in the creation of an infograph

One “fact,” which was really a prediction, said that “By 2012 all blog posts will contain infographs.” Joking aside, the infographic has certainly grown to be the darling of the content marketing world.

But what exactly is an infographic?

Watch our short, fun video about infographics

With help from our friends at The Draw Shop, we whipped up 12 definitions from our new Content Marketing Glossary into short, fun whiteboard animated videos.

Here’s our video for the definition of an infographic:

Animation by The Draw Shop

And for those of you who would prefer to read, here’s the transcript:

Infographics are digital posters full of facts, catchy images, and sexy fonts that catch the eyes of just about everyone. And they come in hundreds of varieties.

Infographics combine text and images to communicate interesting facts on a specific topic.

An infographic can be about the 10 commandments of typography … it can be a periodic chart of SEO terms … it can be about Marvel comic book superheroes … or it can be a complicated diagram of different types of beers.

And the infographic is the darling of the content marketing world. For good reason.

Research suggests that publishers who use infographics grow in traffic 12 percent more than those who don’t. This is because an infographic, unless it’s completely awful (and they exist), will get a lot more attention than a typical text blog post.

But a good infographic takes time to create. So don’t skimp. Make it beautiful. Your audience will love you for it.

Share this video

Click here to check out this definition on YouTube and share it with your audience. You’ll also find 11 additional Content Marketing Glossary videos.

Learn more from the Content Marketing Glossary

We’ll feature the other videos soon, but if you’d prefer not to wait, you can watch all the videos now by going directly to the Content Marketing Glossary.

By the way, let us know if you have any definitions you’d like us to add to the glossary! Just drop your responses in the comments below.

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