How Your Online Business can Benefit from a Podcast

With attention spans at an all-time low, audiences are looking for ways to consume quality information in a fraction of the time. Enter in podcasts.

Podcasts are hardly new, but it’s still a growing content platform among online businesses. Many business owners are starting podcasts to share educational information and give a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to run a business.

But are people really listening?

According to Edison Research, 67 million Americans listen to podcasts on a monthly basis. And that’s just in one country when podcasts are available worldwide.

So we don’t have to wonder if people are tuning into podcasts, but does that mean it’s the right move for your online business? Well, it depends.

First, let’s talk about the benefits of podcasting to see if it’s something you want to consider including in your content strategy.

Benefits of podcasting for your online business

Every few months (or even weeks), you’re bound to see another business owner announcing that they’re starting a podcast. You may be wondering why they’re all flocking to podcasting, but it’s with good reason.

Let’s go over some of the basic benefits of starting a podcast:

Build your authority & credibility in your niche

The more openly you share your expertise, the more others will trust you. That trust translates into higher conversions because people want to buy from those who have authority and credibility.

Through podcasting, you have more time to fully cover important topics in your niche and show the depth of your knowledge. You’re also able to show how well you think on your feet, which is a true test of expertise.

Listeners from across the globe also have a chance to hear your voice. It’s one thing to connect with someone’s writing and it’s another to connect with their actual voice. When you create podcast episodes, your audience picks up on your mannerisms, experiences your true personality, and feels even more connected to you.

Repurpose high-performing content

Let’s say you recently wrote a blog post that has been garnering a large amount of traffic. Your blog comments have been through the roof, and your audience has been spreading it like wildfire on social media. Repurposing will come in handy here.

Since you’ve already proven the blog post topic is something your audience is interested in, it presents the unique opportunity to bring it to a larger audience with your podcast. By transforming the written content into audio content, you’re able to share similar commentary on the topic but in a fresh, new way.

This also saves you time and energy in the creation process since the content is already drafted for you. All you need to do is add a few additional insights, personal anecdotes, and your personality. Then you have an engaging podcast episode that took you half the time!

Reach a whole new audience

It only takes one look around the classroom to realize that not everyone learns the same way. Some prefer lectures because they’re auditory learners. Others need a slideshow to take notes from because they’re visual learners. Others would rather be left alone with a book.

When you create written content, you’re only able to reach the audience members who like to learn by reading. By adding another dimension through audio content, you’re able to reach a new audience that’s just as interested in what you have to say.

Create a deeper connection with your audience

Your written voice is one thing, but your actual speaking voice? That’s what really connects you with your audience. With a podcast, you’re able to give readers a deeper look into who you are and what you do.

You’ll create an even deeper connection with your audience if you sound just like you do in your writing. It’s all about keeping a consistent brand voice throughout every content platform.

More time to make a connection

Most blog posts are anywhere between 750-1,500 words depending on the topic and author. With a podcast, you’re able to fit a lot more information into a single episode.

With blog posts, readers often skim through the content to get the main ideas. Podcasts help you better capture more of your audience’s attention and for a longer amount of time. 

What will you do with all that extra time? You can share more educational content that builds trust with your audience, share personal stories that help them get to know you on a deeper level, or showcase your personality in a fun and engaging way.

Connect with influencers and others in your industry

What better way to connect with other bloggers and business owners than featuring them on your podcast? Interviewing other professionals in your industry gives them a chance to connect with a new audience while you get to connect with theirs. Win-win!

Start by asking a few of your friends in the industry so you get practice with interviewing and thinking on your feet. Then you can move up to micro-influencers and then full-blown influencers as you build your confidence and platform.

Conquer a personal challenge

Don’t you love when you prove yourself wrong? Maybe podcasting is something you’ve always wanted to do but told yourself you could never do. Well, let’s put that to rest.

When you dive into podcasting, you’ll strengthen a wide range of skills like editing, producing, interviewing, and scheduling. You’ll also get better at some less obvious skills like marketing, brand storytelling, pitching, and selling.

How to use a podcast to grow your audience

Now let’s talk about something much more uplifting: using your podcast to grow your audience. We highlighted that podcasting can help you reach a wider audience, but how do we go about that?

This is your chance to experiment and get creative! If you need some help in brainstorming, we have a few ideas to help you get started:

Use call-to-actions during podcast episodes

Are you launching a new product soon? Are you putting an extra emphasis on building your email list this quarter? Depending on your goals, you can use your podcast as a way to drive higher conversions within your website.  

You’re giving a lot of free, high-quality educational content through the podcast. It’s also being shared with a very interested audience.

You’ll want to capitalize on the authority and trust you’ve built through the podcast by giving direct call-to-actions (CTAs). Talk about your upcoming product launch or highlight a testimonial from one of your clients. Get creative!

Increase your podcast reviews and use them as testimonials

We all know that leaving reviews on podcast apps (like iTunes and Stitcher) greatly influence the searchability and popularity of a podcast.

Rather than using the reviews only to increase your downloads, you can also use the reviews as testimonials for your website. These podcast reviews act as perfect, bite-sized commentary to add to your podcast page, home page, or even sales pages.

Repurpose influencer podcast interviews

When an influencer agrees to sit down with you to do a podcast interview, you’ll want to leverage that highly desireable content as much as you can.

The first step is repurposing the podcast interview into show notes to put on your blog. Then you can take it a step further by creating quote graphics for social media, a full list of resources shared from the episode– the sky’s the limit.

Bonus points: If the influencer mentions your podcast show notes or article on their website by linking to your post, it can help you increase your traffic and domain authority (aka better SEO). Score!

Have you considered starting a podcast for your online business?

Hopefully this article has given you some extra motivation and inspiration behind your idea. What kind of podcast are you thinking about starting? I’d love to hear about it in the comment section below.

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5 Reasons Why No One is Reading Your Blog (And How to Fix Them)

You’ve populated your blog with a series of incredible, high-quality articles.

Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months — but you still don’t have many people reading your articles.

Where did you go wrong?

If this sounds familiar, don’t feel bad because you’re not alone. Most beginning bloggers usually come across this issue.

Luckily, this problem can be fixed easily. We’re about to show you how.

Why should you care?

Developing a blog takes a lot of work. You can’t just set up your blog, publish some articles, and expect people to find your blog posts on their own.

You need to be able to make your blog discoverable and attract visitors to build an audience around your blog. Otherwise, all the effort you put into developing your blog will go to waste.

But why should you care whether or not people actually read your blog posts? Wouldn’t it be enough if you get visitors to just click on your ads?

Well, if your plan is to monetize your blog, this might work for a short while. However, if you want to build a profitable business with long-term goals, you should optimize your blog to improve readership.

How can you tell if people read your blog posts?

What if you still don’t know whether people read your blog posts or not? How can you track if people read your articles?

It’s easy. If you already have Google Analytics set up for your blog, you can use the analytics reports to check if people read your blog posts and how they spend time on your website.

Analyze the time visitors spent on specific webpages, and check your bounce rate to see how engaged your readers are. If the average visitor spends less than 15-20 seconds on a page, then that’s a red flag.

Tip: You can take things further by integrating a heatmap system to your blog to see how visitors interact with your blog posts. Crazy Egg is a great tool you can use to analyze the behavior of your visitors.

Don’t feel discouraged if the results aren’t where you’d like. You can start to improve things by checking if you’re making the following common mistakes.

1. You’re not promoting your content

It doesn’t matter how amazing your blog content really is if people can’t discover it. To make your blog discoverable, you have to promote it.

This includes consistently promoting your blog posts through your social media channels. If you have a marketing budget, you can buy Facebook ads and boost your posts for maximum reach.

Another way to build a loyal audience for your blog is to grow an email list. Email marketing is not only a great strategy to generate traffic, but also a great way to develop business relationships and sell your products.

Reports show that email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook and Twitter combined.

You can get your website visitors to join your email list using a tool like OptinMonster. OptinMonster helps you create website sign-up forms and collect email addresses that are automatically added to your email marketing account.

2. Your website isn’t optimized for search engines

While social media and email are two great ways to generate quick traffic, organic search traffic will likely be the number one source that will generate a continuous stream of traffic to your blog for free of charge.

That’s why it’s important that you optimize each and every blog post you create to rank well on search engines such as Google and Bing. Otherwise, Google won’t even notice your blog, let alone rank your blog posts higher in its search results.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a complicated subject. In fact, there are entire industries built around this process. But you don’t have to be an expert to optimize your blog for SEO.

Start by installing an SEO plugin, such as Yoast SEO, on your WordPress blog. Then optimize your blog posts with keywords to get higher rankings. Use Google Keyword Planner to research keywords.

3. Your website is too slow

Did you know that 40 percent of website visitors are likely to leave a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load?

How fast does your website load? Use Pingdom Speed Test tool to figure it out. See if your website loads faster than three seconds. The results page will give you a few suggestions on how to improve your website speed.

You can start by following these tips:

• Installing a caching plugin.
• Optimize and compress your blog post images.
• Consider moving to a faster web hosting provider.

4. You don’t have a content strategy

It’s important that you build your blog content around a specific niche to attract a target audience. Otherwise, if you randomly publish content on various topics, you will only end up confusing your readers and fail to build a specific audience for your blog.

It’s one of the many reasons why every blog needs a content strategy. A content strategy is a detailed plan on how, when, and what you publish on your blog.

Do some research and ask people what kind of topics they are most interested in. Then, create blog topics around those subjects. Create a schedule to publish your articles and stick to that schedule to consistently deliver content to your loyal audience.

5. Your blog posts look boring

Writing and publishing articles online is an art form of its own. Especially when it comes to blog posts, you need to make them entertaining enough to keep your readers engaged throughout the entire blog post.

If your blog posts are nothing but text with long paragraphs, then your readers will get bored quickly and leave your website halfway reading the blog post.

You need to follow proper formatting, include clever anecdotes, and use examples to illustrate your theories to make your blog posts more entertaining.

For example, it’s best to keep your paragraphs no more than three sentences long to improve readability. And you can build trust with your readers by mentioning research and case studies to back your theories.

Don’t be afraid to use lots of images in your blog posts. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Ready to bring in more readers to your blog?

Once you know what’s causing the problem, it’s easy to find solutions. Avoid these five common mistakes and you won’t have much trouble building a readership for your blog.

And remember, don’t be afraid to invest in your blog. You’ll be rewarded well in the long run.

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6 Simple Photo Tools for Creating Social Media Visuals

Are you including images in your social media content?
Looking for easy-to-use tools to help you create images for your content strategy?
If the idea of using Photoshop makes your head spin or hiring a graphic designer isn’t an option, there are many easy-to-use, low-cost alternatives available to you to create social media graphics.
In this article, I’ll show you 6 easy tools that will help you create compelling graphics for social media.

#1: Use PicMonkey’s Online Photo Editor to Take Your Images From Good to Glorious

PicMonkey‘s free option has a wide variety of frames, special effects and font types to choose from.
With a touch of a button, you can crop and resize your photo, and add text to your images.

Choose from a wide variety of free fonts on PicMonkey to create appealing images like this one with PicMonkey.

The paid option offers additional features that include more frames and photo effects.
PicMonkey is a great solution for all types of social media images. Not only can you create graphics for your posts, you also can make banners and buttons for your social media accounts, such as Facebook.

#2: Express Yourself Through Photos and Creations on LiveLuvCreate

LiveLuvCreate is an image-creation website most anyone will find easy to use.
With LiveLuvCreate, you pick from a variety of design layouts—from one image as a background to a collage of graphics. You can use images from your computer or choose from LiveLuvCreate’s library.
Choose up to three text areas with a range of font types, colors and styles.
You may also select borders, filters and photo effects for additional image enhancements.

An example of a social media graphic you can create on LiveLuvCreate.com.

Once you complete your graphic, you can share your creation on Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook, or download the image to your computer.

#3: Create Your Own Designs With Canva

Canva is a free application that offers a myriad of graphic types for use in everything from presentations and posters, to business cards and invitations. For social media use, consider Canva to help you design Facebook cover photos and blog images.

Canva offers many different layouts to help you create compelling and shareable social media images.

If you’re signed into Facebook, Canva can pull in your photos. You can also upload your own graphics from your computer, or purchase from Canva’s stock image library (most images are only $1 US).
Additionally, Canva has a unique feature where you can collaborate with other users, which is great if you need to share or edit your images with someone else.
Canva is currently under closed beta, but you can reserve your username and be placed on a waiting list. Then, you can try Canva out once you gain access to the beta version.

#4: Use Image and Photo Editing Software From Paint.NET

If you want some of PhotoShop’s capabilities, check out Paint.NET as an alternative.

Paint.NET is a free download for PCs and offers many of the same features available in PhotoShop.
It supports layers, has unlimited undo capability and offers special photo effects, including red-eye removal. You can also draw shapes, add text and recolor your images with Paint.NET.

You can easily crop any image on Paint.NET and then resize to your specifications.

Because Paint.NET is a free download, tapping into the user community is the best way to get help with how to use it. Check out Paint.NET’s online forum for help, tutorials and plugins.

#5: Design Unique and Compelling Presentations With PowerPoint

It may come as a surprise to see PowerPoint on this list, but it offers another easy way to create social media images.
Any PowerPoint slide can be saved as a JPEG or PNG. Just click on Save As, and then select JPEG or PNG from the Save as Type drop-down menu.
PowerPoint then asks if you want to export every slide or just the current slide. Select Current Slide Only, and you have an image file of your PowerPoint slide. If you’re comfortable using PowerPoint, take advantage of this capability to create social media images.

#6: Make Awesome Collages With PicCollage

Don’t forget that compelling social media images can include snapshots, and when you want to creatively display these types of photos, check out PicCollage.
PicCollage is an app for iPhone, iPad and Android devices.
Once you download the app, use photos from your Facebook account or camera stream to create collages.
Select a background on PicCollage, add your photos, then text and stickers to your image. PicCollage also allows you to resize, rotate, edit and delete any of your creations. When you complete your collage, you can share your image on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

You can choose from many different layouts for your collage. Photo courtesy of PicCollage.

Use PicCollage to creatively display photos from a client event, office party or conference. Or pull in a favorite quote and surround it with images.
With a little creativity, PicCollage helps you create social media graphics that show a more personal side to your business.

Final Thoughts
While hiring a graphic designer or learning to use PhotoShop may be the best solution, it’s nice to know you have alternatives to help you design graphics to share on social media.
When you need help to create social media graphics, consider any of these tools to help you get the job done.
Do your research. Finding the right image design tool is a bit like trying on shoes; you need to choose the best one to fit your needs. You may find that it’s best to use multiple platforms to create your social media graphics, like KJ Ammerman who likes to use Picmonkey and Canva.

KJ Ammerman likes to use Picmonkey for backdrops, Canva for layout and then back to Picmonkey for text.

What do you think? Do you use other image-creation tools besides PhotoShop? What other sites or apps would you recommend? Share your comments and suggestions in the comments box below.

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13 Simple Questions to Help You Draft a Winning Content Strategy [Free Worksheet]

 Welcome to the year of adaptive content. The choose-your-own-adventure era of content marketing. The age of the customized customer experience.

We’ve already tipped our hand by publishing two podcasts on the topic: Adaptive Content: A Trend to Pay Attention to in 2015 and Behind the Scenes: 2014 in Review and the Road Ahead.

And 16 Stats That Explain Why Adaptive Content Matters Right Now is a foundational blog post that briefs you on the subject.

At this point, it’s only natural that we jump right in to the heart of adaptive content.

But after reading two dozen articles and at least one white paper, flipping through two SlideShare presentations, listening to a few podcasts, and reading four books, I realized if I want to prepare you to implement adaptive content, we have to go back to the beginning …

And start with content strategy.

Can you really trust your content strategy?

Content strategy needs to be precise. See, before you even put pen to paper, you need to know the direction you are heading.

Most of us who work online, from freelance writers to small business owners, probably have a content strategy. But there’s just one problem: it’s up in our heads.

But if you say, “My business is not that complicated, and neither is my content strategy. I know where I want to take this business. I don’t need to commit it to paper,” then this stat should make you take pause:

Only 39 percent of B2B small business marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. The rest either have a strategy that they have only talked about (47 percent), have no strategy at all (12 percent), or are unsure (1 percent).

That’s from the 2015 benchmarks, budgets, and trends study by Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs. So, let me explain the danger behind an undocumented content strategy.

First off, the difference between keeping that content strategy pinned to your mental wallpaper and taping it to the physical cinder blocks in your basement office is that your supposed strategy that you talk about may be no strategy at all.

Ouch.

The CMI study also found:

• 39 percent of companies who do have a documented strategy are “more effective in nearly all aspects of content marketing than their peers who either have a verbal-only strategy or no strategy at all.”
• 60 percent of those with a documented content marketing strategy consider their organization to be “effective” at content marketing; only 33 percent of those with just a verbal strategy say the same.
• 62 percent of those with a documented strategy say that their strategy closely guides their content marketing efforts; only 29 percent of those with just a verbal strategy say the same.
• Companies with a documented strategy are more than twice as likely to be successful at charting the ROI of their content marketing efforts than those with only a verbal strategy.

Furthermore, this lack of a documented content strategy could be a factor behind one of the most surprising results of another study, Copyblogger’s very own 2015 Cost of Online Business Report, which revealed 51 percent of online business owners are struggling to make a living online.

So, that notion you call your content strategy may be causing you to leave money on the table, publish ineffective content, and aimlessly feel your way to your destination, which might end up being the wrong destination after all.

You need a clear and focused content strategy to produce optimal results.

Answer these 13 content strategy questions

We’ve already made the case for content. But if you need a little reminder, here are some words of wisdom from Authority Rainmaker 2015 speaker, Ann Handley.

She writes in Content Rules that content will “position your company not just as a seller of stuff, but as a reliable source of information.”

But it can be tricky. Especially if you target more than one audience. And CMI’s research reveals that 54 percent of small businesses say they target at least two or three audiences.

Only seven percent said they target just one audience.

Throw in the different tactics you can use, social media platforms, paid advertising methods, as well as a limited budget and resources, and it becomes clear that a defined content strategy is necessary if you want to have any hope of remaining focused.

Certainly having a content strategy is better than not having one. But a documented one is superior.

As Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach write in Content Strategy for the Web:

Your content strategy defines how an organization (or project) will use content to achieve its objectives and meet its users’ needs.

Your content strategy helps you see clearly, avoid excuses, and remove distractions. It’s there to keep you accountable.

But creating a content strategy doesn’t have to be a frighteningly massive affair. You can create your first draft in less than a day, just by answering a few questions.

So, square away an afternoon, ask yourself these questions, and document the answers in a notebook, on a whiteboard, in Evernote, or in the handy PDF we’ve created for you below. Have fun!

1. Who are your users?

Identify and specifically describe the members of your audience.

For example:

• She is a working mother who would like to feed her family a healthy meal three times a day.
• He is an African American who wants to become a lawyer so he can give back to his community.
• She is retired, without any concerns for money, but simply wants to be productive and not bored.

As mentioned above, you may be speaking to more than one target audience. Define all of them. This may require you to delve pretty deeply into their heads.

2. Who are your competitors?

And I’m not just talking about your direct competitors. Who or what can take prospects away from you?

For example, a web designer is not only competing against other web designers, but also against tools that allow non-designers to design.

3. What do you bring to the table?

There is a reason I discussed your customers and competitors first. They give you an idea of the shape of the market and how you can fit into that market.

I say this all the time to people who are trying to build a business and a brand: Your mission and strategy will change over time. It will evolve as you learn about your customers and competitors.

With that research in your belt, you now can ask: How do you fit into the market? What do you bring to the table that no one else can? What makes you unique?

4. What do you hear?

Hopefully voices. But not the ones in your head.

I mean the voices from your customers and ideal target audience. What are they saying? What are the recurring themes, in regard to their dreams and challenges?

If you don’t know where to hear these voices, find the online water coolers where your prospects like to hang out. They could be on social media sites like Reddit, Facebook, Google+, or Twitter. Also consider LinkedIn discussion groups, forums like Quora, or membership sites like Authority.

5. What content do you already have?

You need to assess the content you already have on your website, blog, and social media platforms — and how far along you are into the content marketing game will determine how painful this will be. But it’s important it gets done.

Yes, this is a content audit.

Ultimately, you want to determine the type of content that would be the most beneficial to produce going forward.

6. What is the purpose of your content?

This is perhaps the most important question.

Is your content intended to drive sales? Generate leads? Build authority? Increase organic search traffic? Please your mother? All of the above? More than likely “all of the above” is the case, but each individual piece of content will accomplish a different task.

For instance, the purpose of an article you wrote on another blog may simply be to drive more traffic to your website. But not to just any page on your website — a landing page specifically designed for that guest article. A landing page designed to convert those visitors into email newsletter subscribers.

And that email newsletter is designed to strengthen your relationships with your readers and educate them on your products or services. For instance, one email you send may be crafted to drive those subscribers to another landing page designed to sell them your product or service.

It’s important to understand the purpose of your content. And the purpose of each piece of content can be determined during your content audit.

7. How often should you publish content?

Once a week? Daily? Answers to these questions boil down to your resources. How much time do you have? Who is going to create all of this content? Is the content converting?

Here’s some insightful research from Andy Crestodina to help you make that decision.

8. How will you distribute your content?

Content that isn’t shared is content that is ignored. No matter how great you think it is.

So, which social media platform(s) will you focus on? Where is your ideal audience? Who is going to share your content? Are you going to use scheduling tools?

9. Who is in charge of your content?

Is it you? Should it be you?

Like Michael Gerber said in his classic book, The E-Myth, a business owner should be in a position to work on his business — not in it. Otherwise, you may find it difficult to grow. You may need to hire someone to write new content and manage existing content.

10. Who will produce your content?

You may have a lot of wishes and desires. And no shortage of ambition. But allow human nature to teach you a lesson: We are all limited in what we can do.

If you want to create 12 infographics this year, who’s going to do the research? Write the content? Design it? Will these people always be available when you need them?

11. Who is going to maintain the content?

The content on your website is like a garden. It needs to be cultivated.

For every new blog post you publish, there are five rotting away with broken links, outdated facts, and topics that are now irrelevant.

Who is going to clean up this mess? Name that person, and create a schedule.

12. Who is responsible for the results?

If you’re the only content creator, easy enough. You are responsible for everything.

But if you have a small team, make each person responsible for some area of the content. As Patrick Lencioni explains in his book, 3 Signs of a Miserable Job, you will provide motivation to your team by measuring their performances.

Make sure these goals are measurable, achievable, and specific — and not ultimatums. In other words, don’t say, “You’re gone if you don’t meet this.” Allow room for mistakes, corrections, and growth.

In addition, you should be held responsible for an area of the content as well. Your people will respect that.

13. What’s your destination (core strategy)?

All the preceding questions build to this final one.

This is about stating what you need to accomplish, determining the type of content that will help you achieve this goal, and creating a plan to help you accomplish it.

Use these guidelines to create a core strategy:

• Aspirational: Create a goal that gives you room to stretch, fail, get back up, and grow.
• Flexible: Your core strategy should allow you to adjust as your environment changes around you, without having to make a drastic pivot.
• Meaningful: Does your core strategy align with your values, and will you be able to sustain it and endure challenges over the long haul?

Here’s an example of a core strategy from Content Strategy for the Web:

Curate an entertaining, online reference guide that helps stressed-out law students become successful practicing lawyers.

This is similar to five things every good marketing story needs: it’s clear who the hero is, what her goal is, what the moral is, what the conflict is — and, of course, you are the mentor.

Your turn …

Once your draft is complete, your next job is to download (221 KB) and print this nine-page content strategy worksheet.

Fill it out, and pin it in a spot you will see every day.

In the end, your core strategy will guide you through the distractions and difficulties that accompany building an online audience with content. But the rest of the information you collect will tell you where you are now, where you need to go, how you are going to get there, and the resources you need.

Editor’s note: Many thanks to Copyblogger’s Pamela Wilson for designing this worksheet!

Image source: Jeff Sheldon via Unsplash.

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