Trusting a third-party agency with your business’ entire online presence can be a huge leap of faith. You’re an expert in your own industry, but odds are good that you’re not also an expert in digital marketing.
Friday, February 28, 2020
Thursday, February 27, 2020
Inbound Marketing 2020: Hottest Marketing Trends and Updates
email marketing for affiliate marketers
Are your inbound marketing efforts optimised for 2020? Learn the latest inbound updates and trends.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
The Future of Ubersuggest
* Please read the whole post, I have some good news at the bottom, but it won’t make sense unless you read the whole post.
Do you know why I got into SEO?
Not many people know this, but I grew up in middle-class America, and I wanted a better life for me and my parents.
When I was 16 years old, I worked at a theme park called Knotts Berry Farm where I picked up trash, cleaned restrooms, and swept up vomit every single day.
I didn’t mind it because that’s life and I needed the money.
At 16, I realized I was too young to get a high paying job, so I did the next best thing… I started a business.
But making $5.75 an hour picking up trash wasn’t enough to market my business, though. The only solution that I could think of was SEO because if you put in the time and effort you can get the traffic for free.
It’s also the main reason I fell in love with it… it gives the little guy a chance to compete with the big guys.
And over the years I wanted to pay it forward and help out all of the entrepreneurs and small companies so they can do the same… succeed without having to spend a lot of money.
So, what did I do?
Well over the years, I’ve produced a ton of free content, videos, and guides that help entrepreneurs and marketers of all sizes succeed.
And in February 2017, I decided to take it to the next level by acquiring Ubersuggest for $120,000.
When I first bought it, I had the dream of creating an SEO tool that could compete with the big players that charged $100+ a month, but of course, offer it for free.
The developers that I had at that time estimated that I could do this for $30,000 to $45,000 a month. That was perfect as I had no issue losing that much money each month.
But as we got rolling and kept adding in more features, our expenses continually climbed. Just look at what I spent in the last month…
I spent $89,930 on hosting so far in January with an estimated spend of $128,680 for February. But again, let’s stick with January…
My back-end development bill from Tryolabs was $47,885 for January.
My data feed from SEO Power Suite, Data For SEO, and Shared Count totaled $75,253 for January.
And of course, my front-end developers as well as my dev-ops team Netlabs, which ran me $22,700.
Then if you add on miscellaneous costs, such as support, design, and project management, I was out another $11,450.
All in all, I spent $247,218 during the month of January 2020.
Keep in mind that my costs are continually rising. As the tool gets more popular, it costs me more.
One of the big reasons for the server expenses is scrapers.
Believe it or not, a lot of companies are scraping our data and continually rotating up IPs and creating fake accounts, which increases our server expenses. Especially when you consider that they are researching vague SEO terms or domains that aren’t cached in our system.
Don’t feel bad for me
Now the purpose of this post wasn’t to make you feel bad or guilty (unless you are scraping me). I just wanted to be transparent about my situation.
Originally, I was hoping that I could convert a portion of the Ubersuggest customer base into agency clients but as we continually move upstream and work with bigger brands, the conversion rate from an Ubersuggest visitor to a paying consulting customer has been low.
As that didn’t work out the way I wanted, which I learned around 11 months ago, it became harder and harder for me to eat the costs as they continually grew and I didn’t have a way to pay for them other than to dip into my own savings.
So, I started searching for solutions, such as turning Ubersuggest into a non-profit and raise money from foundations to help support the cost. I tried that for 5 months and I didn’t gain much traction.
I also tried to see if I could get sponsors for the tool who would help cover the costs, but that didn’t work out well either. Instead, many of them offered to buy the company for millions of dollars (some in the 8 figures) but I didn’t want to sell it as I knew their goal would be to turn it into another $100-a-month tool, which didn’t sit well with me.
After running out of options, I had no choice but to make some changes to Ubersuggest (don’t worry it is not closing down). But you can guess what the changes are.
But don’t worry…
First and foremost, my goal is still to give as much away for free as I can. Within Ubersuggest, you will still be able to do a lot for free…
Creating projects
You will always be able to create projects and track your rankings. And just like before you always have been limited on the number of keywords you can track and that, of course, is due to costs.
Keyword research
Within the app, you will still be able to see keyword research data.
You’ll see a chart with the latest few months’ traffic volume, data on mobile versus desktop search volume, demographic data, and even keyword recommendations.
And you can, of course, continually find new keywords to target.
Sure, some of the data is blocked, but did you know that only 14.3% of people used to register for a free account to unlock that data.
In other words, most of you never even registered because the application shows you enough for free without needing to log in.
Content ideas
Similar to before, you can also see popular blog post suggestions for any given keyword.
You’ll also be able to see the top keywords a blog post ranks for and the backlinks pointing to that URL.
Again, keep in mind the majority of you only looked at the top 10 results as 14.3% of you registered for a free account to unlock more data.
Traffic Analyzer
You will still be able to look up any domain and get stats on it.
Historical data is blocked, but you can see the last few months which is enough for most of you.
You’ll also be able to see the top pages for any domain and the keywords that page ranks for as well as backlinks.
The same goes for the keywords any domain ranks for.
Some of the data is blocked, but just like before only 14.3% of you registered to view that data. Which means 85.7% of you are happy with the free data.
SEO Analyzer
Not much has changed here, you can still analyze over 100 pages on your site and figure out which errors you have.
Here’s an interesting fact: Did you know the average site that goes through Ubersuggest only has 48 pages?
The median number of pages a site has in our system was similar at 43 pages.
And of course, there is the backlinks report, which now shows new and lost links as well as historical link growth.
Similar to what I mentioned above, very few people really cared to see the blocked off information as only 14.3% of you registered.
My dream
My goal in life is to help people generate more traffic. And I believe Ubersuggest can get better results and give you a fighting chance.
I also want to continually make the tool better. For example, why can’t SEO be automated? If you can have self-driving cars, there is no reason why you can’t automate SEO through artificial intelligence and machine learning.
But with the rising expenses, I was left with 2 options… either shut the tool down (which isn’t an option for me) or figure out a way to cover my expenses.
In the long run, I can’t keep sustaining the loss of $247,218 a month forever, especially when that number is climbing (that’s roughly 3 million dollars a year).
My team and I came up with an interesting concept that we think is fair and hopefully, you won’t be upset about it.
Remember how I said only 14.3% of people register to view more data but 85.7% never register as they were happy with the free data?
Well, nothing will change for 85.7% of you.
As for the 14.3% who register to create projects and track keywords, you can still do that for free. But if you want to add more projects or track a lot more keywords, you can upgrade to a paid plan.
The same goes for keyword research. If you want to view even more data, you can pay for the blocked data. Or if you want to analyze thousands of pages on your site through the site audit, you can also upgrade.
Don’t worry though, I am still following my original mission.
I promise to always keep Ubersuggest affordable (and mainly free). I decided to take the Netflix/Amazon approach and try to make the cost super affordable (as my goal is to only break-even).
On top of that, I made it a 7-day free trial.
You’ll also find that the pricing varies per country as my costs vary per country. In regions like India and Brazil when someone registers, creates a project and tracks keywords, my expenses are substantially lower than if someone from the United States registers and creates projects and tracks keywords.
The same goes for labor. My support team in India and other regions costs substantially less than the team in the United States or the United Kingdom.
If you also pay annually, you’ll get 2 months free so you can save even more money.
And as I mentioned above, I want to stick to the original mission, which is to help people generate more traffic without having to spend a lot of money.
There will always be a very generous free plan and I am hoping that I can break even by charging for a portion of the application.
What’s next?
Ubersuggest is going to continually get better.
To make things up to you, over the next month or two I am going to release a Chrome extension that will give you tons of insights for free. And of course, if you want a little bit more you can pay.
Here’s what the free extension will look like…
Whenever you perform a Google search you will be able to see the volume for any search term in any major country. And if you click the “view all” link you will see more data on that keyword.
You’ll also see the average domain score for any given ranking page and the number of links you need to rank in the top 10.
As you scroll down and go through each of the ranking results, you’ll see the domain score for each URL, social shares, and the backlinks pointing to that search result.
You can even drill down and see the top links pointing to each URL.
Now if you head over to the sidebar, you’ll see a list of related keywords as well as data on the top 10 keyword recommendations.
If you scroll a bit more, you’ll see a graph that shows how many backlinks each result has so that way you can see how many backlinks again you roughly need to rank in the top 10.
At the very bottom of the search results, you’ll see data on related keywords.
As time goes on not only will you have the extension, but I will continually add more and more features for free.
Conclusion
I’m sorry that I have to start covering my costs, but I hope you understand at the same time.
From my projections, it will take me roughly 6 months to break even, so I am going to be out a decent amount of money over the next 6 months… but that’s life.
I am not looking to recuperate my original investment and I don’t mind that being a loss, but once I break even on a monthly basis I will continue to either open up more stuff for free or consider lowering the monthly pricing if possible.
Again, I am really sorry, but I hope you understand that it isn’t sustainable for me to spend $247,218 a month indefinitely.
I am open to hearing your thoughts or ideas. I also want to let you know I appreciate everything you have done to support Ubersuggest and my site.
Youtobe
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Improving Client Communication With Integrated Telephony
email marketing lists for sale
Matt Cowell from Circle Loop talks about how integrated telephony can improve client communications. Matt covers systems integration with the HubSpot CRM and sales team efficiency.
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
How I Drove 231,608 Visitors to My Site Using This New Channel
email marketing automation tools
Just like any marketer, we all fear what we can’t control.
And sadly, for years, a lot of our future is being determined by algorithms.
From social sites to search engines… they all have algorithms. Heck, you even have to deal with them with things like email.
When you send marketing emails, you can bet that there is a good chance that they will end up in the “Promotions tab.”
Now sometimes these algorithms do adjust in your favor, but we all know that’s rare in the long run.
But what if there was a way you could drive consistent traffic, not have to deal with algorithms, and not have to spend money on ads?
There actually is. And I bet you’ve never used it before.
Here’s the best part, it’s generated me more than 231,608 visitors and it automated and free. 🙂
How so?
Alright, check this out.
Every time I publish a blog post or anytime I want to drive traffic to any page on my site, all I have to do is click a few buttons and instantly I am able to get more traffic.
So how do I do this?
It’s with a free tool I built called Subscribers.
It leverages something that you are familiar with but probably don’t know what it is.
It’s called push notifications.
What’s a push notification?
Does this look familiar to you?
You can receive messages through your browsers. This is called a push notification.
What’s cool about push notifications is that anytime someone visits your website you can ask them to subscribe to your site.
And at any time, you can send them a message promoting your website.
Each time someone clicks on it, you get traffic to your site.
But here is the best part: not only do you not have to deal with any algorithms, but you also don’t have to worry about people missing your push notification either.
See, unlike email, if you send someone a push notification while they are on vacation or sleeping, the next time they log onto their computer and pull up their web browser (Chrome, Safari, Firefox), they’ll see the push notification.
Here are my stats from some of my most recent push notifications:
How to grow your traffic through push notifications
Head over to Subscribers and sign up for a free account.
Once you add your site and sign up, you’ll need to either add a piece of javascript to your site or you’ll have to install a plugin.
Whether you are on Shopify or WordPress, Subscribers has a good amount of options for you.
Once you are up and running, you’ll want to head to the “prompt settings” navigation option in the sidebar of Subscribers.
This is where you control what people see when they come to your website so they can subscribe.
You’ll want to make sure you have turned on “prompt enabled.” Then select “use custom popup prompt by default” as this will allow you to select what message you show your users.
Here’s what my page looks like.
In my prompt settings, you’ll notice I did a few things:
- I uploaded my own image. My site is NeilPatel.com so it makes sense for me to use my own image. For you, it could be your face or your company logo.
- For the title and description, you’ll want to clearly state the benefit. I let you know that I am going to send you proven SEO tips and how easy it will be.
- You can then test the “subscribe” and “no thanks” button text. I’ve found that text to work well on my site.
- As for timing, I like showing the prompt right away as well as showcasing my “subscriber count.” I’ve found that the bottom-right corner converts well for me.
Once everything is set up the way you want, just click “save settings” and you’ll see your prompt on your site.
Here’s what it looks like on the NeilPatel.com site.
When someone clicks on “subscribe” they will see a prompt box that looks something like this…
And then when they click to subscribe in the prompt box their browser will ask them if they want to subscribe to your site.
It’s so effective I have over 600,000 subscribers. It’s a lot!
It may take time for your subscriber numbers to build up, but the longer you do it the easier it is. Keep in mind I’ve been doing this for a few years now, that’s how I have been able to build up such a large following.
So, once you have subscribers, what’s next?
How to generate traffic through subscribers
What I like doing is promoting my blog posts through Subscribers.
Just click on the “New Notifications” navigation link.
You’ll now be able to send a message to all of your subscribers. More importantly, you’ll be able to promote a URL or a service or product you are selling.
There are a few key things you’ll want to do on this page if you want the maximum amount of traffic.
- Evoke curiosity – with your headline and description try to pique peoples’ curiosity. This is a simple way to get a ton of clicks. Just like how I asked, “Is SEO Dead?”
- Show a large image – when you use a large image, you’ll find that you will get more clicks. Large images don’t show up on all push notifications, it only shows up for users who are on a PC. If you don’t know where to find images, you can use this free stock photography site.
- Show custom buttons – this feature also only shows up on PCs and not Macs. But it is still worth using. I’ve found that if I can ask a “yes or no” type of question with my headline, such as “Is SEO Dead?” then when I use “yes” and “no” as the two options in the custom buttons, I get a ton of clicks.
If you follow those 3 tips, you’ll find that you’ll be able to maximize how much traffic you get from push notifications.
Just look at the push I did on the post about SEO being dead… it drove 16,263 visitors to my blog. That’s a lot of traffic for one push notification.
Don’t forget to set up a Welcome Campaign
Now the best way to generate traffic from Subscribers isn’t to manually send out notifications.
Yes, manual notifications generate traffic but there is a better way.
Through a Welcome Campaign, you can generate even more traffic.
Think of a “welcome campaign” as a drip sequence like you would have in email. But this is through push notifications.
So, in the navigation click on “Welcome Campaign.”
From there, you’ll want to click on “create a new campaign.” From there you will see a page that looks like this:
Similar to sending a normal push notification, you’ll want to use a larger image and use custom buttons as this increases how many clicks you’ll get to your site.
The other thing you’ll want to do is be careful and not spam. Don’t send them a message every 30 minutes or anything annoying like that. I spread out my messages in my drip by at least a few days.
The first notification goes out instantly, but the rest are spread out.
Once you set up your welcome campaign, just hit save and you’ll be good to go.
As new people subscribe to your site, they will automatically receive notifications which will increase your traffic.
Just like at my welcome campaign stats, it drives more traffic than manual pushes.
231,608!
That’s how much traffic I’ve gotten just from my welcome campaign and that number continually climbs each day.
Conclusion
Although most of the popular platforms have algorithms that are hard to crack, it doesn’t mean that all hope is lost.
There are still other ways to get consistent traffic to your site.
What’s beautiful about Subscribers is that it drives traffic without you having to deal with algorithms or filters. But it does take time to see results, just like email marketing, the longer you use it the more traffic you’ll see.
So, have you tried push notifications or Subscribers before?
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