Archive | October, 2022

Six years after starting a blog called the Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington sold the website for 315 million dollars. But 3 years before the deal was done, Arianna shared her secrets to creating a successful blog at the MarketingProfs event. Little did they know at the time just how successful her blog would become!

Here are 3 points she said marketers should keep in mind when creating and growing their own blogs, along with my elaboration:

1. “Make it easy for your contributors to contribute.”

You’ll notice when you visit the Huffington Post there isn’t just one writer, there are hundreds of writers. In fact, any celebrity can share their thoughts in a blog post if they do it “transparently and honestly.” How can you adapt this method to your blog? Allow anyone known (and perhaps even unknown but up and coming) in your industry to make blog posts, and make it easy. If they want to phone it in, email it in or use any other method (snail mail?) then let them. So long as it fits into your blog’s guidelines, publish it.

2. “Have a clear point of view.”

Forget keeping everyone happy by covering every point of view. Instead, choose your angle and stick with it. It’s clear to all where the Huffington Post stands, and it should be just as clear to your readers where your own blog lies in the spectrum of opinion. Find the truth in each story from your point of view and your visitors will have a clear idea of what you stand for.

3. “Provide a safe environment.”

It’s not going to be easy to get new contributors if they’re afraid they’re going to get attacked each time they make a post. That’s why the Huffington Post employs a team of comment “pre-moderators” who approve or reject comments. Thus no personal attacks are allowed, and disagreements are kept on a civil and intelligent level.

If success leaves clues and you consider selling a blog for $315 million to be successful, what can these blogging guidelines do for you? Put them into practice and let’s find out!

The right header can give your website a professional look, attracting attention from your visitors and even increasing your conversions. The header can set the tone for your entire page, and can help visitors decide to linger or leave.

Obviously, you want to spend some time making your header look professional and convey exactly the message you want. After all, if a picture paints a thousand words, then your header can say a lot about you and your product or service.

With this in mind, here are 7 tips on how to make your header work for you instead of against you.

1. Use great graphics. Think of the biggest benefit your visitors get from your webpage, blog or product, and then find a way to convey that in a picture. For example – if you teach gardening, then a luscious, bold garden filled with vibrant flowers will work nicely. If you teach cooking, you’ll want a header that conveys the type of cooking you teach – Italian? Vegetarian? Keto?

But what if your main benefit isn’t so easy to convey? For example, you’re selling a product on how to get massive traffic through social media. One idea is to have a person telling another person, who tells another, who hands over cash to the website owner. Or perhaps it’s one of those diagrams where one person tells 5, who each tell 5, who each tell 5 (think MLM.) There are a number of possibilities – you’ve just got to find the right one for your website.

2. So you’ve got the perfect web graphic for your header in your, um, head, but you’re no graphic artist. Now what? Consider hiring a professional to create your graphic for you. View their portfolios to find someone who makes headers you like, and then hire that person. The money you spend to make your header can pay off very quickly, so don’t sweat the $50 to $200 it costs for a professional looking header.

3. Don’t forget the headline. Sure, you’ve got your website name and your graphic, but what about a slogan or headline? Your header is prime real estate so be smart and think of the perfect headline that tells exactly what your site, blog, product or service does. Make it compelling and curiosity or benefit driven, something that grabs prospect’s attention and persuades them to read further.

4. If possible, place your best keyword(s) in your header. Again, this is to grab the attention of your visitor and get them to read further on your page, rather than passing you by for the next website.

5. Align your header with your theme. If your website is blue and yellow, use those colors in your header. If your website uses a particular font, consider using the same or similar font in your header, and so forth. Your website should look seamless, not like a bunch of disjointed parts slapped together in Frankenstein’s basement.

6. Make your header credible. Don’t claim to be the world’s foremost leading authority on space travel unless you really are. Credibility is everything online.

7. Consider including a simple animation in your video. We’re not talking about those horrible neon flashing things here. But something subtle with a bit of movement will catch the eye and add interest.

Want some inspiration to get you started? Here are 55 Awesome Website Headers. Mind you, some of these are totally out-of-the-box different, and maybe more than you need…

http://www.topdesignmag.com/55-awesome-website-headers-for-your-inspiration/

Here’s another 30+ Cool and Creative Header Designs…

http://www.tutorialchip.com/inspiration/website-header-designs/

Just a quick thought – you see a guru using a particular service, doing a particular technique, sending out a certain email, etc. And you think, “Hey! If he’s doing it, then it must be the thing to do, right?”

Well, not necessarily. Guru types make mistakes too. And because they are generally playing in a bigger arena, they sometimes make very big mistakes they quickly regret. The problem is, if you’re watching them then you can’t know for certain if what they just did was a good idea or the stupidest idea ever.

On top of that, you don’t know what their goals are. Maybe they’re selling a $2 ebook because they’re upselling a $97 course on the backend. So you sell a $2 ebook with no backend and then you wonder why you only made 6 sales and $12… It could be because you’re not a guru and so no one recognized your name and no one believed there could be value in something that costs $2.

That’s why you should never blindly imitate a guru – you don’t have the full story of what s/he’s doing and whether or not it’s working.

However, if you see him repeatedly doing something which he could easily change, then you might want to jump in and try it yourself. For example, you see a guru continually sending out emails with the same strange formulaic subject line. Try it.

If it wasn’t working for him, he wouldn’t keep doing it. Or at least we HOPE he wouldn’t – he might have someone in a faraway office sending those emails for him and he doesn’t even know the results.

Be cautious with imitating anyone, even the big dogs of marketing. Yes, it can be highly valuable to learn from others who are successful, but not everything that works for someone else is going to work for you.