News

Last week, we discussed three key components for adding opt-in incentives to your website. But an opt-in form is only going to be as effective as the incentive you are promising. This week, letÔÇÖs discuss three questions you should be asking yourself to make sure your opt-in incentive is irresistible to your audience.

Click to subscribe to Site Success on Apple Podcasts

Here is a quick rundown of what you’ll find in this episode:

• A recap of last week’s three questions
• Why a boring opt-in incentive that doesn’t address an audience problem is doomed to fail
• The importance of addressing problems that are glaring and common with your general opt-in incentive
• Why you need to be honest with yourself, and your audience, about what you can commit to doing remarkably well
• Why describing your opt-incentive in terms of benefits, not just features, is essential

[episode]

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

• Quick Copy Tip: Boost the Relevance of Your Content with Benefits and Features — by Sonia Simone
• How to Locate and Define Benefits that Turn Prospects into Buyers — by Kelton Reid

Other links of note:

• Try StudioPress Sites
• Sites Weekly Newsletter
• Subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts
• Contact Jerod: jerod@copyblogger.com

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

In this discussion with Chris Garrett, Chief Digital Officer of Rainmaker Digital, we explore best practices for adding opt-in forms to your WordPress website that help you maximize subscriber growth.

Opt-in forms are an essential part of the online marketing experience. Executed well, your subscriber base can grow dramatically. But if you are not careful, you could alienate your audience, or worse — and see no return on your efforts.

In this episode, Sean Jackson and Chris Garrett cover the basics of where to place your opt-in forms and discuss several tools you should consider.

Click to subscribe to Site Success on Apple Podcasts

Important links from this episode:

• Try StudioPress Sites
• Sites Weekly Newsletter
• Subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts
• Connect with Sean on Twitter

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly.

In this week’s edition, you will find links to articles about the following:

• Content. How to market through text messaging and chatbots
• Design. 10 beautiful website color palettes that increase engagement
• Technology. Why you shouldn’t crowdsource your hosting decision (plus: an intriguing text-to-speech tool from Amazon)
• Strategy. Is it time to rethink your definition of productivity?
• Bonus. A few quick notes on some changes coming in WordPress 4.9.5

But first …

Last week on Sites

Once you have chosen your WordPress theme, there are some immediate items that need to be placed atop of your to-do list. Two of them have to do with the emotions your site will evoke, and the other has to do with how users will interact with your site.

Listen: 3Q to Answer As Soon As YouÔÇÖve Chosen Your WordPress Theme

Rafal Tomal — Creative Director for StudioPress — shares his deep insight on everything you need to know about WordPress design.

Listen: Rafal Tomal on Picking the Right Design for Your WordPress Website

And now, on to this week’s links …

Content: How to market through text messaging and chatbots

In case you’ve missed it, the text and chatbot revolution isn’t coming … it’s here. And while email is still the king of conversions, there is no question that marketing through text messages and chatbots has opened new and exciting doors for creating important connections and trust with your audience, and potential customers.

This post outlines some important dos and don’ts for how to market through texts and chatbots.

Read at Content Marketing Institute

Design: 10 beautiful website color palettes that increase engagement

The color scheme you choose for your website has a massive influence on the emotional experience your visitors have while they are interacting with your content.

This long, informative post at Crazy Egg walks you through the basics of color theory, provides several compelling reasons for why your color scheme is so important (if you’re not sold on the idea already), and then highlights 10 websites that have particularly striking color palettes. Feel free to ogle, or steal.

Read at Crazy Egg

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Two of the most important decisions you will make about your WordPress website are your theme and your hosting. Wouldn’t it be great if they worked together to make your website more powerful?

Now they can.

Discover why over 213,675 website owners trust StudioPress.

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Technology: Why you shouldn’t crowdsource your hosting decision (plus: an intriguing text-to-speech tool from Amazon)

I have two reasons for linking to this post.

First, it’s good advice. Where you are going to host your site isn’t a good question for crowdsourcing. Here’s an excerpt that explains why:

“For as many years as I have been in the space, I have seen this happening. It could be at a meetup, a workshop, a Slack channel, or as stated before, on various social platforms. It really never is productive and often turns into a host bashing party that, personally, I find a waste of time and breath.”

This is true. People love to come out and bash hosts that they’ve had negative experiences with … and most people have had at least one bad hosting experience.

The other reason why crowdsourcing your hosting choice isn’t wise is because not all hosting advice is created equal. The best choice for you and your needs may not be the best choice for someone else and their needs.

So someone may have had a great experience with Hosting Company X, but if, for example, you are using a StudioPress theme on your site and they are not, then Hosting Company X won’t be as good of a choice for you as StudioPress Sites — which is optimized to work with StudioPress themes.

Here’s the other reason I’m linking to this post …

Notice the text-to-speech option at the top. It’s from an Amazon service called Polly. This was my first experience with it. I clicked play and listened, and I was impressed with the quality.

It’s obviously not as good as a live human reading it, but considering the pricing (remarkably affordable), it’s a simple way to add a convenient listening option to text-based posts.

Give it a look. It might be worth investigating for your site.

Read at BobWP.com

Also, here’s a quick post that will make sure you’re up-to-date on what ads.txt and ads.cert are designed to do.

Strategy: Is it time to rethink your definition of productivity?

This post by Kelton Reid is going to hit home for you — guaranteed. Because all of us are feeling, or have felt, the control that technology wields over our working lives. Kelton provides you with some strategies to combat this.

Want permission to take a nap? He gives it to you.

Want permission to take more time reading and filling your brain with ideas before trying to crank out that next piece of content? He gives it to you.

Kelton’s tips include a can’t-miss section in the end that challenges you to “go analog” for a day. Do it. In my own life, I’ve worked hard to lessen my interaction with technology both when I’m working and when I’m “off the clock,” and it’s done wonders for my mental, emotional, and even physical health.

I’m glad I stumbled upon this post, because it was a most welcome reminder.

Read at Copyblogger

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of productivity, here’s a blog post that highlights 10 Gmail plugins you should consider for optimizing the time you spend in your inbox.

Bonus article: A few quick notes on some changes coming in WordPress 4.9.5

The upcoming WordPress update is now available for beta testing and includes 23 bug fixes and improvements. This post describes some notable changes you can expect when the new version is rolled out.

Read at WP Tavern

So …

Which of the ideas in these posts will you put to good use immediately?

I’ll be back with a new edition next week.

Keep building.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

We want to prepare for success, and that means being ready to capture subscribers from the first moment such capture is possible — which means from your very first blog post.

And that means you must have two things in place: opt-in forms, so people have the opportunity to subscribe to your email list; and a strong opt-in-incentive, so people have a compelling reason to actually give you their email address.

In this two-part series, IÔÇÖll give you advice to help you choose the right kind of opt-in forms for your site, and then combine them with an irresistible opt-in incentive to drive major subscriber growth.

This week, we begin with three questions to help you add the right opt-in forms to your site … without incurring dreaded Google penalties.

Click to subscribe to Site Success on Apple Podcasts

Here is a quick rundown of what you’ll find in this episode:

• A quick review of where we are in our journey toward a successful WordPress website.
• An explanation for why opt-in forms are the next logical topic.
• A description of the three types of prospective subscribers your website needs to be catering to.
• Advice to help you avoid being penalized by Google for pop-up ads.
• Ways to reduce friction and fear that will help you maximize subscriber numbers.

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

• 7 Tips for Using Pop-ups Without Harming Your SEO — by Aleh Barysevich, Search Engine Journal
• Intrusive Interstitials: Guidelines To Avoiding Google’s Penalty — by Myriam Jessiar, Smashing Magazine

Other links of note:

• Try StudioPress Sites
• Sites Weekly Newsletter
• Subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts
• Contact Jerod: jerod@copyblogger.com

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Rafal Tomal – Creative Director for StudioPress – shares his deep insight on everything you need to know about WordPress design.

Click to subscribe to Site Success on Apple Podcasts

The right design for your WordPress site is essential. It helps build instant authority and trust from your audience while providing the canvas for your online marketing.

But too often, people approach selecting a design for their site the wrong way.

In this 25 minute episode, Sean Jackson and Rafal Tomal discuss the most essential factors you must know when selecting a design for your WordPress site.

Important links from this episode:

• Try StudioPress Sites
• Sites Weekly Newsletter
• Subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts
• Connect with Sean on Twitter

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly.

In this week’s edition, you will find links to articles about the following:

• Content. How a journalist constructs an article that Google will love
• Design. How to use handwritten typography in website design
• Technology. How to improve your content marketing using digital analytics
• Strategy. How to create opportunity, build trust, and stay top of mind with your audience
• Bonus. Unusual signs on the path to a breakthrough

But first …

Last week on Sites

This episode begins a short two-part series about getting your initial design ready to go. We start with three macro questions that will help you determine the right kind of design to move forward with.

Listen: [43] 3Q for Choosing the Right Kind of Design for Your WordPress Site

And now, on to this week’s links …

Content: How a journalist constructs an article that Google will love

At this point, I hope you trust that I’ll never link to advice about Google that isn’t grounded in this simple truism: The best way to create content that Google will like is to create content that your readers will love.

So, spoiler alert: this post explicitly spells that out.

But there are also some other useful tips in here from a journalist-turned-content marketer who has learned how to marry the goals and tools of journalism with the objectives of content marketing.

One in particular that stood out:

“Finally, what emotional response will your idea trigger? It might make someone smile or become excited or reassured. If thereÔÇÖs an emotion involved, then the reader is more likely to remember and return for more.”

Read at NewsCred

Design: How to use handwritten typography in website design

Have you ever thought about using a handwritten font for the hero section of your website? I hadn’t, but then I looked at the examples in this post … and now I want to.

Learn more about the how and why of handwritten typography in this post.

Read at Line25

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Two of the most important decisions you will make about your WordPress website are your theme and your hosting. Wouldn’t it be great if they worked together to make your website more powerful?

Now they can.

Discover why over 213,675 website owners trust StudioPress.

---

Technology: How to improve your content marketing using digital analytics

Creating content consistently is all well and good, but how do you know if your content is actually achieving the goal you want it to achieve?

Chances are, especially if you’re a one-person shop, you’ll have a pretty good general idea of how your content as a whole, or individual content, is doing. But if you want to get specific, then you’ll need to take an intrepid dive into your analytics.

This post from The Daily Egg will show you how to analyze the success of individual pieces of content at actually driving conversions.

Read at The Daily Egg

Strategy: How to create opportunity, build trust, and stay top of mind with your audience

This post is an excerpt from a book by John Hall, the entrepreneur who started Influence & Co. I was especially struck by this section (emphasis mine):

“Why couldnÔÇÖt I connect? Why was everyone so guarded? The answer was simple: because nobody trusted me. No one even knew who I was. It wasnÔÇÖt enough to be charming. I walked into a roomful of strangers (most of whom already knew one another and had done business together) with nothing to show that I was worthy of their trust. I was just another random guy making a cold pitch — the human equivalent of a pop-up ad.”

If you want to create meaningful connections and build trust, and avoid being a human pop-up ad, read this article and take the advice to heart.

Read at Contently

Bonus article: Unusual signs on the path to a breakthrough

Stefanie Flaxman has done it again. She’s written a post over at Copyblogger that has me motivated and excited. And this time, my motivation and excitement is about getting smacked in the face with my next roadblock!

Wait … what?

Just read the post. You’ll see.

Read at Copyblogger

So …

Which of the ideas in these posts will you put to good use immediately?

I’ll be back with a new edition next week.

Keep building.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Once you have chosen your WordPress theme, there are some immediate items that need to be placed atop of your to-do list. Two of them have to do with the emotions your site will evoke, and the other has to do with how users will interact with your site.

Click to subscribe to Site Success on Apple Podcasts

Here is a quick rundown of what you’ll find in this episode:

• A quick reminder about why you need to be considering these questions in order
• Why your choice of brand colors and the color scheme for your site is worth being extra intentional about
• How fonts complement colors by helping you evoke the right kind of emotions in your website visitors
• What to think about when you start planning how you’ll organize your homepage content and navigation bar

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

• Color Theory for Designers, Part 1: The Meaning of Color — Smashing Magazine
• Why Fonts Matter, and how they impact your mood — It’s Nice That
• Typespiration

EPISODE URL

 

Click to subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts

Other links of note:

• Try StudioPress Sites
• Sites Weekly Newsletter
• Subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts
• Contact Jerod: jerod@copyblogger.com

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly.

In this week’s edition, you will find links to articles about the following:

• Content. How to write outreach emails that people actually pay attention to
• Design. When you can (and can’t) use an image online
• Technology. 3 surprising benefits of chatbots (no creep factor required)
• Strategy. This is how to scale up sales with influencer marketing
• Bonus. Quit your bullshit

But first …

Last week on Sites

Content is the lifeblood of building your audience. No one is going to flock to your website just because you launch it. You have to give them reasons to come, compel them to stay, and earn their loyalty. The only way to do that is through content, which is why investing time now to make smart choices about the content youÔÇÖre going to create is time well spent.

Listen: [41] 3Q for Deciding What Types of Content YouÔÇÖre Going to Create

Sean Jackson and Pamela Wilson walk you through every stage of creating a content plan for your site ÔÇö from a high level to the tactical execution.

Listen: [42] A 3-Point Plan for Creating Your Initial Content

Introducing a new StudioPress theme!

Are you looking to showcase your projects in style? Take advantage of the beauty that comes with simple design and white space.

Kreativ Pro is a multi-purpose theme built for the Genesis Framework, designed for agencies to showcase projects in style. With great typography and clean layouts, Kreativ Pro is the perfect fit for your Agency website.

Learn more: Kreativ Pro — A Multi-Purpose Theme for Agencies to Showcase Projects in Style

And now, on to this week’s links …

Content: How to write outreach emails that people actually pay attention to

Based on the headline of this blog post, I wasn’t expecting too much: “I Just Deleted Your Outreach Email Without Reading. And NO, I DonÔÇÖt Feel Sorry.”

I thought it might just poke fun at a screenshot of a truly terrible outreach email. In fact, looking back, I’m not even sure why I clicked on it.

But I’m sure glad I did.

This is a long read, but a really good one, and if you take the advice to heart you will be crafting much better outreach emails that actually have a chance of earning a response.

Read at Ahrefs

Design: When you can (and can’t) use an image online

Okay, I’ll admit it …

Way back in the day, when I was a neophyte blogger, I consistently used images in my blog posts that I did not have the rights to use. I would just do a quick Google search on whatever topic my post was about, find the most compelling image, and use it.

Sure, I would almost always provide attribution, and a link (when possible), but it didn’t change the fact that what I was doing was wrong.

I finally changed my ways after the photographer of one of the photos I used contacted me with a stern but fair rebuke. More importantly, he explained to me why what I was doing was wrong and hurt professional photographers like himself and so many others.

Find out when it’s okay to use an image online and when it’s not — because while it’s not always clear, it certainly is something we should all strive to get right as often as possible.

Read at MarTech.zone

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Two of the most important decisions you will make about your WordPress website are your theme and your hosting. Wouldn’t it be great if they worked together to make your website more powerful?

Now they can.

Discover why over 213,675 website owners trust StudioPress.

---

Technology: 3 surprising benefits of chatbots (no creep factor required)

So … this article really changed my perspective on an emerging technology tool.

I haven’t given chatbots too much of my attention recently, but it’s appearing like that may have been a mistake. Because when Sonia Simone — who strikes me as just about the most anti-chatbot kind of person I can think of — is starting to sing their praises as “going back to what permission marketing is supposed to be about,” well, that perks my ears up.

Maybe I’ve been wrong about chatbots? Maybe you have been too?

Oh, and a quick note: The article below mentions a webinar on March 8, 2018, which has already passed. If you click the link in the blog post, you can watch the replay.

Read at Copyblogger

Strategy: This is how to scale up sales with influencer marketing

Here are some insight from Ryan Holiday on how he has used influencer marketing to bolster sales of his books.

While you are most likely not Ryan Holiday, and most likely don’t have friends like Tim Ferriss, and probably aren’t even interested in selling books … the big-picture concepts he discusses are useful for digital products as well.

My favorite tip:

“Focus on ‘pre-VIPs’ ÔÇö The people who arenÔÇÖt well known but should be and will be. ItÔÇÖs not about who has the biggest megaphone. A great example for me was meeting Tim in early 2007 before The 4-Hour Workweek was published. He hadnÔÇÖt sold millions of books then and didnÔÇÖt have a huge platform. Now he does and I am writing this post.”

Read at FourWeekMBA.com

Bonus article: Quit your bullshit

These are wise words from Chris Brogan:

“When it comes to ‘content marketing,’ it was novel for a moment. But if itÔÇÖs not HELPFUL, then people really wonÔÇÖt care.”

Give yourself a quick kick in the pants with his latest blog post about the importance of being original, interesting, and helpful.

Read at ChrisBrogan.com

So …

Which of the ideas in these posts will you put to good use immediately?

I’ll be back with a new edition next week.

Keep building.

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

This episode begins a short two-part series about getting your initial design ready to go. We start this week with three macro questions that will help you determine the right kind of design to move forward with.

Click to subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts

Here is a quick rundown of what you’ll find in this episode:

• A reminder of why knowing what content you’re going to create first is so important
• Why you need to outline the essential elements your website’s design will need to have
• How to decide if you should go with a free theme or a premium theme
• If you do choose a premium theme, whether you should hire a custom developer or choose a child theme for an existing theme framework

Other links of note:

• Try StudioPress Sites
• Sites Weekly Newsletter
• Subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts
• Contact Jerod: jerod@copyblogger.com

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.

Are you looking to showcase your projects in style? Take advantage of the beauty that comes with simple design and white space.

Kreativ Pro is built by our friends at ThemeSquare, a small team of curious developers and creative designers, working on one theme at a time to help you create a professional website.

Kreativ Pro is a multi-purpose theme built for the Genesis Framework, designed for agencies to showcase projects in style. With great typography and clean layouts, Kreativ Pro is the best theme for your Agency website.

Some key features of Kreativ Pro theme:

• Fast Loading —┬áWith clutter-free code, Kreativ is fast and loads assets only when they are needed.
• Responsive —┬áKreativ is mobile responsive and will be automatically adjusted based on the screen resolution.
• Portfolio —┬áAdd and display projects in style with a Featured Portfolio plugin, which includes a widget with support for thumbnails.
• Color schemes — Kreativ allows you to customize the colors of your website. You can live preview and switch the scheme in no time.
• Demo Data —┬áImport all the content and widgets to set up your website just exactly like demo.

View the demo here — it’s definitely worth checking out!

Get the Kreativ Pro theme

This blog was originally posted on Studiopress.com This post is in no way associated with Kembel.ca. For more posts by this author, please click here.