Hard to believe that another year is behind us. I recently was reviewing some Google analytics stats for this site to get ideas for content in the coming year, and saw some interesting trends. There were posts that were highly trafficked, some that were highly engaged by readers, but not all highly trafficked posts were highly engaged. I’ll get to these in a moment.

Google analytics can provide valuable insights as to traffic, engagement, conversions, keywords, etc. but what it doesn’t do is clarify the experience of human visitor. What really matters is what you think as a reader and subscriber. Truth be told, you are the reason we do what we do here.

Take a moment to chime in and share you thoughts on what you liked, didn’t like, and what you’d like to see

As the saying goes, we may not have it all together, but together we have all we need.

This Year’s Top Content Awards Go To

Below are two categories classifying top content here. Most trafficked content is not always the best indicator of the quality of content for this site, or yours. What bloggers should aspire for is engaging content, that visitors would stick around, read, even visit other pages. That said, here goes:

Most Visits: Top 10

There were a lot of interesting things that happened this year. Not the least of which was the Internet’s biggest search engine launching a social media service. Here they are.

1. 40 Google Plus Tips: This was a landslide post for some time, and still gets a decent traffic. More than 2x the traffic of the next most trafficked post. Social sharing on this post helped.
2. 6 Steps to Small Business Marketing with LinkedIn: LinkedIn continues to expand and establish itself as the social network for business professionals, here are ideas on using it.
3. Review of Lewis Howes Linked Influence Training: Useful product for leveraging LinkedIn to expand your network strategically. Social sharing on this post helped.
4. How to Advertise on Facebook in 10 Minutes or Less: It’s pretty easy to do it. Really.
5. WordPress Membership Software Plug-in WishList Member: Online marketers are looking for tools to manage their business. Membership site software serves this need.
6. 8 Ideas for Using QR Codes in Your Marketing: Finding ways to employ mobile marketing in one’s business is important, but it has to make sense.
7. Video Traffic Academy Review: Continuing education product designed to help marketers leverage video for more engagement, traffic, and sales.
8. Review of DigitalAccessPass: Product that offers a more robust and flexible approach to membership site management.
9. 7 Reasons to Use Mobile Marketing in Your Business: An emerging interest segment for digital marketers, but why?
10. 3 Strategies for Profitable Followup After and Event or Seminar: Many need insights and a little inspiration here. This post is designed to provide that.

It’s worth noting that some of these posts were not written in the past year, neither were those in the engagement section below. This speaks to the value of blogging. Online marketers can publish content that can give them a steady stream of content for some time in the future.

If you review products as a part of your content marketing strategy, and are compensated as an affiliate when someone purchases (similar to what we do here), the value of the post and your time in creating it actually increases with each sale made.

Most Engagement: Top 10

These are ranked based on longest average time on posts with a minimum number of visits. The idea here, if they are staying on the page they are engaging in the content. I also looked at average number of pages per visit (are they looking at other, sometimes related, posts on the site).

1. FB Influence Review: If you think your market is on Facebook, there is an affordable marketing course to help you.
2. Twitter Advertising: This was written some time ago, but continues to get traffic.
3. Case Study WordPress Theme Doubles Revenue: This is a theme used on one of our other sites.
4. 21 Ways I Use Infusionsoft for Follow Up Marketing: Infusionsoft is a powerful software. Here are some examples of its use.
5. Review of Easy Video Player: Video is cool for online marketing. This custom video player software makes it fun.
6. How to Advertise on Facebook in 10 Minutes or Less (Linked in previous section):
7. A Reason to Use the Google URL Shortener: Title says it all.
8. Video Traffic Academy Review (Linked in previous section).
9. WordPress Membership Software Plug-in WishList Member (Linked in previous section).
10. Review of Lewis Howes Linked Influence Training (Linked in previous section).

Photo Credit: Shandi-lee

Before the iPad…

…and the Android (was big).

Before Google+.

Before Obama was president.

Even before Justin Bieber.

Makes 3 years seem more like 10 or 15!

Today I’d like to reflect a little bit, express some gratitude, and share an important change for subscribers.

Turning 3 – Changes for Subscribers

Statistics are boring for many, and unimpressive for others. MarketingProfessor.com turns 3 today, and here are a few stats I thought interesting.

In 3 Years:

We are grateful to many of you who have been here any part of this period. It has been quite a ride, THANK YOU!

Something new, however, is upon us.

Changes for Subscribers

Today I’m pleased announce some changes around here. Not on this site per se, rather for those who join the site, subscribing to our free newsletter.

Yes, you’ll still get the Marketers FAQ reports in its current form where you’ll discover the questions (and answers) I had when starting marketing online, as well as the questions I should have asked. You’ll see a forms near the upper right of this page, you may have even had a popup message soon after arriving here inviting you to sign up.

More than the reports, I’ll be sharing more of my journey, my motivations and lifestyle. What I’m doing to make money on the Internet, what has worked, and what hasn’t…along with some of the free and paid services I use and why. All done through email.

I should also inform you that soon all optin forms will be removed from this site. Some say it’s crazy. No, email marketing is not being abandoned here, quite the opposite. More on this later.

Here’s the thing, business online isn’t about algorithms, design, traffic, Google+, or Facebook. Business always has been and always will be about relationships. In the digital age, social media is great, but email is the best medium I know of to get to know you and build relationships. Something I’ve known for some time, and today I’m taking it to the next level.

This is our new approach. It’s the evolution of this site, and subscribers get to participate and watch it unfold first hand. Here’s hoping you’ll join us.

That’s why they call it an emergency.

While spending a nice Saturday with family in Arizona, the phone rang. An emergency was calling us to California to take care of some family matters.

I was in the middle of writing a review.  It needed to get published, but our 7 hour road trip had to begin first.

How to finish it up? More on that in a moment.

The post contained text, screenshot, and a video.

How I Published A Review from the Road

The Elements of the Review

Text and screenshot are pretty straightforward. The video was a little tricky.

Video: The original video was created a day prior while I was a bit under the weather, so it wasn’t as up-tempo as it could’ve been. It was also too long. After sleeping on it, I decided to cut the video down, remove the audio track, and add my own audio. It was time consuming, but I felt better about the final product.

Road Preparation

Knowing that bandwidth would be a challenge while on the road, my pre-hit the road goal was to finish the video edits, render, and get it uploaded to YouTube (I used Camtasia).

Mission accomplished.

On the Road

Laptop closed and packed. We were heading west.

Now my goal was to complete the post before the laptop battery was exhausted. (A nice built-in deadline for any blogger, right?)

After getting settled in, I broke out the laptop.

Connectivity: I was able to connect by tethering to an Andoid phone that was in the vehicle. Very easy to do, simple as connecting to a wireless network.

After spending some time refining the text, I imported the YouTube video into a custom video player (allows for post play redirects and more, see our easy video player review for details) and embedded the video on the post.

I must say, it was a little strange to be in the middle of the desert, travelling 75 MPH, seeing dropbox sync in my system tray, while rugged mountains go by in the background. (Ehem, NO I wasn’t driving, but in the front seat).

Final Thoughts About Blogging While on the Road

Not used to blogging under the gun, but everything seemed to turn out well. As I often say, it really doesn’t matter what I think…feel free to visit the post yourself and let me know what you think. It’s here, Evergreen Business System review.  Sidenote: The trip to California for family was quick, but productive. Another mission accomplished.
Photo credit: photo was taken while on the return leg of our trip.

The number of perfection in one sport (bowling), and makes millionaires of those having its average in another (Major League Baseball, batting average). There was a movie with 300 as the title; it was about a valiant group of men, 300 in fact, going up against an entire army (very impressive fight scenes).

In the Bible, it was the length of Noah’s Ark (in cubits), the number of men in Gideon’s army, and the number of Foxes Samson captured and used to destroy an enemy’s crops.

This Post is Number 300

Practice Not Perfection

Isn’t it funny that Doctors, particularly those who cut open live human beings in order to improve, sustain, and save lives are practicing?

I’ve been guilty of sluggish action when there is too much gray area. Knowing that I’m practicing has been helpful. Not as an excuse to skirt excellence, but knowing that with each post, the site is operating in its overall objective (stated here), and with each post, getting better along the way. Of course, this applies to many areas of life and business, not just blogging.

Persistence Over Patience

While in school growing up, I was a distance runner. It served me well. While I wasn’t the fastest runner on the team, early on during big races, I would start a race “running with the Kenyan’s”.  They were fast, very fast and I faded after about a half mile. Whew.

My desire to run with them was born out of impatience; I wanted to be great without putting in the work. What was needed was persistence. Persistence to train well, that I might perform better on race day. As I was persistent, results followed. No, I never stayed with the Kenyan’s for an entire race, but learned something more valuable.

As with any blog or online venture, patience is a virtue, but persistence is its kid brother.

Personality Not Persuasion

Writing hasn’t always come easy. It is work. A work I enjoy more than ever. Roughly 1000 writing hours logged here. What I’ve found is people don’t engage with information, they engage with personality.

Personal branding is at an all-time high online. Why? Maybe because people identify with people, like stories, and a few other factors.

Some of the most trafficked information oriented posts here have the least comments. They may have served their purpose, ranked well in the search engines, were retweeted or shared elsewhere etc., but didn’t persuade readers enough to evoke a comment. In these 300 posts, I’ve found personality out-engages (is that a word?) persuasion, hands-down.

Proof Over Promise

I don’t know about you, but I welcome a little inspiration from time to time. The hype around some product launches can reach a fever pitch, but results are what sustain a business. For me they provide direction and inspiration. The only way to know results is by measuring (if you know another way, comment below).

Some of the products and technologies reviewed here were put through their paces and marketing case studies were posted. Another benefit of knowing your numbers is that it can inspire other content ideas.

What’s Next?

It’s funny. I’m confident this is just the beginning here.

What’s next? Not sure. It probably won’t be perfect. God willing, we’ll hang in there for another 300+, I’ll probably share more from experience (results, warts, and all).

What would you like to see here?

Earlier this year I helped my sons setup a blog. I knew the day would come. In fact, domain names were purchased several years earlier with that day in mind. It was a Saturday morning, and after setting it up, they spent the whole day “blogging”. Their excitement paled in comparison to what happened with my youngest just last week, but more on that in a moment. My oldest wrote 5 articles that first day. From what I can tell, it has been a great experience for them. If you are thinking of helping a child (or anyone) learn how to blog, here’s hoping these lessons will be useful.

5 Lessons I Learned…So far, Helping My Kids Blog

Just like blogging is not for every adult, not every kid has an interest in blogging. My sons were 11 and 8 on that Saturday, and showed genuine desire to blog. I let them know it would be difficult at times, but they expressed a desire to develop blogging skills. With that in mind, and with the summer break forthcoming, I challenged them to write using a schedule, and told them I’d coach them along the way, adding some technical education along the way.

1 – Start Small

Your goal should be to get that first post up. Account for their age and skillset. Small beginnings are key.

2 – Start Early

Everyone’s mileage may vary, but trying to do anything requiring focus and effort after a day of swimming, playing for hours outside, etc., doesn’t work with my kids. I’ve found after breakfast is best, when they are rested and fresh. If not in the morning, sometimes right after dinner can be good as well. It’s important you pick the times that work for your child.

3 – Be Patient

Riding a bicycle is a no brainer for most adults. Get on, pedal, and off you go. For someone who has never ridden a bicycle it is a different story altogether. Same with blogging. When I discovered they weren’t sure where the keys are on the keyboard, I was reminded that was me at some point. Plan for investing chunks of time nurturing them along the way.

4 – Sell Them On a Long-Term View

In a world of Twitter, Instant-messaging, Text messaging and “right now” mindsets, it was important to let them know that this is a long-term investment. Assure them that if they stick with it, they will see results down the road.

5 – Show Results Quickly

You may share their post on Facebook, or email family members, in any case ask them to leave comments. Earliest comments were from family members, and brought a smile to their faces. We enabled the akismet plugin to deal with spam.

WordPress also has traffic monitoring plugins available at no cost. Seeing that strangers are visiting the site can be the encouragement they need to keep going.

What Happened the Last Week

My youngest was having a challenging moment; he was unsure what to write about. Hoping to encourage him, I sat down with him, and looked at a recent article he posted. Next, we went to Google (Chrome incognito window) and searched a phrase from a recent post title. There was his post, on page 1, position 1. When I showed him, his face lit up like it was Christmas morning. With over 10 million competing results, his post was #1 in Google!

For a moment I thought he might jump through the ceiling. After coming back to earth (but lightly floating) I asked him if he thought all the work was worth it… He had his next post ready shortly after.

I remember thinking, “oh yeah, blogging is exciting when you think about it.”

What do you Think? Do you know any kid bloggers? Ever considered teaching someone how to blog? Funny thing about these lessons, they apply to adults as well as kids. Are you maintaining a long-term perspective in your own blogging with encouragement along the way?

Photo Credit: Mike Licht

While much of  the conversations online in the last week deal with Google+, we’ll have more on that on that in forthcoming posts, there was actually changes with the most popular publishing software out there! WordPress managed to sneak in an update. Yesterday. this site was updated to the latest and greatest by my WordPress expert, and there are some things I noticed.

What’s New in WordPress 3.2

Cosmetic Changes in WordPress 3.2

Overall, the buttons, and icons have been refreshed. The user interface seems cleaner, and less cluttered.

Speed

Administration Panel: I noticed when first logging in, the widgets on the administrative panel load much faster than before. After looking into it, indeed speed improvements was one of the objectives of this release, they are now requiring a newer version of both PHP (the underlying page rendering process), and SQL (the underlying database server…where the content is stored). These likely helped boost performance.

Editor Goes Big

There is now a full screen button on the toolbar.

After clicking, this post looked like this (mid-edit).

Other Items in WordPress 3.2

• They have dropped support for older browsers, and have some friendly language encouraging site visitors using older browsers to upgrade.
• The default 2011 theme has been refreshed/updated.
• While not currently used here today, they also added “comment bubble” styling.

WordPress is a powerful platform. It is easy to setup, and helps content publishers focus on what it is they want to do. Publish content to the web quickly without any programming skills.  With all this simplicity, it is easy for publishers to ignore other aspects of their blog like optimization, performance, analytics, SEO, conversion, and design, and just crank out content. As admirable as content creation might be, revenue and conversion is what makes websites profitable. If you host WordPress on your own domain, how do you know when it’s time to update your blog design? Why would you?

How to Know it’s Time to Update Your Blog Design

You’ve heard and probably believed the montra, “Content is king!” and “Blog awesome!” and “Don’t publish junk!” While I subscribe to these truths in part… with all the emphasis on content, what is often forgotten is the importance of design. The web is a big place, and one big distraction to your target market who is searching for YOU. Here are some things to consider if it’s time to change your blog design.

You’ve Had Little or no Changes to the Current Design Since Launch

You were just happy to get the site online so you could focus on creating content! While the theme you went with and the design of the day may have been “good enough” then, “it’s time to reevaluate” gnaws at you.

How long are people engaged with your content? Are they sicking around to read other pieces of content? These answers can be indicators of how well your design is working to help engage readers.

Social Sharing Options. Perhaps when you launched your blog, you didn’t include the option to share content with others on social networks. This is a must today, and is a great way to increase the reach of your content.

SEO Changes That Current Theme Was Not Designed For

There are finer distinctions of SEO that are more common knowledge today than a year or two ago. Examples include:

• Individual blog post titles and description customizations
• Global options to noindex or noarchive Category, Tag, Author, Date, and Search archives
• The deemphasis of page rank sculpting via no follow attribute
• “Breadcrumbs” placement, such as Front page, posts, pages, archives, and 404 pages.

While many of these SEO related functions can be leveraged using “after install” WordPress plugins, the reality is the more plugins used, the greater impact on the speed of the website. Speaking of  speed…

Performance

“Plugin stacking” is the number one reason for conflicts, crashes, and sluggish load times for WordPress blogs. Bottom line, you only want the plugins necessary for your site to run efficiently, slim, and trim. Changing your blog theme to one that has many of the SEO functions integrated in the theme eliminating the need for additional plugins will enhance the site performance.

The search engines love fast sites. Part of enhancing your design with a new theme is to incorporate design that makes it more friendly to the search engines.

It’s about people! Performance is more than web page load times. What is the growth rate of your newsletter? What percent of visitors are opting in? What percent of optins are converting into sales?

Is a Blog Design Change in Sites Your Future?

If some of the questions here resonate with you, it might be time to get serious about implementing a new theme or enhance certain blog design elements. As for this site? MarketingProfessor.com is due for a change for some of the reasons stated in this post, so stay tuned for a follow up post as to how it went, and the tools (if any) used to make the transition.

Photo credits: shandi-lee moneyblognewz

WordPress is powerful, for sure, with it’s flexibility, plugins, easy content publishing, not to mention the price (free). If a site is to grow, there will be needs along the way. One of my WordPress sites had a major issue that I couldn’t fix. That is when I contacted today’s expert. Watch the video or read the summary below.

Conversation with My WordPress Expert. Plugins, Speed, and More

Checkout this skype interview that I had with WordPress Expert Brian Layman.

Can’t see the video? Find it here. Prefer to read the summary, scroll down.

Summary of Conversation:

Although Brian lives in Northeast Ohio, he is a loyal Pittsburgh Steeler fan (we’ll forgive him for that!).

Brian and I first met at Blogworld 2010 (more here).

WordPress site I manage was constantly getting frozen. Site had reached the limits of the hosting plan, slow in loading pages, maxing out server resources, had to reboot daily, or multiple times daily.

Brian came to the rescue, fixed the site, and ultimately moved to his managed hosting solution.

Decent hosts for Beginners Getting Started Blogging with WordPress

• JustHost
• HostGator

Recommended Free WordPress Plugins

• Akismet – Anti-spam tool for blogs. Found here.
• WordPress SEO – From Joost Yoast, every possible SEO setting one could want, found here.
• W3 Total Cache – High End Plugin to load site from memory instead of hard disk, increasing site performance substantially. Use with caution. Download it here.

Recommended Paid WordPress Plugins

• Backup Buddy – Backup tool from the folks at iThemes. Having backups is part of the solution; the other component is restoring the backup (what to do with that backup file?).
• Gravity Forms – By Rocketgenious. Powerful form based plugins that stores the data in the WordPress administrative console, different from other email-only based solutions. Does integrate with captcha solutions to ward off spammers.

How to Know When to Move to a More Robust Host (Managed)

• No magic number, the measurement tools are so diverse. A better model is to look at it as a business, how important is the site to you or your livelihood.
• Is $30 a month a good amount to invest on your WordPress blog?
• As flexible and powerful WordPress is, software does have conflicts, and resolving conflicts can take time.

“Hire people who play at what you work at.” – John Assaraf

What’s the Future of the WordPress Publishing Platform?

• Continue to mature as a publishing environment.
• More integrated publishing tools in the editors, better handling of media, etc.
• Less focused on blogging and a diary, and more about creating separate standalone pages for businesses.

More about Brian Layman and His Services

Brian has been working with WordPress since Ver. 1.2 in 2004. His company is eHermits Inc, provides managed WordPress hosting. He’s a WordPress core contributor and develops custom plugins.  His specialties include database management and server administration – including Amazon AWS.

Brian has worked with b5media, Borland International, RedRover, Rhett and Link Inc. as well as Darren “Problogger” Rowse in delivering custom solutions. He speaks regularly at conventions and on WordPress related podcasts. He’s also working with the team at WebDevStudios.

You can find Brian most easily here.

Thoughts? Questions for Brian? Chime in below.
Image Credit: Emmealcubo

Popular Membership Site Software Updated

One of the first reviews placed on this site was the WishList member review. Over the years they have continued to put out regular updates, enhancing the software based on customer feedback (see original review page here).

As I see it, the recent update (2.6) has 3 main areas of improvement.

Improvement 1: Custom Registration Fields

Until now, it was a pain to gather custom information upon registration. This update allows users to ask information on things like eye color, shirt size, years in business, or whatever they wish. It offers a drag and drop interface, and membership site owners can create a custom registration form for each membership level (screenshot below). Learn more about WishList Member here.

If you haven’t picked up a copy of WishList Member, now might be the time do to so.

Improvement 2: Setup Wizard

Especially important when setting up your membership site, the new setup wizard allows you to quickly setup the “must haves” of your membership site, including error pages. One of the most time consuming elements I’ve found with membership site setups, are the creation of what I call auxiliary pages, the thank you pages, error pages, login redirect pages, etc. This wizard takes care of many of these elements for you. See WishList Member here.

Improvement 3: Site Replication via Import and Export

Only thing better than a successful membership site, is another successful membership site, right? This latest update makes it easy to export configuration settings from one site, for easy import into another.

They have also made other improvements that streamline the membership administration area, so membership site owners can easily modify the attributes of various levels.

Bottom-line on this Latest Update from Wishlist Member

I appreciate the constant improvements WishList has continued to make with the product, part of the reason they are the market leader (their website states over 20k membership sites run their software) This is a great step forward especially for those who want to get started with a membership site quickly, or replicate an existing one. Hopefully there will be more improvements to help those customers who are dealing with an large number of membership levels. Learn more about WishList Member here.

Feedback? Questions? Chime in below.

Writing isn’t something that always flows for me. It is work. Since I’m a work in progress, it works out. Part of the plan. Sometimes you don’t “feel it” when it comes to writing. You are in good company, I get that, and have had to overcome it on multiple occasions. What is a content publisher to do when inspiration is lacking? There are many responses to that question. Read on to find out mine.

When Inspiration Lacks

It could be a tough start to the day, an unexpected event that alters your thinking, or just fatigue. Many things can impact the luster of inspirational writing. Whether for an email newsletter, blog post, or a story to kickoff a marketing campaign, here are a few ideas for when inspiration is lacking.

Twitter Trends

Interesting to see what is a buzz on Twitter. Is there a logical way the trend ties into your market or industry? It may not be a trend that inspires you, search using industry buzzwords and you may find a series of comments that warrant a response beyond 140 characters.

Have Google Proactively Tell You – Alerts

Google alerts allows users to be notified when new content new to Google surfaces for a certain search phrase. Setup is flexible and free.

Magazines

While at the grocery store, I sometimes strategically go down the magazine isle. By scanning the various niches represented by each magazine (hint, hint), ideas can pop readily. This doesn’t work every time, but when it does, be prepared (more on that in a minute).

Forums

Forums that are focused on your market can surface very interesting trends and topics. A friend of mine, Eric Holmlund found a disturbing trend in a popular forum for Internet Marketers, where an individual has been scamming quite a few in the community there. He exposed it in a post that has garnered over 300 comments, which has also propelled the launch of a product.

2006 - Baltimore

Travel

Trains, Planes, Automobiles, Hotels, all can provide ample opportunity for content inspiration. Here’s an example.

Delicious

This social bookmarking service provides some great ideas for what is fresh, and what is hot. You can select one of the tabs on the homepage, or use the search functionality. We are here on Delicious.

Planning for Times of Low Inspiration

Preparation is an asset to overcome many things in life and business. Such is the case when there is a void of writing inspiration. Here are some things I’ve discovered.

Subscribing to Inspiration- I use Google Reader. Perhaps there are others that inspire you when it comes to content ideas and writing style, if on a blog subscribe to their RSS feed. One great thing about Google Reader, it’s searchable and shareable, see how here, and here.  Also, get on the email list of your respected marketers online, and “star” or place content you like in a special folder in your email program.

Journaling Inspiration- Whether an iPad, Xoom, other tablet, or an old fashioned pen and paper (my chosen medium currently), I like to keep a journal with me at all times. When journaling great ideas for content sometimes surface for me, highlight those, or call them out with a star, and refer to them for inspiration. Read more about journaling in Tip #2 here.

ALERT: Inspiration Comes When You Least Expect It – Rest- It is important to be intentional about content creation, having a publishing calendar is a great start. However, it is equally important to have downtime, aka rest. In those moments some of the greatest inspiration can come. Beware, that type of inspiration can catch you by surprise, like when going down the magazine isle at the grocery store, so be sure to have your journal handy :-).

What inspires you? Has this been helpful? Chime in using the comment boxes below.
Photo credit: USMARINE0311