Oh, and a mishap with the camera while filming. I left it in.

To learn more about the Academy, click here.

The post Announcement Regarding The Pricing for the Academy appeared first on Blog Marketing Academy.

When you think about what to blog about or what niche to get into, is your first thought about what you know and what you’re an expert in?

Many people think so, and the unfortunate side effect is that many allow this to become a big barrier. Many don’t feel as if they’re an expert on anything at all, so they feel like they’re screwed before they even start.

Is this you?

Here’s the thing… being an expert certainly can help, but it sure as hell isn’t a requirement. In fact, there are many people out there making good livings online and people don’t even know their names. They don’t get recognized at conferences. They just silently crush it.

There is money in the “guru” business, but that doesn’t mean you have to be one or even try to be one. Hell, usually those who try to be one are compensating for something, anyway.

The way you make money is to provide a solution to people who need it. Nobody said that you have to personally create said solution.

Affiliate marketing is one way to go where you don’t have to create the solution. Just find it and sell it.

You could also use the publisher model, where you partner with somebody else who has expertise in an area you don’t. You take care of the online business part of things while they provide the information.

You could also bring knowledge to people via other people in the form of interviews. People do it all the time.

Point is, lack of expertise in a market you want to work in isn’t a stop.

Success in business often comes down less to expertise, and more in organizational ability.

Never let lack of expertise in a niche be a reason not to do it. It is just something to deal with. And these days, there are a number of ways to do so.

Do you agree? Comment below and let me know your thoughts.

P.S. Since expertise isn’t a real barrier, we know that actual entrepreneurial skills are much more important. Learn that and more from David, inside the Academy. Sign up before the end of the month before the prices go up!

The post Do You Have To Be An Expert Or Guru To Succeed Online? appeared first on Blog Marketing Academy.

Problem is, like a lot of other things these days, there are about a thousand different options for doing so. Lots of different support desks out there, and it is hard to determine which way to go with it all.

I’ve tried my share of them, and I just recently switched over to a new one. So, I thought I would take a few minutes and give a run-through of the options I’ve tried. If it saves you some time, then awesome.

Customer Support Requirements

When evaluating any software options out there, it all has to start with getting real about what your requirements are.

For customer support, the two big questions to start with are:

1. What kind of volume are you expecting?
2. Will you be working with another person, such as a virtual assistant?

If you will be working with another person – or believe you will be at some point – then I recommend you get a support system which can assign tickets to different people. Pretty much every option does that.

Aside from that, I believe it is also important that your readers and customers are not confused by the system. It needs to be easy. It needs to not make them think. It shouldn’t require them to log in, create an account, or jump through any hoops.

My First Solution: Email

This is where most people start, and I’m no different. If you’re first starting out and you don’t have any kind of staff yet, then you can simply set up an email account and allow people to email you directly.

At a bare minimum, I’d recommend you set up a Gmail account for this. You can use your own personal Gmail account if you’d like, but I’d set up a forwarding address to point to it rather than have people email your Gmail directly. You can simply set up an email address which forwards to your Gmail account. Then, in your Gmail account, set it up so that you can send FROM that support email address.

Why Gmail? Because they have awesome spam filtering. Speaking of which…

You might want to use a contact form of some kind. Having your email address directly visible on your site will lead to spam. A contact form will help shelter you from that. I recommend Gravity Forms for all of your form needs on WordPress. It simply blows away every other option.

Now, even though email is the most obvious way to start, you should be aware of the limitations.

You’ll have no record of past conversations with any person. An even bigger issue is that working with another person using standard email is VERY difficult. If your VA has to have you chime in on something, then they’ll have to forward the email to you. It leads conversations into being disjointed and spread around. Much better would be the ability to simply assign a ticket to somebody.

That’s where a real support desk comes in.

My Second Solution: Self-Hosted Support Desk

When I decided to move on from straight email, I went to a self-hosted support desk, installed right on my own server.

I went with eTicket Help Desk, which is an open source (free) help desk system. Another open source option is phpTickets.

There are also paid options out there which don’t come with a monthly fee. One popular option is Kayako. This company has changed quite a bit since I first bought their eSupport software many years ago. Now they are plugging a hosted solution for a monthly fee. However, they do still have a downloadable option for a one-time fee. The price has increased quite a bit since the days I bought it, but the software is extremely full featured.

ZenDesk

ZenDesk is probably the most popular customer help desk option out there these days. They offer all the features you’d come to expect from a full-featured help desk.

For me, the biggest draw to ZenDesk is that it integrates with so many other applications so easily. Because of the popularity of ZenDesk, it is very well supported and  a lot of other popular web apps can integrate with ZenDesk. ZenDesk also has a very nice mobile app so you can handle support on the go.

My problem with ZenDesk is that I believe it is bloated. I think it sends the customer through unnecessary hoops. I know much of that is controllable via settings, but most people have their support desks set up to introduce hoops. I also believe that the support desk interface itself is, again, bloated.

Aside from my own opinion, it is hard to go wrong with ZenDesk. They have a Starter plan which would work for most of my audience, and it is only $20/year for 3 staff. Just be prepared for a little bit of a learning curve.

GrooveHQ

Later, I landed on a much newer solution called GrooveHQ. These guys are pretty new to the scene, and they only just started charging money a few months ago. Before that, it was on private beta and that’s where I was using it for awhile.

What I like about GrooveHQ is that it is much more email focused. It doesn’t have the bloat that ZenDesk has because it is more focused on email. What this means is that your readers and customers don’t have to jump through any hoops to deal with support. From their perspective, it is just sending an email.

Internally, Groove allows you to assign tickets between staff, organize different departments and inboxes, etc. If you and your VA need to discuss a ticket privately, it can be done via internal notes. Those notes go back-and-forth within the system, but are not sent to the customer. This makes it SO much easier to have two or more people dealing with customers, as is typical if you have a VA. They also have email rules so you can route tickets based on different factors.

GrooveHQ has a nice clean interface. They have a mobile app which is pretty nice, although not as slick as what ZenDesk has.

GrooveHQ is also a new, small company. And, I like that. The guys care. The CEO regular interacts directly with clients. I much prefer that as compared to a big company where you’re just a number.

I like GrooveHQ quite a bit, but I just recently moved away from it. Why, you may ask?

Pricing. We were fortunate to be able to use Groove for free during their beta period. It is totally understandable that they need to charge for this, however when they introduced their pricing, I thought it was rather high. For me and my VA to handle basic support emails, I’m paying $50/month. That’s just too high considering I was using it for email support only. They are priced at $25/month/user, which I actually think is pretty fair considering the features. Thing is, I wasn’t using many of their features. So, for my business, it was overpriced.

If you want to pair email support with more powerful ticket routing, a knowledgebase, social integration, etc., then Groove might make a lot of sense for your business.

But, I went looking around again…

HelpScout

I found HelpScout and signed up for a trial account. And, just an hour before this post is published, I submitted payment information to make the move permanent.

HelpScout is simple and straightforward. In fact, it is even more to-the-point than GrooveHQ is, and I thought Groove was pretty simple. Like Groove, HelpScout is fully email based. You can manage multiple email addresses from HelpScout. In fact, even besides customer support needs, HelpScout might even be a good option for allowing your VA to handle your own personal email account. HelpScout is essentially an email client with collaboration baked in.

HelpScout has more built-in app integrations. It is also supported by Zapier, which allows integration with a LOT of different web apps out there. I also like that they have an auto-BCC option on outgoing emails, so we can keep a full contact record in our Office AutoPilot CRM.

If you only have one mailbox, you can use HelpScout for free. For multiple boxes, it costs $15/month/user. This is far more competitive than GrooveHQ, and I’ll only be paying $30/month rather than $50. Considering email support with some basic integrations was all that I really needed, it made HelpScout a better option for my business.

.

This is my own journey through help desk software.

If you’ve used different options, I’d love to hear about them below. Your comments can help make this post more useful for others who come across it in the future.

The post My Search For A Good Customer Help Desk System appeared first on Blog Marketing Academy.

NOTE: This is a post by a guest author.

In the SEO world, there is always something being said about content. “Content is King.” “Quality is Key.” That’s all fine and dandy, but using content as a marketing strategy has always been a circular process…

You have to market your marketing.

These mantras have moved over to the blogging world as well. Bloggers are being told they need to focus on their SEO. They need to optimize each and every post. They need to tag all of their pictures. They need to guest post.

This is by no means bad advice. In fact, the more work your SEO campaign takes, the more likely it is to be successful. But you have to be aware of the work that needs to be done. If you’re writing guest posts in order to get links, that’s great, but is anyone reading that content?

Some might say it doesn’t matter. You got a link back to your blog and that was what you wanted. But don’t you want that link to be as effective as possible?

That content you created is good (well, it should be). After all, you were writing it for someone else. You had to meet their standards and you knew they could reject you at any time if they didn’t like the piece. Guest posting is not a “fast and easy” way to get links. But it is effective. So why not stretch the reach of your post?

What To Do After Your Guest Post Is Published

You probably share your guest posts with your social media followers. If not, you should definitely be doing that. It is not only beneficial to you, but it helps strengthen your relationship with the hosting website. They will see that you are putting work into marketing your article and they will be more willing to work with you in the future.

But there’s more you can do.

You can also use your published pieces as examples of your writing, strengthening outreach for future posts. But that’s not going to considerably raise the traffic of the piece.

Let’s also look at the life of an average guest post. It is published on a blog or website. If it is a general website that takes guest posts often, you need to ask yourself how many readers the site has. Is all of its traffic from contributors who probably don’t care about your content?

What you want is a reader-centric blog. The only problem with this is that if the readership is attached to the normal poster, your post may not garner that much interest. This is why you should always strive to match the tone of the author whose site you’re posting on.

If the blog updates often, your article will be on the homepage for maybe a week to ten days. Two weeks max. That ends the natural traffic gaining period of your post. Very few people are going to see it after this point unless they are searching the site for your specific topic. So what you need to do is get people to your posts. How do you do this?

You keep talking about them. You put links to your guest posts in your other guest posts, even in articles on your own site. A quick “I wrote more about this here” will suffice.

The other big thing is comments. You know you’re supposed to respond to all the comments on a guest post. This is usually as a courtesy. It shows that you didn’t just hit it and quit it. You stuck around to see what people thought about your piece.

There is another reason to respond to comments, though. If you start a conversation with readers, they are more likely to check back on how the conversation is going. They also might be more likely to check out your site. Regular activity is one of the metrics that search engines use to determine a page’s ranking. If your guest posts maintain some regular activity, your link on that page looks better and benefits your site more.

So, do some extra work to maximize the effects of your guest posts.

Jeriann Watkins is a writer living in Boise, Idaho. She enjoys writing about many subjects, including white-hat SEO and new advances in internet technology. She currently works for Page One Power, a relevancy first link building service provider.

The post How To Maximize The Effect Of Guest Post Links appeared first on Blog Marketing Academy.

There are a lot more ways to build your site’s traffic than social media. This video tells you what more you can do with your blog post other than tweeting and sharing.

Transcript

I want to talk to you about how you’re building your blog traffic.

Are you doing it using only social media? I mean, does the first thing that comes to mind that you’re going to go out and share your stuff on Facebook and Tweet a lot and magically build up your traffic?

Hey, just be honest with yourself… because the one thing is, I find that – that is what most people seem to be thinking about when it comes to building their traffic. And the thing is; the unfortunate fact here is that for most people that is a non-starter because it’s simply not going to work.

The problem with social media; especially when you’re first getting started is that it has “little to no” leverage. It’s a very poor use of your time and as I’ve said in my most recent blog post, it’s essentially an exercise of multiplying by ONE. And if you are at all familiar with basic arithmetic, you know that you can multiply the number one by anything you want and you’re still going to come up with the answer of one.

And it’s the same thing with social media. If you start out a new social media profile and let’s say you’ve got a few followers, (what have you) it’s a big exercise of multiplying by one because you’re basically tweeting it out there assuming that all those people that are connected with you are actually watching you, for one, which is not the case at all. They’re probably not watching. Now with that on Facebook, not all your friends are seeing all you share. On Twitter, it’s such a fire hose that a lot of what you put out on Twitter is just not seen by a majority of people who follow you. And it’s the same thing with Google+ because there are so many people dropping links into Google+ and it’s just not all that effective.

So, it’s a big exercise of multiplying by one.

So, what you need to be doing is not relying on social media. You want to use social media but it’s best used as a magnifier of something. But that something that you use to build your traffic needs to be something other than social media alone. And that’s when you get in leveraging your post and using your blog post in different avenues such as video and podcasting and slides on SlideShare and repurposing into a document, repurposing into a webinar. There are a lot of things that you can do with your content to get a lot of “play” out of the ideas that you put out in the internet and they’re going to be far better leverage than simply tweeting it out a few times.

So, if you want more information about that, see my most recent blog post over at blogmarketingacademy.com. I look forward to hearing your comments on that and maybe get you some ideas on how to build your traffic. 

But I can tell you straight up… if you’re relying on Twitter and Facebook and stuff to do it, you’re going to be probably disappointed. It’s usually the people who have already built up a decent sized audience who get the most leverage out of social media.

The post Does Social Media Work To Jump Start Your Traffic? appeared first on Blog Marketing Academy.

If you’re anything like the average blogger, you pretty much default to a single strategy: social media.

The plan is to get big on Twitter, Facebook and Google+, build your audience over there, and then siphon people off over to your blog.

Also related, most bloggers do one thing after they publish a new post: They share it on social media. That’s it.

See anything wrong with this picture? I do.

The Problem With Focusing On Social Media

Social media promotion for a new website does work, but it is pretty low ROI on your time. Social media is best used as a viral magnifier. If you have an existing audience, then your audience can share across their own social channels and it can indeed bring you some traffic. However, if you don’t have a built-in audience already, it is really difficult to gain much traction on social media. That’s because it is, by nature, a magnifier. And, multiplying by 1 doesn’t change the metrics very much.

Most bloggers simply share their posts on their own social channels, then cross fingers and hope some readers will do the same. Problem is, it is usually one big exercise in multiplying by 1.

Not to mention that social media is VERY noisy. Twitter is like an information firehose. Google+ is such a huge link-dropping farm now that the effectiveness in terms of audience building is questionable. And Facebook has high engagement, but EdgeRank also means that sharing a post does not necessarily mean that everybody will see it. It is really hard to get noticed if all you’re doing is multiplying by one.

The best way to do that is to “seed” your content strategically. You want to form relationships with people with larger followings and see about getting them to share your stuff. You want to get in on related groups and form a real reputation in there so that people will pay attention.

This does work, but it takes time. In some cases, a lot of time. And this is why most bloggers who are relying on social media alone to build up their website just never gain any real traction.

Thinking Bigger Than Social Media

You have to have a real strategy when it comes to building your blog traffic. And that strategy needs to concentrate on higher leverage options. Social media is low leverage in and of itself, and that’s the problem with it.

Let’s go bigger.

It is based on the idea that your content can be leveraged in many more ways than what you’re probably doing. Most of us – including me much of the time – write a post and publish it. There it sits, in written form. And, that’s about it. We then share it as much as we can.

But, content can be turned into many different forms and syndicated in many different platforms. The SAME content, in different forms and in different places.

Here are some ways to do that:

1. Videos. Do a short video where you’re talking about the topic of your blog post, then refer people to your blog post for more information. Post that video to Youtube, of course. But, also consider using something like HeySpread or OneLoad to multi-post that same video to other video sharing sites. You might even want to set up a video podcast so you can get that video syndicated into iTunes.
2. Podcasting. Podcasting has more distribution power than many give it credit for. I fully intend to get regular about my podcasting (I’ve sorta dropped the ball on this in recent months). But, it works. And, in terms of content leverage, you can do audio posts. Simply speak out your blog post, attach the recording to the post using PowerPress, and syndicate as a podcast to iTunes.
3. Make slides. Put the basics of your blog post into slide form, branded for your site. Then, post the slideshow to SlideShare.
4. Make a document. Use a service like ZinePal to auto-create a PDF of your blog posts, then share to Scribd.
5. Syndicated snippets. You can set up outlier blogs on Tumblr, Blogger.com, WordPress.com, etc. And you can post snippets from your blog post, preferably re-written/spun a bit, on these blogs with links back to your main blog. Same thing for videos. If you post a Youtube video, embed the video on these outlier blogs.
6. Paid traffic. Yes, I said it. Do not avoid paying for traffic. It works. I wouldn’t recommend jumping head first into Adwords or something like that. However, explore using promoted posts on Facebook, regular Facebook ads, Twitter ads, or even solo ads on other people’s sites. For solo ads, never direct them to a blog post. Send through a squeeze page and build that list. Ten Minute Pages makes child’s play of creating squeeze pages with high conversions.
7. Webinars. You can repurpose much of the same content from your blog into a webinar format. And, as you build more relationships and connections, your ability to put people onto the live webinar – and use it to build your list even more – will increase. But, even if you’re just starting out and have little to no list, you can still do a webinar. It doesn’t matter if anybody is there watching you do it. Record it and use it for leverage later. You can have people subscribe to your list to watch the webinar, for example.

This is just a bird’s eye view. Once you delve into this in detail, there are just a TON of ways to repurpose, syndicate and leverage your content.

But, the point is… you HAVE to think bigger than merely tweeting and sharing your way to an audience. The chances of that working are actually rather small.

I don’t like to see any of my students fooling themselves into thinking they’re doing something to build their business when they spend so much time tweeting and sharing. It doesn’t work all that well. Social media marketing is more effective once you have some leverage. But, starting from scratch doing that is very difficult and insanely time consuming.

On a related note, the new training system I’m creating inside the Academy is based on a roadmap. And, that roadmap will be talking a lot about content syndication and creating high leverage out of your stuff. Nobody wants to spend every waking hour doing this stuff. I intend to get into details and nitty-gritty about how you can do all this stuff, as much of it automated as possible. If that’s something you know will benefit the growth of your online business, then I invite you to join the Academy.

NOTE: Pricing on the Academy will be increasing within the next week or so. So, now’s a great time to get in.

The post Is Social Media Your Only Traffic Building Strategy? appeared first on Blog Marketing Academy.

It suddenly felt like High School again and it made me want to share how it was then, compared to now; in this video.

Transcript

I was just listening to something on the radio and it somehow got me thinking about why is it I do what I do for a living.

And I’m reminded of myself when I was back in school. We’re talking like when I was still in Junior High in High School. Maybe you guys experience the same thing.

Do you remember feeling like you were almost in prison when you went to school? Like you were stuck there until a certain time and yet sometimes you’d look out the window, you see the cars driving around, you see people walking around and you thought that they were free.

And obviously, in real life, they probably had bosses, they had things going on, they had their own barriers going on.

When I was a kid I wasn’t really totally aware of that. To me, they were free because they were not stuck in school. And they did not have a place they had to be. And at least, that was what I thought. And I fast forwarded to adulthood. And most people, they go to school, they go to college, possibly just so they can prepare themselves to go to a job all day long where they basically replace that same exact dealing with a new one and you’re operating that way through your entire life. You basically have to sit there at your job from one start time to end time. You’re basically forced to be there and kind’a feel like a prison until having a day off; it’s like a moment of celebration because all of a sudden you got freedom again.

When you look at it, this viewpoint that we got, we’ve had it since we were kids because I guarantee you that a lot of you guys, watching this video probably thought the same way when you were a kid in school and you didn’t have to go to school and yet a lot of us, we end up getting stuck at this mindset for our entire lives and we end up going in and doing a job I just call it a jailbee and we’re basically doing the exact same thing. We have to be there at a certain time, we have to do certain things and sometimes we look outside the window and think how cool would it be if I was not here right now…

And… why is it that I do what I do? Because I don’t want to live that way. It’s that simple. I do not want to live that way. I want to be able to be where I want to be, go where I want to go and do things on my terms. And I’ve always been that way. And luckily for me, I’ve been able to find a way to make a living where I can do the same thing.

And obviously, I have responsibilities. Sometimes, I have to do some things for the business that I don’t really particularly feel like doing but then again, everything is dictatable by me because it’s my business. So, that is ultimately my motivation.

Obviously, I enjoy making money and all that, but you know, it’s not really about that. It really comes down to the fact that I don’t want to be sitting in somebody’s cubicle or somebody’s office and told when I have to be there and when I can leave. Obviously, there’s not much into that and to the end that I can help other people avoid that prison sentence; that is one of my big motivations. If you can make ends to meet and avoid that, it’s even worth the pay cut. I would be willing to make less money if I could maintain the freedom of not being told what I have to do and when.

And to me, that’s really, really valuable.

So, anyway, that was what came to mind, I just want to talk about that for a little bit and I will see you guys, soon!

The post Why I Do What I Do appeared first on Blog Marketing Academy.

That’s what I’d like to discuss today for a few minutes with you.

This post is going to be a little bit different than the usual fare. But, I think it is rather important. And, it applies to you even if you don’t have a business yet. Basically, it applies to anybody with any money.

I’m the last person in the world to go into agreement with economic doomsayers in this world, many of whom have their own economic incentive to have you be freaked out and uncertain. But, we also have to be real.

Gross government spending, sky-rocketing national debt, extremely low interest rates propping up major markets… these things are real.

Most online business owners are so busy working on expansion and rockin’ that they don’t pay much attention to these other things. And, it is understandable. It isn’t something most of us feel we can do anything about. It is generally laced with alarmist bullcrap that brings us down and makes us less productive. And so, we’d rather ignore it and just focus on increasing our own incomes.

And, I’m TOTALLY down with that. But, let’s still be aware.

Don’t be this guy.

At the core, any common sense advice I could give you here is just smart anyway, regardless of the motivation. Whether you think it is all a bunch of hype, or whether you think we’re on the verge of economic collapse, the truth is that exercising basic common sense when it comes to safeguarding your business wealth only makes sense.

The Only Thing Constant In The World Is Change

And, that’s the point.

In our business, change has been great. The Internet has totally transformed the world economy, enabling people like you and me to make good livings doing something which was impossible not long ago.

But, embracing change also has to take into account other things. Like the fact that our businesses deal in U.S. dollars, which is inherently just a paper currency with variable value, subject to inflation and other things.

The companies our businesses rely on aren’t permanent. The money we use isn’t permanent. Nothing is truly permanent.

Many of us who run online businesses tend to be younger. And, the younger generation has never really experienced much hardship. The idea of things not looking like they do today isn’t something we generally think about.

The instruments set up for future financial plans… we tend to just assume they will be there waiting for us in retirement. Your 401(k), your IRA, your savings account… will they still be there with the same buying power when the time comes that you need them?

Again, just being real. Things change. And, it is good not to get stuck in a microscopic view of time and assume that things will always look like they do today.

Common Sense Tips For Securing Your Business Assets

Those of us working and/or running businesses, I assume that the goal would be to secure any wealth you create for yourself as much as possible, thereby providing wherewithal for your life even after your business ends.

To that end, let me share a few tips with you:

1. Consider diversifying your assets. In other words, don’t keep all your cash in the bank. When it sits in your bank, it sits there in digital form, and in dollars. The dollar is a variable currency, and due to various economic factors, is subject to hyper-inflation. It is debated by economists when or if that would happen, but there’s no arguing that it could happen given the nature of a fiat currency. The birth of the digital currency, Bitcoin, only goes to show the true nature of any currency. It is worth what people think it is worth – nothing more. I would recommend switching some of your assets over to physical assets which aren’t tied to the value of the dollar. Could be property, commodities of some kind, or precious metals like gold or silver. These things have innate value, whereas the dollar does not.
2. Keep some cash on hand. This means, for the cash you do have in the bank, I would recommend taking some percentage of it and keeping actual cash in your home or office. Perhaps one month of normal expenses. Reason for this, quite frankly, is the possibility of bank closures. It has happened historically, and it has happened quite recently in the nation of Cyprus. Cash flow is king when it comes to business. One needs to be able to cover expenses, and the idea of not having access to your own money because the bank closes… well, that would suck. Plus, the interest rates being earned on our bank accounts is so pathetic anyway, there’s really no difference in keeping some of it inside the office if it can be done securely. Speaking of which…
3. Consider getting a safe. Being able to securely keep assets in the office or home is important, so I would recommend getting a safe. You can use this for physical assets as well as important documents. And, I don’t recommend some cheap safe which is easily broken into. Something solid and bolted to the floor.
4. Maintain data backups. Let’s face it… our online businesses (and most businesses these days) are pretty heavily reliant on digital data. And, that data is subject to loss. If something were to happen to the places where that data is stored and you don’t have reliable backups, that could be a pretty serious issue. Don’t rely on the promised backups of your web host. I recommend you keep full data backups of your websites and any data files. For good measure, I’d also recommend keeping a backup of those items in your safe.
5. Diversify Your Income Streams. This gets into more of a business aspect that anything else, but having your iron in multiple fires provides more security. Markets change. Demand can change. So, from a business perspective, having multiple income streams and being in markets which could have a demand in good and bad times… that provides better business security for yourself.

There you have it. I don’t think this is anything too “out there”.

I think there is a lot of fear-based marketing out there these days. The survivalist, “prepping” crowd has definitely been active lately. You can see that, if anything else, just because of that show “Doomsday Preppers”. Funny show, sometimes. But, interestingly, it wouldn’t exist unless there was a demand.

Don’t fall into that trap. There is a line between common sense and paranoia.

But, I think the tips above are just smart for any business. And, I do know that those of us who work primarily on the Internet tend not to think about these things.

But, we should. No matter how successful our businesses get online, we are all still operating in a world with a lot of other influences. Not looking at it doesn’t make it any less relevant.

So, practice a little common sense.

The post How To Secure And Safeguard Your Online Business In An Uncertain Economy appeared first on Blog Marketing Academy.

Call to action box(es)… different for each page or set as a default, you have to have one. And here’s a plug-in that is definitely cool!

Link mentioned in this video

MagicActionBox

Transcript

I want to talk to you about “calls to action” underneath your blog post.

I came across a really cool plug-in that I’ve implemented over at PCMech.com and I’m going to be working with it some more because it really looks cool. It does these calls to action boxes in various places and most commonly underneath your blog post. You can obviously put those calls to actions anywhere you want but underneath your blog post make a lot of sense.

And they look really, really cool! It comes with its preformatted designs, they look really nice but you could also totally customize them and deck them out.

The other thing that you can do with it is have a unique call to action that you can design on your own on every single post, you can choose what call to action you want to display there. You can make the calls to action or your opt-in boxes very targeted to the material that the person just read. And that in theory, it should increase your opt-in rates if you do it right or increase your click-through rates if you do it correctly in terms of getting people into your offers or affiliate products.

So, that plug-in is called “Magic Action Box”.

You could simply search for that and I’ll have my assistant put a link to it directly below the video. It does have a free version which does a lot of things but it does also have a paid version and I think it costs $47. I went ahead and bought it because what it allows you to have a lot more fine tune control over where things appear. And so, one of the things you can do is set a “default” call to action and it will show across all of your posts.

But then, on a purpose basis, if you want to show a different one you can go ahead and do that and I think it has some different opportunities in terms of your call to action boxes, on sales pages, in social media stuff and all that; so that comes with the pro version, which like I said, I went ahead and bought it for 47 bucks. But you can check out Magic Action Box for free because it’s got a light version which gives you a pretty good idea what it does.

I was really excited about it because this is actually really close to an idea that I have for a plug-in that I was thinking about actually creating. And then when I saw what I saw… Magic Action Box… Sweet! This is actually really close to what I had in mind to begin with. So, I got excited, I went ahead and set it up and so far, I really dig it!

So, again, Magic Action Box … the link is just right on top of this transcript.

The post How To Get Great Call To Action Boxes On Your Blog appeared first on Blog Marketing Academy.

But, what about a theme framework? What the hell IS a theme framework? And, how is it any different than a regular theme?

I’m going to answer that in this post. And, in the process, maybe shed some light into why I decided to switch to a framework like Genesis from my custom theme I had been using for years.

Two Approaches To The Same Thing

You control what your blog looks like using a theme. And, you’ve got two different ways to approach that:

1. Use a standard theme.
2. Use a theme framework, often with a child theme.

A standard theme is where all the design components AND any programming necessary to power that design are all part of the same package. And, if you’ve got a custom theme, that means your theme probably uses some custom PHP programming to power certain things. It is all part of the theme, and all the files for it sit in a single folder.

With a standard theme, EVERYTHING that goes into making your blog look the way it does is all meshed together.

A theme framework works a little differently. A framework essentially SEPARATES the bulk of the programming from the actual design. Almost all of the programming that makes the site do what it does is part of the framework, whereas the design itself contains only minimal programming in order to, essentially, turn features on and off in certain places. The design layer often comes in the form of a child theme.

A framework separates the programming from the design.

Because the framework is a separate layer from the design, this means:

• The framework is upgradeable without screwing up any customizations you’ve done to your design.
• The framework usually comes with a bunch of capability built right-in. This means the designer can simply tap into those capabilities using MUCH shorter code, rather than re-inventing the wheel by having to custom code functionality right into the theme directly.

What This Means In The Real World

Most of the themes you’ll see out there for WordPress are just that – themes. Anything that makes that theme do what it does is baked right into the theme directly. Some of these themes have options panels where you can set things like logos, color options and things like that – but all that is just code baked into the theme. It isn’t a framework. If they ever update that theme to do cooler things and you’ve already customized your site, you would overwrite any work you did.

With a framework – especially the good ones – they’re often adding new capability to the framework over time. These capabilities make the design process easier and give you new capabilities that you may not have had before. And, being that it is a framework, you can slip in the upgrade and you WILL NOT screw up the design of your site or any customizations you made.

Also, when it comes to customization, working with frameworks is usually a LOT faster. As I said before, frameworks come with a lot of functionality baked right in – things that you’d have to code yourself if you were working with a single-layer theme. As a designer, you can simply tap into the framework.

If you’re used to doing things with standard themes, it will take a little getting used to working with a framework. It is a bit of a paradigm shift. But, once you get the hang of it, it is a LOT faster and you can implement great looking WordPress sites much faster using a framework.

And, as an end user, it makes things easier, too. For instance, what if you want a full-width page with no sidebar? If you aren’t using a framework, then you’d need to set up a custom page template. With a framework like Genesis, you just choose the full-width option as you make the page. No geekery required because that capability is built right into the framework.

Your Options

There are a lot of frameworks out there these days. I decided to go with Genesis, but there are many others such as Thesis, Catalyst, Carrington, etc. Even WooThemes is using their own framework called WooFramework.

I’m now recommending Genesis, as that’s what I chose personally and I only like to recommend those things I’ve tried myself. And, I think Genesis is fantastic.

Now, if you go with a free or cheap theme, chances are you won’t be using a framework. It will be a standard theme. Customizing it will be more difficult and you won’t be able to upgrade anything without a geek at your side. Even some of the nicer premium themes like those from Elegant Themes aren’t using a framework. They have an ePanel built in which gives you many options, but it isn’t a true framework.

If you’re serious about the foundation your blog is built on – and you want to make your life easier moving forward – I would recommend you select and use a theme framework.

One last thing to note…

If you’re thinking of switching to a framework, this doesn’t mean you have to change the look and feel of your site. Because design and code is much more separate when using a framework, you can make your site look like anything you want. If you want to keep your site the same as it is now but slip a framework in there, you can. You’d have to make a child theme which looks like your current blog, but you can do it.

M’kay?

If you have any questions, you can find me below in the comments section.

The post What is A WordPress Theme Framework? Do You Need One? appeared first on Blog Marketing Academy.