Website User Experience Must-Haves For Maximum Conversions

You have probably heard the term user experience, or UX, tossed around a bit lately. Though the term has been used as a trend, there is certainly nothing trending about user experience at all. UX is here to stay. And if your website is lacking the conversion rate you want to see, user experience is the answer. From site speed to navigation, how a site visitor accesses and engages with your website is critical to maximum conversions.

“Digital user experience encompasses all aspects of a person’s interaction with your web or mobile site including behavior, actions, perceptions and satisfaction,” Casey Weisbach explained in a Forbes article. “Putting an emphasis on user experience will not only benefit your customers but will consequently deliver results for your company.”

How do you leverage website user experience to maximize conversions? This could be a million dollar question for your business. The following UX must-haves can serve as your guide to get more sales. Let’s dive in!

Make Your Website Speed Lightning Fast

The speed in which your website loads has become a big Google ranking factor. This can help your site’s web pages rank higher in Google SERPs increasing your online visibility. However, site speed also has a conversion-minded capability.

Part of providing a powerful user experience is having your website load under three seconds. One second or less is optimal. How fast is your site?  Check it using Pingdom or Google PageSpeed Insight tool.

These tools can also show you how fast your site is on desktop and mobile with information on how to make it faster. It could be as simple as optimizing images on web pages, or you may need to upgrade your hosting plan to get more bandwidth and disk space.

Make Mobile Devices A User Experience Priority

There are more Google search queries made via mobile devices than desktops now. This is a UX signal to make mobile devices a priority for maximum conversions and sales. If a site visitor has a poor experience engaging with your site on their smartphone, they are likely to abandon your site for one of your competitors.

There are tools to check your website’s mobile usability, like Google’s mobile-friendly test. This tool can give you the details about how user friendly your site is on mobile devices, and also help you fix them. Most of these fixes have some SEO tactics involved, so you may need to research mobile SEO a bit.

Think About Site Navigation

When it comes to providing a powerful user experience for maximum conversions, you will need to consider site navigation. This is essentially how website visitors will navigate your web pages, and how easy it is for them to find the information, answers, and products they seek in the fastest amount of time.

A great way to better understand how your site navigation is working, is to use heat map tracking and feedback polls. The more you learn from your audience and see how they are using your site, the better you can prepare it for future visits and user engagement.

Site navigation starts with your main menu bar. This should encompass your site map, highlighting your top pages. Your main menu needs to be clear and concise without any broken 404 errors for site visitors to stumble upon during navigation.

Throughout a web page, you should also have clear call to actions that help guide site visitors to pages that provide information and products you want to sell. Use your buyer journey to ensure all pages are connected with path to a conversion, whether that is a product sale or email capture for sales team lead generation.

Do Not Have Cluttered Web Pages

Cluttered web pages create frustration and confusion for website visitors, and this results in them leaving your site to visit a competitor’s site. This makes having a clean website with a lot of open space important for UX. For example, your web pages should have a clear heading in the above the fold content, letting visitors know they are on the right page for what they are looking for.

Sections of web pages are also important. You want your site visitors to be able to quickly find the details of each section quickly. The content for each section also needs to be in a very concise paragraph with subheading. Surrounding all this should be sufficient white space so visitors feel comfortable. Websites like Google My Business and MailChimp do a great job of this. You can also use WordPress custom templates to help keep your web pages uncluttered.

Is Your Website’s User Experience Exceptional?

Having exceptional user experience in place is no longer an option, it is mandatory. Your competitors most likely already provide a powerful UX web design, and you need to stay competitive. Make UX a priority using the above tips and increase your conversion rate for more leads and sales.

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2G00ALs
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How to Use Google Analytics to Boost Traffic to your Site

Google Analytics is a powerful reporting tool that lets you know everything that’s happening with your website. If you feel like you need to improve your website and the experience it gives customers, it’s the best place to start.

Analytics is used by more than 27 million sites across the globe and that number is steadily increasing. However, not many people know how to take full advantage of Analytics and all it can do for a website’s SEO and traffic growth. It’s basically a digital roadmap of all the things you’re doing right and wrong.

The platform may be a bit overwhelming at first, but with enough practice and playing around with it, you’ll soon learn the metrics you should track to boost your SEO. If you’re trying to increase your website’s traffic with Google Analytics, here’s how you can get started.

Evaluate traffic acquisition

Do you know where your traffic is coming from? Is it mostly from other websites’ backlinks? Organic search through Google? A link connected to your author bio? From a guest post?

If you aren’t aware of what’s driving traffic to your website — and what isn’t — then you’ll never be able to make the necessary adjustments to create conversions and push consumers down the funnel.

Analytics lets you see which social channels are navigating users to your website the most so that you can spend more time optimizing a strategy for those platforms. This will increase your acquisition rate as well as your social following for visitors who are interested in your brand and its products.

Knowing which sites backlink to your content is extremely valuable to your growth strategy because it can help you generate more backlinks to your site and build links to get better ranked by Google. If you receive backlinks from authoritative sites, Google will favor you even more.

Once you know who’s linking to your website content, you can personally email them asking if they could include your post in their newsletter or weekly roundup. Or you could insert a backlink in your blog post that leads to their content so that you can promote each other’s content.

Optimize for mobile

With more than 4.5 billion mobile users all over the globe, you’d better make sure your site is properly optimized for mobile and other devices. If someone tries to navigate through your site’s content and has a difficult time doing so, you’re in trouble.

When viewing statistics in Google Analytics, pay close attention to content with high bounce rates and how much time users spent there until they exited. The bounce rate is the percentage of users that abandoned a web page after one view. You want to reduce your bounce rate, so if yours is high, take a good look at what’s not working and what’s getting abandoned. Compare it to content that’s doing well and see where the difference is.

According to a Google study, 53 percent of mobile users abandon a web page that takes longer than three seconds to load. So you’ll need to test your website for speed and efficiency with a tool like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

Always A/B test elements of your website for the best user experience so that you know what makes traffic soar. When you know what works, you’ll be able to update your website with changes that bring positive results and customer satisfaction.

Analyze landing page reports

In Analytics, your landing page is the first page that’s viewed in a session and typically the link you’d provide users with if you wanted to backlink to your own content. Is your landing page at the quality it should be? Is it doing a good job of building a relationship with the consumer, gaining their trust, and creating conversions?

If the answer is no, you need a new strategy.

Google Analytics lets you analyze which web pages are most popular, how many sessions there are, bounce rate, how much time was spent on each page, and more. Google favors high engagement so it’s important to track engagement levels your audience has with your website. What content resonated with them most? What did they spend the most time on? What did they spend the least amount of time on?

When you analyze further, you’ll likely notice a pattern between content that’s doing well and content that’s failing to impress viewers. Figure out why users are spending time on certain pages and exiting out of others. Eliminate what isn’t working and put more focus towards what is.

Wrapping it up

There are tons of metrics you can track through Google Analytics to help your website’s traffic increase. It’s important to know what to look for. A good place to start is to look at an overview of where your traffic is already coming from, who’s consuming it, and for how long. Making sure your website is optimized for mobile users is also key to converting consumers, especially those at the top of the funnel. With enough evaluation and research of what metrics you should pay attention to, your website will gain traffic like no other.

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2SeuMIE
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5 Awesome Tools for Solo Content Creators

It used to be the case that you could specialize in one thing, do it really well, and that’d be your career for the next 40+ years of your life. I remember chatting with someone at a United Way fundraiser and he told me that he had been working with CP Rail since high school and he was on the verge of retirement. He took on a gig one summer, learned the ropes on the job, and stuck around for the next 50 years of his life.

He wasn’t doing exactly the same job the whole time, of course, but he really had been working not only at the same company, but actually at the same rail yard for his entire adult life. And he couldn’t have been happier about that kind of job security, a situation that is increasingly rare in today’s economy and marketplace.

These days, you need to be versatile and roll in with a multitude of skills. You need to adapt and learn on the fly, gaining new knowledge and abilities all along the way. As such, if you’re going to be a “content creator” on the Internet, you need to develop some level of comfort with all kinds of content, from written blogs to podcasts to visual content to videos and more. And you’ll need the right tools for the job.

Canva

When I first started with YouTube, I just let the platform automatically select a still frame from the uploaded video to serve as my thumbnail. I took this route for the longest time, as I really wasn’t taking YouTube all that seriously. Then, I start fiddling around in PhotoShop to make custom thumbnails, but I’m hardly the most artistic person. These days, I use Canva to do all (or at least most) of my thumbnails.

While there is a paid tier and there are available microtransactions for premium content (like stock images or premium templates), you can use Canva completely for free. I use it primarily for my YouTube thumbnails as an easy image editor based on a number of pre-designed templates. However, Canva is great for all sorts of graphics, from Instagram posts to Facebook posts, from flyers to book covers.

You don’t really need to have any sort of advanced technical know-how, since you can always start from a template with a look that approximates what you want. Then, it’s just a matter of uploading your own images and editing in your own text.

FocusWriter

This may or may not be the approach you want to take with all your writing. It might not necessarily be the best way to go about writing your regular blog posts. For longer form content or where you need to throw every distraction aside, FocusWriter is one of the simplest and most feature-free text editors you’ll find.

Myself, I tend to use Notepad on my Windows machine. Even then, though, I can’t help but to glance over at my open Chrome tabs or get distraction by Facebook notifications. With FocusWriter, you can conceivably cast all of that aside and center all your attention on the words you’re putting on the page.

Of course, if you want a more robust word processor with more features, there’s always Microsoft Word. For collaboration, Google Docs is tremendous and the Hemingway App can help to improve your writing by offering actual, actionable feedback on word choice and structure.

Open Broadcaster Software

You might remember when I mentioned OBS as one of the easiest (and free!) ways to record a screencast. It’s great for when you want to offer an online tutorial or include part of your screen in a vlog. Video is far more compelling than a static screenshot.

Since the time that I first wrote that post, they’ve upgraded the software to a new version of OBS Studio with a more modern interface and more robust feature set. Available for Windows, macOS and Linux, OBS Studio is free and open source software.

Set as many scenes and sources as you’d like, putting together custom layouts that are as simple or as complex as you want. Now you’re able to tap into an audio mixer from the main interface, adjusting your audio levels coming from the desktop audio, video capture device, or your USB microphone, for instance. There are also scene transitions, including the ability to set their duration.

Trello

Even if you work for yourself, by yourself, and you have no need to collaborate with anyone on the projects on your place, a project management platform like Trello can really help to keep you on track. You can break down your project into manageable tasks and sub-tasks, ensuring that nothing slips through the cracks.

Trello boards operate on the same fundamental philosophy as kanban boards. What this means is that each task is its own card (you can put additional attributes like sub-tasks within each card). From there, the objective is to move the card across your columns until it reaches the “done” column at the far right. This helps to identify bottlenecks and track progress from a wide perspective.

Audacity

OBS Studio is great for handling some of the video aspects of your content creation strategy. And FocusWriter or Hemingway App can go a long way in helping with your writing sessions. For audio, it doesn’t get much better than Audacity, which is also available for free.

Podcasts are an obvious example here, but it could be any kind of audio really. Adjust levels, mix tracks, change settings, trim, crop, speed up, slow down, and more.

If you plan on having guests on your podcast, for instance, then you might also want to give Zencastr a go. Your guest simply click on the link you provide them (they don’t need to make an account) and the platform will record your conversation in high quality MP3 format to use as you see fit. The free tier only allows for up to two guests and 8 hours per month, so you might consider the $20/month professional plan for more features.

Do you have a favorite tool that you use on a regular basis?

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Dot Com Lunch – Don’t Worry, Be Happy Dining Edition

For this episode of the Dot Com Lunch, we had lunch at Happy Dining in Irvine, California. This is away from our normal location at Pho Ba Co, but we felt a change of pace would be good. You’re invited to the next lunch! Join the Dot Com Lifestyle meetup to find out the time and place of the next one.

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South OC Cars & Coffee – Show Off That Engine!

This week’s South OC Cars & Coffee had a lot more cars than the last time. Thanks to no rain and a lot of sun, all the supercars came out for a morning of showing off. The event is held every Saturday from 9am – 11am at The Outlets at San Clemente in South Orange County. It is the biggest Cars & Coffee in the world.

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Online Video Marketing and Engagement in 2019 – Stats You Need to See

How many times have you went online for something and ended up on social media… only to find yourself an hour or two later lost in a world of endless videos? Don’t worry… it happens to the best of us.

For these videos, there are two different ways to look at them.

1. As a normal internet user, and simply being entertained
2. As an online marketer, and discovering new marketing methods

However, most content creators and marketers will likely find themselves in a mix of the two — who doesn’t love watching an awesome video on Facebook, and then seeing advertisements to break apart the video. I actually like the advertisements best! haha

With video now being more of a focus than ever before, it’s important to make sure your content creation and branding efforts don’t get lost in the mix. Your competitors are using video to reach an engage with new audiences, and so should you — no matter if you are an individual blogger, an affiliate marketer, or a Fortune 500 company.

With all of this in mind, let’s take a look at some of the best ways to create online videos, engage with new audiences, increase brand exposure, and more in 2019.

The Many Different Ways to Create Online Video in 2019

When you think of ‘online video’, there are probably a few different ideas that come into mind. A few of the most common is that you hate the idea of getting in front of the camera, and the other is likely that it costs too much to outsource the process.

The best brands are getting creative with their video ads, and many of them aren’t even using people. Whiteboard animations are still one of the best ways to create videos, without ever needing to draw, get on camera, or even record the audio.

Solutions like mysimpleshow have created easy to use drag-and-drop platforms, that allow anyone to create engaging videos in a matter of minutes — while also not blowing through your budget in the process. The cool thing about whiteboard videos is that they aren’t just great for long sales pages and selling, they can also be used for a wide range of informational discussions and explainer videos as well.

If getting in front of the camera and recording yourself talking is something you are excited about, there are plenty of free or low cost options for this as well. Obviously, YouTube is going to be one of the best options for this, as the company is owned by Google, and the more videos they have on the platform, the more money they make from advertising.

With YouTube you can either upload completed videos (and then edit them within the platform), or you can live stream, record, and them host them through YouTube as well.

When it comes to YouTube, most people have their own software and video recording preferences. This is especially true with any of the top channels on the platform, as most of them are using professional camera and professional visuals for their thumbnails. You can read through some of these top solutions on this Quora thread.

We could talk about online video creation all day, but we should also stress the importance of what we already know about video advertising and how it’s being used in the industry. For that, we can take a look at some marketing reports that provide us with millions of dollars worth of advertising campaigns… for free!

Mobile Video Marketing Statistics

Remember back when everyone was saying “mobile is the future”. Back then it seemed obvious, but there was a decent waiting period for us to get to where we are today. Now mobile really is everything — and when it comes to mobile, it’s all about video!

Take a look at some of these latest video marketing stats from WordStream.

• Over half of video content is viewed on mobile.
• 92 percent of mobile video viewers share videos with others.
• 90% of Twitter video views happen on a mobile device.
• Periscope users have created more than 200 million broadcasts.
• 10 million videos are watched on Snapchat per day.

I’m sure if we were to see an updated graph with numbers from 2017 and 2018, these numbers would just sky rocket off the chart. As more countries continue to get their hands on mobile devices, desktop viewing is on the decline — which increases demand and conversions for video.

After looking at these stats, there should be some other key thoughts that are triggered as well. As amazing and wonderful as video is, not as many sites and brands are using it as they should be. Whether it be because of the complications in creating video, setting up ad campaigns or just not knowing how to get started… the market is still wide open to take advantage of what online video advertising has to offer — especially if you are playing around with Facebook Ads and Instagram advertising.

Using Video as Learning Tools and for Branding

Once you start using video within your content creation and marketing efforts, you likely won’t stop. This isn’t just because of the engagement and ROI factors, but also that it’s more appealing and fun to create.

It’s also important to note that video simply works better as a learning tool as well. A perfect example of this can be seen with my Udemy video courses. There are now over 55,000 students actively enrolled into my courses and they are consuming thousands of minutes of video every week — all of which can be done through desktop, tablets, and mobile.

Just like how most people would prefer to watch a movie over reading a book, the information is absorbed at a faster and deeper rate as well.

As reported by simpleshow, “Respondents that were shown the simpleshow classic explainer video format improved their knowledge by 57% (1.7 points), while a knowledge increase of only 37% (1.3 points) was achieved by the competitor’s explainer video format.” — this ultimately goes back to our previous mention of why and how whiteboard explainer videos work so well. It’s not just the video and audio, it’s also the visuals that are incorporated within most of these videos as well.

Want to put this theory to the test? Simply watch the short animation video below on “artificial intelligence and machine learning”, and you will probably have a better understanding of it than ever before.

The lesson here? Take a look at how you are providing your audience with valuable information on a daily basis, and how it could be better portrayed through video.

Now let’s take a look at why video also engages better with audiences, and why it’s winning so well with online marketing as well.

Video Marketing Engagement Statistics

Again, referencing that same video marketing stats report from WordStream, we can also look at some important figures in relation to video marketing and engagement. Anyone can create a quick video and go live with an ad campaign, but making sure that video actually works and brings a positive ROI is what matters most!

• 51% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI.
• Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users.
• Sixty-four percent of consumers make a purchase after watching branded social videos (via tubularinsights).
• 59% of executives agree that if both text and video are available on the same topic, they are more likely to choose video.
• Social video generates 12 times more shares than text and images combined.
• Views on branded video content have increased 258% on Facebook and 99% on YouTube as of June 2017 (via tubularinsights).
• [NEW] You can now use GIFs in Facebook ads! We tried it out ourselves, and on the first day the ad below outperformed any other live Facebook ad we were running.

Looking at all of these figures, we cant tell online video is one of the best marketing methods for several reasons. Not just for the engagement factor, but also because they can be measured in a wide range of factors that typical text and image advertising methods can’t be. A perfect example of this is ‘drop off rate’, which is when most viewers might stop watching or close out the video.

Yes, the actual views and shares of a video are great, but there are many different video metrics that should be measured. One of the most important being ROI from a video or ad campaign.

Again, don’t forget about how easy it is to set up video ad campaigns on Google, Facebook, and Instagram. Not only is it easy to set up an ad campaign, it’s also easy to track what’s working and split testing new video ads as well — whether they be shorter, have different call-to-actions, or completely different altogether.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Video Creation and Marketing Efforts in 2019

The world of online video can be exciting and scary at the same time. As mentioned throughout this resource, you don’t need to jump into video and have yourself be the face and audio component. There are many other ways to create video, or even outsource the process.

It’s also important to realize how quick and easy video is to create. If you do a short interview or webinar with someone, throw that video up on YouTube and embed it into your site. Then, send that file over to a transcription service and they can provide you with a nice written article from that same video. If you want to bring it another level deeper, turn that same data into an infographic as well.

Video can do wonders for content creation and marketing — just make sure you put in the time and effort to make sure it’s done correctly.

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2ROixDb
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The Real Secret to Successful Networking

Over the last several months, I’ve been putting huge emphasis on networking, and what it can do for your business. Many people will agree that networking with the right people is essential to building a growing business. However, I’m still surprised at the amount of people who don’t put effort towards outreach, and this is slowing down their growth. The ones who pay close attention to networking are not doing it the right way which again is a huge waste of time. With that said, I want to discuss some awesome networking strategies which I’ve learned over the years.

Throughout my career I have had the pleasure of working with some of the top industry leaders, and this has been a great contributor to my success. I believe networking or outreach is something you should definitely do when starting out in business, or if you’ve been around for several years. Let’s get started, and look at ways which networking can help you excel in business.

Starting Out

Personally the MOST important aspect of networking is getting to know people, and letting them know you exist within your niche. Attending events is a great way to build your profile because it’s where until today industry leaders meetup to talk business. Events have been around even when social media, and other online networks came into existence so they still play a crucial role today. In short, if there are huge industry events taking place within your city or country, then I’ll make it a point to attend. Your letting people know you exist, and what you do through networking. It’s also important to note that many top players will get invited to attend so you can build a portfolio of the type of people you should get to know. Next,

Since the growth of social media many bloggers have been creating profiles which have helped them build an identity online. I would encourage all of you to build a FB, twitter and LinkedIn profile. Recruiters are turning to LinkedIn to find people with the qualifications they are looking for, and this same method can be used to network with others in your niche.

Home Work # 1

Start by researching events taking place within your area which you can attend. I would focus on the big ones where you know the top people in your field of business will be attending. Next, if you haven’t yet, I would focus on creating social profiles which reflect your business, and so others can learn about your experience.

Connecting with People

After creating profiles, and attending some events, I’m hoping you have narrowed it down to a handful of people you would like to network with. These people should fit the following criteria:

• Years of experience
• Specialty
• What people they know
• How you can contact them
• What they might find appealing or enticing

Go through the list you creating, and find ways to contact them which will be through email or even phone call. If they are really close by I’ll visit them, but it might be a better idea to let them first know you’re coming by. Look at it this way, since you did your research, and know they are major players in your niche, you can now reach out to only the best. Don’t tire yourself out by having to contact 50 people at one time, but start with 2-3 a day, and see what type of progress you make. Next,

It’s important you have a spread sheet of all the people you have contacted so you can do the next step (follow-up) seamlessly. I’ll go into more detail on follow-ups later, but in the meantime make sure you write down the following information:

• Name – keep track of the person you contacted so you can reference them during your follow-up.
• Contact method – You’ll know how to follow-up with them in the future, and will easily be able to find the correct contact information.
• The date you initially contacted them so you can see the time period which has passed.
• The next follow-up date which I think should be within a week time period.
• The company
• The niche

Home Work #2

It’s time to start your outreach so start doing about 2-3 per day. It’s time for you to create an excel spread sheet so you can keep an eye on your contacts. This is a great way to organize your follow-ups.

Follow-Up & Setup Meetings

Once you have your list ready, and have made the first initial contact, then it’s time to wait for a reply. Some people will reply right away with either a No, Yes or asking you to contact them after a specific time period. Use your spreadsheet to mark all this information down so you can quickly go through making the right adjustments. The ones who are willing to meet you should be prioritized with dates, and places. I believe if you can arrange a meeting with them right away, the better chance of you securing some sort of deal, networking or even future pitch on a product.

Remember, a meeting is your best result so you should be prepared before going in because a negative impression means you’ve just lost a huge chance to make an impact. Next, if you haven’t heard back from some of the people you contacted, then give it about 6-7 days before running another quick follow-up call or email. Remember to mark this on your list going forward.

Home Work #3

Setup your meetings, and prepare for the confirmed dates. Go through the list of people you haven’t heard back from, and run another quick message. When going keep these things in mind for your meeting:

• It’s time to impress
• Show them your best work
• Know your pitch inside out
• Get a list of questions ready
• Make sure whatever your presenting you know because this is your opportunity to impress

Show Them Your Work

It’s always a good idea to show off especially when you have value to provide. People are looking for new opportunities only when they are worth it, and this is why I encourage you to have your best work with you. When you are heading to the meeting, it’s a good idea to do some more research on the person so you can find out what type of content, or pitch will excite them. I believe this is your one opportunity to shine so make sure you put on your best show. How can you figure out what work to bring with you? Simple.

First, do your research by visiting their product or site looking for a trend in the content or products they sell. Secondly, look through your portfolio looking for similar work, but it’s important that it stands out, and provides value. For example, no point in bringing work which is mediocre because this won’t create a buzz with them. If you bring low quality work, then going forward they will be reluctant about getting into a business relationship with you.

Next,

If you can’t find anything in your portfolio, you can always start a project to create something before your meeting. Use your research, and do the following:

Research – create a plan of the type of keywords, and text you will be focusing on going forward. Have a handful of targeted keywords so you can scatter them through the page.

Add Value – In the end it’s all about adding value because low quality content doesn’t sell anymore. Providing value is what will distinguish yourself from the rest of the people. If you the person your meeting can see this, then you’ll have an easier time getting a contract with them.

Ask Questions – If you’re unsure about the direction you want to go in, then ask the person your meeting. Many of them do get impressed because it shows initiative. This leads into my final point…

Pitch Some Ideas

During your meeting, you’ll be talking about various different things, however it’s important not to forget your main purpose. For example, you arrange this meeting for a reason so make sure you get to the point before you leave. However, so you stay on point, it’s a good idea to have a handful of solid content ideas, or even product ideas when you enter the room. This will save you both time, and show you know what your purpose is WITHOUT sounding unsure or confused.

Here’s how I pitch some of the idea’s I’ve had over the years:

Email – sometimes I’ll send them an email with my idea before getting to the meetings so we can discuss further after. Many of them will ask for a complete breakdown through email before you arrive.

Presentation – One of the oldest ways to present an idea, however takes enormous time to put together. Depending on the type of pitch, you might have to put something like this together before the meeting. The good news is the person will tell you before the meeting what they expect. In a presentation, do the following:

• Present pitch
• Benefits
• Costs
• Demand
• Marketing
• Other expenses
• Overall bottom line

These are the things which matter when presenting a pitch.

Written Plan – A long way to present information, but might be required so the person can look at things on their own. This will take time to put together, and has to include the following:

• Charts
• Business plan
• Business model
• Profits
• Expenses
• Projections

In the end, the more effort you put to show value, the better your chances to secure a solid pitch deal.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed my article on being able to network the right way so you benefit going forward. It’s all about getting to the right places, and meeting the right people. After, contact them to set something up, and pitch them one of your awesome ideas which can lead to some serious business. Go through each point, and start incorporating it into your business marketing plan going forward. I’m sure you can leverage the information I discussed here to start meeting the right people one-on-one, and pitching an idea to grow your business. Get started now.

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2CIz3ua
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5 Email Marketing Trends to Watch out for in 2019

If your New Year’s resolution for 2019 is to boost your revenue, you need to bump up your email marketing.

Email marketing isn’t dead. In fact, by 2020 email will be used by 3 billion people, that’s almost half of the world’s population. And with new technology, email marketing is only getting better. But if you want to take advantage of new email marketing tips and tricks, you need to keep up-to-date with the trends.

Consumers get a ton of emails in their inboxes — 10, 20, even 30 a day — and if your business’s emails are out of date and out of touch, consumers will pass you up in favor of a company whose emails are more current. So, what can you do to your email marketing next year that will help you beat the competition and capture the attention of consumers?

Let’s take a little look into the future, here are five email marketing trends to watch out for in 2019.

1. More personalization

Consumers are no longer swayed by seeing their name in the subject line or getting an email on their birthdays, in 2019 you’ll need to add more personalization to your email marketing if you want your campaigns to be successful. While adding the recipients name in the subject line and addressing them personally in your email is still important, what’s more important to consumers now is receiving emails that are relevant and timely to them.

With email marketing software you can store a wealth of information about the subscribers on your email list. So, instead of sending blanket email messages to your entire list, you can easily send more personalized messages to each segment of your email list. For instance, marketers can segment users based on location. If you’re an eCommerce store, you can send an email promoting your newest winter products to the email subscribers who live in cold climates. Think of how much more engagement and conversions you’ll get if the moment it starts snowing your subscribers in the northern states get a winter-themed message from you in their inbox.

Bonus Tip: If you’re still struggling to grow your email list, try using a tool like OptinMonster to create eye-catching popups that will encourage your website visitors to become subscribers.

2. Interactive emails

Interactive emails have grown in popularity over the past few years and they’re only going to get bigger in 2019. Instead of making consumers jump through hoops to take your desired action, like adding a link in your email to a survey on a landing page and hoping recipients click on it, you can add a survey right inside your email. Interactive emails increase engagement and encourage more consumers to take your desired action.

Image Source: http://bit.ly/2fnC3Vh

You don’t have to stop at in-email surveys either, there are a number of ways you can make your emails more interactive including:

• Scratch cards – a fun way to uncover discounts
• GIFS
• Videos and interactive photos
• Accordions – to stack more content in one email
• Add to calendar options – for RSVPing to events
• And more

3. More automation

Using more automation in your email marketing in 2019 will not only save you time, but help you make more sales — even while you’re sleeping. For example, if you send out an email and a user clicks on a link inside that email, using an email marketing software you can automatically send them another email related to that link they clicked. This is an extremely effective strategy because you know by clicking on the first link that they’re interested in that particular content, product or service and with automation you can send them more relevant information to help you close the sale.

With email automation you can engage with consumers in real-time as they’re engaging with you, even if you’re not around. More and more busy business owners will be taking advantage of email marketing automation next year so they can focus on other aspects of the business, while still making sales and nurturing leads.

4. Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just for billion dollar companies anymore. In 2019, many businesses small and large will start using AI in their email marketing. Artificial intelligence can do many tasks better and faster than a human can do them. It doesn’t mean your emails will read like they were written by a robot either.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to quickly analyze the emails in your marketing campaign to help your campaigns be more successful than ever. For instance, AI could analyze which content each user is interested in most to help you send more relevant emails to each of your subscribers. AI could also let you know what subject lines and copy will resonate most with users. Artificial intelligence could even tell you at what time of the day each of your subscribers are most engaged with your email. This coming year, don’t be afraid of robots. We predict they’ll make your email marketing even smarter.

5. More casual tone and voice

According to statistics, Millennials are projected to overtake Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation in 2019. While Baby Boomers typically prefer a more professional tone and voice when it comes to emails, it’s less important for Millennials. In fact, many Millennials respond more to a casual — even fun — tone and voice. For instance, “Dear XXX” may have been an appropriate greeting for Baby Boomers, but a simple “Hey XXX” is more relatable to Millennials. So, expect email marketing to become more casual and fun this coming year.

Image Source: http://bit.ly/1k4IR5W

Adding emojis in your email subject lines is even becoming more common and can increase opens and engagement. More businesses in the new year will be giving up their stiff email communications in favor of funner messages that will capture the attention of younger audiences.

Bonus Tip: Want more of your website visitors to email you? Add a simple contact form to your website using a tool like WPForms.

Boost your email marketing in 2019

Now that you know what to look out for 2019, you’ll be able to stay ahead of the trends and create email campaigns that’ll be leaps and bounds more successful than ones in previous years. Be sure to start planning your email marketing before January rolls around so that the moment we ring in the New Year, you’ll be ready with an email marketing campaign that’ll bring in a ton of sales.

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2UeBTOB
via Daniel

On Typecasting, Branding, and Success

Every type of business, every line of work has its fair share of unique challenges. And what you’ll find with so many of these challenges is that they are utterly at odds with one another. If you run a restaurant, of course you want to use the highest quality ingredients, but you need to be just as mindful of your menu prices. You want to offer a unique product or service to the world, but if you’re idea is too far out there, no one is going to be interested.

When it comes to the entertainment business, just as with blogging or as an online influencer, one of the greatest challenges that you’re going to face is getting noticed. It can be really hard to break through that signal-to-noise ratio when there is just so much talent (or so much content) out there. For every Tom Hanks or Jennifer Lawrence, there are thousands (millions?) of would-be hopefuls vying to “break into the business.”

But at the same time, many of these actors and actresses actively avoid being “typecast” for fear that it will restrict future opportunities. They’re afraid that casting directors will only see them a single way and they’ll never be able to “branch out” and show what else they are capable of doing. But is typecasting really that bad?

Getting Caged In

Actor Damon Herriman will be playing Charles Manson in two separate projects that will be released around the same time. He’s been cast in the second season of “Mindhunter” on Netflix, presumably playing the mass murderer when he is already behind bars. In “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” a movie set to be directed by the legendary Quentin Tarantino, Herriman looks to playing the role of Manson while he is still “free” and expanding his “family.”

Some actors might be afraid of not only depicting the same “type” of character so close together, let alone playing the exact same individual that’s actually based on a real-life person. But think about it this way. For all intents and purposes, Damon Herriman is a relative unknown in Hollywood. At this point, it’s not immediately obvious how big these roles will even be… but either one could work out to be a breakout opportunity. When else will you have the chance to work with Tarantino and David Fincher?

It’s not just about the paycheck. It’s about the potential exposure and connections he can make from these opportunities. In some ways, my work here with John has “typecast” me in some eyes as the guy who writes about social media and Internet marketing. Of course, my career expands far beyond that, but not everyone sees that. And that’s okay. This “success” or “importance” by association has been critical to my career.

Quite the Central Perk

You know who is an incredible example of “succesful” typecasting? Jennifer Aniston. Most of us know her best for playing Rachel Green on the hit 90s sitcom Friends. Indeed, even her iconic hairstyle became known as “the Rachel” in fashion circles. But if you were to look through Jennifer Aniston’s filmography in the last 25+ years, you’ll see that she has fundamentally played variations on the Rachel character over and over again.

While there are a few deviations in there, to be sure, she has systematically played a very similar kind of personality in so many of these films. Usually single, approachably gorgeous, working or middle class, and involved in some sort of complex romantic situation. And this has really, really worked out well for her.

She’s worth about $220 million today, thanks to movie roles and product endorsement deals. That’s more than any of the other main cast from Friends. Courtney Cox, who played Monica, comes in second at $120 million and Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe) brings up the rear at about $70 million. The three male actors — Matt LeBlanc (Joey), Matthew Perry (Chandler), and David Schwimmer (Ross) — are all estimated to be worth around $80 million.

Fitting In and Standing Out

A couple of years ago, I came across this Owlturd webcomic that illustrated how it feels when we box ourselves in. It spoke about how we try to conform to the expectations of others, because we’re afraid of being different.

It’s okay to be different. It’s okay to be unique. But you know what? It’s okay to be a cube too if a cube is who you really are. Embrace your cubiness and recognize that being “typecast” into whatever it is that you want to do is hardly a bad thing. Strike the pan while it’s hot, milk the cow for all that it’s worth, and then get ready to pivot should the circumstances change.

Just because people expect you to stay a cube forever doesn’t mean you can’t be a Rachel tomorrow. Remember she went from abandoning her own wedding to serving coffee at Central Perk to working at Bloomingdale’s, Ralph Lauren and even Louis Vuitton. That sounds like dot com lifestyle territory.

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2HtuEko
via Daniel

How to Create a WordPress Membership Site: 4 Tips

Back in the day, we considered things like our Blockbuster subscriptions something special. It felt good to know that we are part of a group and if you were a premium member you could get exclusives like bags of popcorn with your movie rentals, or generally extended rentals. This business model has rapidly shifted to the online universe and more businesses are opting to make a membership based website.

If you are thinking about creating a membership themed website you’re likely slightly overwhelmed due to the countless options, especially when using a freeform development platform like WordPress. According to a survey by W3Tech, WordPress websites make up 30 percent of the web, so this is going to be a likely choice for your membership site.

You’re in luck. We are here to help you sift through the information and develop a plan of actions. The tips listed in this piece are designed to help steer you in the right direction and help you create an attractive, functioning, easy to use WordPress membership site.

Use the Right Base Plugin

Almost every website starts with a base plugin. Essentially, a base plugin is the core tool that will allow you to create and customize your site into the type of webpage you want to create.

Some types of websites, such as basic blogs, function perfectly fine with a standard form builder. However, if you want to create a membership site, you need a plugin that supports this function.

There are many different member-style plugins available. Many people opt to use a plugin called MemberPress because of its ease of use and powerful features. Some of the features include different access rules, a community forum for your membership site, coupons, dynamic pricing pages, and in-depth reporting.

Create Multiple Subscription Levels

Sometimes it’s not enough to make it so that people can either sign up for your membership or opt not to do nothing at all. You can benefit your customers — and your business — by offering multiple subscription tiers so people can get exactly what they want.

The most common subscription levels we hear about are silver, gold, and platinum. You may be wondering how to use these three tiers in your business. Here is a practical example to help you understand how making multiple levels can benefit you and your subscribers.

In this example, we are going to use an example company that offers valuable content in numerous forms.

• Silver: Bare-bones. The silver subscription will give the customer access to the base level premium written content. They can also view all podcasts and shows the day after they air.
• Gold – Mid-Level. Gold members get access to everything silver members get, but they get access to the podcasts and shows as they air live. Furthermore, they get a premium newsletter sent out to gold/platinum members that have additional tips.
• Platinum – Top-Level. These are your top paying customers. They get everything that the silver and gold members get, plus more. They are able to take part in the live Q&A on podcasts and live shows. They can get access to behind the scenes information, meet the staff, up and coming articles, and also get your library of previously published e-books.

Adding multiple tiers to your subscriptions gives your customers a chance to pick the plan that’s right for them. This is what a multi-tier system might look like in advertisement/purchasing format.

Source

Offer a Free Trial

When you’re creating a membership site, one of the best ways to increase the number of people who subscribe comes from simply offering a free trial. It has been discovered that when a business offers new customers a free trial, 40 percent are likely to convert to a paid subscription — and that’s on the low end! High-end estimates are around 60 percent.

Offering this experience to your potential customer creates a positive outlook of your brand. They are able to ‘test drive’ your subscription and see if it’s something that they are going to want to use over the long term.

Source

You’ll also get the opportunity to use your free trial as an advertising tool when promoting your membership based website. There are plenty of companies that make sure to mention their free trial in bold letters so customers know they are going to get to try before they buy, which goes on to boost conversions.

Offer Discounts/Upsell

There are multiple ways you can make more per membership purchase if you understand the nuances of upselling and when to hand out discounts.

Typically, there are two times when you’re going to want to give out discounts. First, if you’re segmenting your lead list properly, you should have a group of “free” email subscribers, “silver” email subscribers, and so on.

You can entice your “free” subscribers with a greatly discounted price on a silver account, which will help establish them as a premium member. On the same note, you can upsell and offer a discounted rate on your silver members to try to get them to upgrade to gold, and gold to platinum.

It’s possible to upsell to brand new customers too. The best practice here is to upsell immediately after they make the purchase. You may want to send them a thank you letter and mention that they can upgrade to the next tier for (X) dollars. The simple suggestion and a reasonable price may be enough to drive more sales and create happier customers.

There’s no doubt that building a membership-themed website comes with its own set of challenges. However, once you start a proper site and members start coming up, these types of websites tend to grow quickly.

These tips were designed to help you build a solid site with a reliable structure. The most important factor in this process is you. You have to continue offering your customers new and valuable information that will turn one time subscribers into lifelong customers.

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2sGF4mE
via Daniel

Brain Secrets to Increase Your Email Conversions

Imagine if you could improve your email marketing by simply understand how humans think right before they make a buying decision. For example, one of the most successful area of studies is to understand how people think, and what makes them make a judgement. You’ve probably noticed some decisions are very quick while others take enormous time to make. What is the difference between these two different types of thought process? With that said, I have been working with some email marketers to understand how we can implement what we know about the human thought process to better our conversion rate. You’d be surprised on what I learned, and how I’m able to increase my email conversions by adding a few tricks to my landing pages, and email follow-ups. These messages have been tweaked to tap into the human thought process.

Read through the following strategies, and implement them into your email marketing going forward. It’s important to test, and tweak along the way for optimal conversions. Let’s get started, and your feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Things That Stand Out

Here’s something that is very cool, and marketers work hard at making sure they have it tweaked to perfection. When setting up email landing pages, or even sending follow-ups, it’s important you include things which stand out compared to the other elements. Think about some of the MOST recognizable companies, and why you remember them? You’ll notice they have certain aspects which standout, and whenever you think about them that’s the first thing you remember. Here’s the cool thing,

It doesn’t matter if the element is the color of the site, layout, logo, or specific text because it’s important it stands out in the end. The more you can get people to remember your brand, the better because they’ll engage with your content more going forward. Supreme email marketers will spend close to 75% of their initial time testing different forms, messages, and elements until they find those which convert the best. Why? They know how important it is to ensure people remember your brand.

Go through different elements on your website, and find how you can make them stand out. It’s also a good idea to look at ways to present them to visitors showing them the value. This way when it comes time to start your email marketing campaign, you can elevate them to the next level.

Lesson #1 – People always remember what stands out so make sure you have elements that you can turn to during your email marketing campaign.

The 3 Second Rule

Research shows that a part known as the amygdala controls quick gut reactions, and this allows people to make split decisions. It’s there so we can make emergency decisions to protect ourselves. However, the ability for marketers to tap into this part has been the desire for many years. Research shows if you can lighten up this portion through email marketing, then you’ve increased the likelihood of obtaining a conversion. However, you have to understand the human mind-frame to achieve this. For example, it’s important to understand how the product or content your presenting will form an emotional connection. You have to breakdown your niche, and product to figure out it’s selling points, then create a campaign after. The two best niches this strategy works with are romance and weight loss.

Both of these niches connect to the human emotion of feeling better. People automatically assume if they lost weight or find a companion their life would change for the better. This is why both these niche market products by tapping into the emotional aspect creating a quick reaction. They aim at presenting products to build a connection lightening up the amygdala.

Lesson #2 – Try to achieve that quick 3 second reaction with your readers. The faster it’s achieved, the higher chance of getting better conversions through email.

Images Work Faster

Over the years we have a certain belief that text content is always better. Since everything has gone online, we write valuable text content because we’re under the impression it will help us rank better, and we can drive organic traffic to our site. However, it’s important you keep the recent changes in your mind as it applies to content creation. We are now in a time where social media has changed the way we interact with the very same content. For example, you see enormous content created using the following format:

• Images
• Infographics
• Text
• Podcasts
• Etc

This means you can now attract the visitor’s attention more quickly which works in your benefit. However, I’m shocked at the amount of people who still opt to use text content as a way to increase conversions. Here’s the thing, when you are trying to get that conversion, you have to get your point across quickly…right? Long text content requires enormous reading time which can work against you when trying to win over a conversion. Statistically images, and videos are much better at getting the conversion now days. I’ll admit this wasn’t always the case, however people are more in a hurry, then ever before. If they don’t find the information they need within a few seconds, they’ll leave, and head over to your competition. Remember, there is NO shortage of competition online!

By now I’m sure you are creating an email campaign so it’s time to think of ways to address your MOST important points quickly. Think of how you would use videos, images or even infographics in your campaign, and it’s important to test these channels out. Remember, you are tracking conversions so you’ll have all the data you have to tweak, and optimize along the way.

Lesson #3 – Try different content format to find out what works best with your audience. It’s important to test each content format keeping your main purpose in mind. For example, if you want to increase sales, then look for ways each content form at increases or lowers them. Use the format with the highest conversion rate.

Following The Crowd

Through your email marketing campaign, it’s important to connect your readers either through social media or comment box. Over the year’s research has shown that people tend to shop where others are shopping, and buy products where the reviews are awesome. This is why I have encouraged people to always leave reviews when they purchase a product through my site. With solid reviews, I can direct people to the reviews page increase the chance of conversions. However, here is the trick, you have to embed the review page link within the email campaign follow-up so people can read them before buying.

Research has shown positive reviews on a product has the potential of increasing its sale by 40%. This is a staggering high number with a huge profit potential. Google has also given preference to reviews within the SERP’s because they increase the user experience. For example, when someone is looking for a product, it’s best they find out everything they can about it before their purchase. Reviews offer a way for the “pros” and “cons” to be communicated to the buyer.

Lesson #4- Reviews are a great way to engage readers, and increase conversions. However, it’s important you know how to set them up, and get people to the right page. Email campaigns offer a great way for you to market a product, provide reviews, and increase overall conversions.

It’s About the Value

In the end, it’s all about the value, and this means to make sure you can show your audience what the product, content or service is all about. If you change lives, then you won’t have a problem converting people into loyal customers. The cool thing is you can address value through a solid email campaign too.  For example, when you have a good product, and awesome content, then use your email follow-ups to point people in the right direction. It’s that simple! Value goes a long way with very little work on your end.

Lesson #5 – To be number one online, you have to provide value which others don’t. Value is only recognized when your readers share it with others so you have to direct them to your content page. Use email campaigns to reach out to your subscribers sending them to content full of value. Ultimately this will lead to more social shares, external links, and higher conversions.

It’s About Testing

If you’ve read my other content, then you know how much I emphasize testing for optimal results. The same can be applied to this strategy. You have to figure out after implementation what’s working, and what’s not. Once you have a magic strategy then you can increase conversions tenfold. However, the only why you’ll find out is by testing, and tracking. The cool thing is many of these newer ESP have a solid tracking system so you can pretty much get all the data you need to track conversions. I recommend giving it anywhere from 30-60 days to collect data, then optimizing.

Final Thoughts

Understanding human psychology is a great way to market your products. If you can tap into their desire, then you know it will increase your bottom line. However, many marketers tend to NOT take the time to understand their audience. As a matter of fact, when I was first getting started online, influential bloggers told me the key to success is understanding your audience. I’m here to tell you understanding them, and tapping into their mind frame is what increases conversions.

Go through each of the strategies listed above, and implement them into your email campaign. See what kind of results you can before stopping to tweak it later on. The key is to get as close as to your bottom line – Your Profit. With that said,

Get started, and let me know how things turned out in the comment box below. I’ll like to hear what strategy worked best with different niches.

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2CyEVpB
via Daniel

More Places to Find Royalty Free Music (That’s Actually Free)

You might remember a while back when I provided a list of places where you can find free music for your YouTube videos. As you know, if you’re a part of the YouTube Partner Program and you want to monetize your videos, you need to ensure that your videos do not contain any copyrighted material. That means you can’t just pull your favorite song off the radio, even if it’s the perfect fit for your video.

But you already knew that, right?

As a quick refresher, the five sources of royalty-free or copyright-free music that I mentioned last time around were:

• YouTube Audio Library
• Bensound
• Free Music Archive
• Soundcloud
• Incomptech

I encourage you to read (or revisit) that previous article for more information about each of these sources. Remember that not every track listed on every site is royalty-free either and you do need to give proper attribution when requested, so read the fine print carefully.

But where else can you find free music to use with your podcasts, YouTube videos, and other similar online productions?

ccMixter

The objective of ccMixter might not exactly align with the interests of the budding vlogger on YouTube, but that doesn’t diminish the relative value of the website in any way. The goal of ccMixter is to provide a platform where you can “collaborate with 45,000 musicians around the world.”

Some of those musicians upload original samples of their music. Others upload original a cappella recordings. And then producers and DJs on the platform combine them to form original remixes and songs. But you, as the podcaster or YouTuber, can also download a lot of the musical content on here to use for your creations too.

The music, samples and remixes posted on ccMixter are shared under Creative Commons licenses. Not all CC licenses are the same, so be sure to read the specifics for the song you want to use to check about commercial use, attribution, and so on.

Free Soundtrack Music

The name of the website Free Soundtrack Music seems pretty descriptive, wouldn’t you say? There, you will find a grand selection of royalty free music that can be used in films, videos, video games, YouTube videos, and other “digital multimedia productions.”

Remember, though, that “royalty free” is not the same as “copyright free.” It just means that you don’t have to pay ongoing royalties for their continued use. Some of the tracks there include a one-time fee, so just hunt for the recordings that are labeled as “free.” Then, be sure to include the name of the composer or producer, as well as the URL in the “credits” section as per the licensing terms.

FreePD

What if you’re not so interested in providing attribution to the free music you want to use in your YouTube videos? In that case, you might be more interested in the free public domain music you can find at FreePD. The site is completely free to use and the music is 100% free with no attribution or copyright. That’s because they’re all public domain.

You can optionally pay $10 to download 800+ MP3 files all at once or $25 to download the 100+ WAV files (as well as the MP3s), but the free way is to download the songs one at a time. The songs are organized into several categories across the top of the page including upbeat, epic, horror, romantic, comedy, percussion and electronic.

Musopen

On Musopen, you’ll find a variety of “recordings, sheet music, and textbooks” that have been provided to the public for free and without copyright restrictions. Yes, this means you can use the content as you wish for your digital creations. Musopen itself is a non-profit organization based out of San Francisco.

With the free subscription plan, you can download up to five files a day. The audio is standard (lossy). If you’d prefer to remove some of those restrictions, the $55 annual membership unlocks unlimited downloads, HD radio, and high-quality lossless audio, as well as the ability to get music before others. Above that is the $20/month benefactor level to request pieces of music too.

PacDV

And finally, we have PacDV. In addition to a variety of free music, you’ll also find a number of free sound effects and free images there as well. The tracks can be used for free, but you do have to link back to their site and provide suitable attribution in your credits (like in your video description).

Part of the frustration here is that the site does not provide embedded previews of the tracks, so you will need to download the full MP3 to get at the music. You are also only shown a small handful at a time, so you’ll need to flip through the pages to see if you can find a suitable track. You do get mood/emotion tags like “determined” and “sentimental” to help you decide on the right song though.

Do you have a favorite source of royalty free music?

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2DlZV4z
via Daniel

Want to Boost Sales? 5 Google Analytics Metrics You Need to Track

Google Analytics is a tool that almost everyone who owns a website uses in tandem with other analysis software. You can easily spend hours scrolling through data points with a wide range of metrics available through Google Analytics.

But mindlessly scrolling isn’t going to get you anywhere. You have to understand the metrics you’re looking at and put them to good use.

We are going to look at some of the most important insights you need to track on your Google Analytics account and how those factors can increase your sales and help you build a great business.

Bounce Rate

Google’s definition of a bounce rate is “a single-page session to your site.” While the actual definition is a little more nuanced and there are plenty of things you can do to change your bounce rate, such as making a user interaction “non-actionable” so that it does or does not count towards the bounce rate.

Regardless, your bounce rate is a vital statistic that you need to keep your eye on when tracking Google Analytics. The percentage will essentially tell you how many people are leaving your website quickly, or without clicking out of the page that they landed on.

What is a “good” bounce rate?

Basically, everything from 41 percent to 70 percent is considered average. If you manage to get below a 41 percent bounce rate, you’re running a website that keeps people around, and that’s excellent for boosting sales. If your bounce rate is above 70 percent it may be time to go to your website as a user and see if you’re suffering from long load times or errors.

User Demographics

When visitors come to your website, there is a good chance that they are logged into their Google account. As a result, Google Analytics is able to grab the demographics of the people who go to your site.

You can reach your user demographics by going to the audience tab, and then demographics. You’ll see data such as the age and gender, listed below.

(Google Demographics Example: http://bit.ly/2RyQFCW)

Why is this data important?

Simply put if you know your demographic you can easily make content and advertise to this user base. As an example, let’s say you want to start an ad campaign on Facebook. You check your demographics and discover that your main audience is like the example above, males between 25-34. You can take that data and run ads that target this audience, which can increase your sales over time.

Page views

Another important analytic metric you must track is your pageviews. There is a big difference between user sessions and page views that you should know.

User sessions include the entire duration of the online session per user. In other words, one person, one session. Page views, on the other hand, represent individual pages and how many time they were viewed. In this sense, one user can generate multiple page views depending on how long they stick around on your site.

Let’s look at an example below.

(Google Analytics Pageview Example: http://bit.ly/2CshqP6)

As you can see, the post from March 31st obtained the most page views. You can use this data to adjust your Google Adsense and advertisement placement. This will also give you insight as to what kind of content your viewers want to read. You can use this data to help craft better content.

Landing Pages

A landing page is, as the name implies, the page that your audience lands on when they make it to your website. This is an important metric because it helps you figure out how people are finding your website and what page they are landing on.

This data can help you manage your SEO. If you look at your analytics and see that there are plenty of people finding your page with one keyword, while others are barely getting any traffic, perhaps it’s time to work on your SEO marketing and change up your keyword formula.

Knowing your landing page data is important for other reasons too. It can help you figure out how to distribute ads and where you should put the highest paying ads. For example, you’re not going to put your highest paying ad on your least viewed landing page, right?

New vs. Returning Visitors

Finally, you should regularly keep track of your new vs. returning visitor statistics. As you begin to build your brand, you’ll, of course, grow an audience of consistent fans who keep coming back to see what you post.

You can build profiles based on your returning visitors and see who they are, whether they converted, and what you can do to pull in more people like them.

It’s also good to check out this metric to make sure that people are still actively learning about your product or brand. This is important to ensure that your marketing plan is working and you’re expanding your reach to a greater audience.

These five metrics will help you make the most of your experience using Google Analytics. If you combine all of these factors together you can create an effective business plan based on hard data. There is no better way to grow your business than by using facts and data that you can track over time.

As you collect more data on your analytics, you’ll discover what works, what doesn’t and how you can get more visitors, more conversions, and higher profits.

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2FMKSTn
via Daniel

Newport Beach Restaurant Week – Lunch At Bluefin Newport Coast

We kick off Newport Beach Restaurant Week with a lunch at Bluefin Fine Japanese Cuisine on the Newport Coast. Bluefin is a uniquely innovative Japanese restaurant by critically acclaimed chef Takashi Abe. The restaurant offers stunning ocean views and a sophisticated, intimate interior with a deep ocean blue water fall, dramatic illuminated sushi bar, dark woods and contemporary Italian chairs.

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from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2Fx5f7z
via Daniel

My YouTube Re-Monetization Experience

I uploaded my first ever video to YouTube in 2006. This was around the same time that I started my professional blogging career and it was also around the time that I met John Chow for the first time. From what I can recall, I also had an account with the now defunct Google Video, as well as other video streaming platforms like Viddler and Vimeo. YouTube was not yet the undisputed king of online video just yet.

For years, I treated YouTube as simply a convenient place to share videos online. It was great that I could not only upload the videos there for free, but I could also embed the videos in blog posts. While we may take this kind of functionality for granted these days, it was groundbreaking technology at the time. Somewhere along the way, I qualified and applied for the YouTube Partner Program (YPP).

It’s through the YPP that YouTubers can monetize their videos and get a cut of the advertising revenue. Even though YouTube (and Google/Alphabet) is notoriously secretive about how those dollars and cents are doled out, getting something is infinitely more than getting nothing. I didn’t really take YouTube seriously for years, uploading videos sporadically as inspiration struck and opportunities arose.

Some of my videos got barely any views. Others, like a video of an animatronic Albert Einstein at the Consumer Electronics Show, racked up hundreds of thousands of views. Go figure. In the winter of 2016, I decided that I’d give weekly vlogging a go. It was just one grand experiment in what would happen if I was more consistent with the platform and developed more of a standard schedule and format.

The weekly vlogs generally don’t get a lot of views, but I did experience some of my fastest growth in terms of subscribers. The original plan was one year of weekly vlogs. When the Christmas 2017 and January 2018 rolled around, I had planned on taking a bit of a break. Then, YouTube decided to change the YPP rules on me.

The original requirements to get into the YouTube Partner Program were that you needed 10,000 lifetime views on your channel. With the changes, you need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours (240,000 minutes) in the last 12 months. I did not satisfy those requirements and they said that they’d give a little bit of a grace period to catch up.

I didn’t catch up. So, I got kicked out and it felt like the end of the world. It was the apocalypse for YouTube small creators. Sort of.

So, instead of taking that break from vlogging that I was planning to do, I kept on trucking. I kept up with the weekly schedule. You see, I already satisfied the requirement for 4,000 watch hours in the last 12 months by a reasonably comfortable margin, but I was about 100 subscribers shy of the 1,000 mark.

In the end, with my weekly vlogging and constant pushes for organic growth, it ended up taking several months before I cracked the 1,000 subscriber mark. And it felt good. So good.

There was some good news and some bad news at that point. The good news is that because I was previously accepted into the YouTube Partner Program, my re-application back into the program was automatic and soon as I met the new requirements. I didn’t have to do anything and the process got rolling on its own. That’s good.

On the day that I met the requirements, the monetization settings page said that I should hear back from them via email within a week. When I went to check again the next day, it said that I should get a response within a month. Apparently, the human workers at YouTube have been very, very busy dealing with a backlog of re-applications.

Eventually, it took right around three weeks to get the reply via email and my YouTube partner status was reinstated. From what I can gather, most of my original monetization settings were also re-enabled and the default settings were applied to everything newer than when I was booted out of the program. This required some manual review on my part as I dug through my library of over 500 videos.

And that’s about it. The re-monetization process really is pretty seamless and automatic. Now, I can’t say if it’d be the same if you were applying for YPP for the first time ever and whether YouTube prioritizes re-applications or new applicants. What I can say is that I’m happily enjoying my tens of cents from the revenue share.

Maybe it’s about time I explore more of those monetization alternatives to AdSense, eh?

from John Chow dot Com http://bit.ly/2DeGOJy
via Daniel