44 Must Read Resources on Content Marketing The term “content marketing” sounds like a hip buzzword to describe the latest marketing craze, but in reality, the concept has been around since the first newsletters came rolling off the presses. And if there’s one single reason why companies around the world continue to incorporate “content marketing strategies” into their yearly plans – it’s because it has been working for hundreds, if not thousands of years! Let’s go over a short recap as to why content marketing is a good marketing strategy to employ for today’s online audience: Show You’re an Authority on a Subject – When you offer unbiased and valuable information on a given subject matter, you earn trust with people who visit your blog or website. The following resources below will help anyone learn about why content marketing is important to any business and how to get the most of it. For Beginners For beginners to people looking for primers on content marketing, these links will get you on the right track. 1. Writers block. 14.
Use Live Chat for Customer Engagement & Higher Conversions [Meet Olark Imagine this scenario Your customers are wandering aimlessly around your landing page not sure whether to buy or cry… What do you do? You ask them “What’s wrong, or how can I help?” But how? Introducing Our Latest Partner in Crime Conversion – Olark (Comes with brightly colored cape and tight speedos) To explain a little about how and why you should add a live chat widget to your Unbounce page, we had a chat with our new friends over at Olark to hear it straight from the source. How does Olark help with conversion and customer engagement? People have a natural degree of anxiety about finding businesses they trust on the web, and websites use a variety of methods to minimize this feeling past a threshold where the user is in a state of mind where they can be converted. User reviews, detailed photos, professional web design and expert endorsements all help address this anxiety, but having a genuine human presence can give you the edge in helping them overcome their fear. A/B Testing Tip
japh(r) by Chris Strom: 366 or How I Tricked Myself into Being Awesome Like most developers, I am an introvert, so it is hard to say this: I am awesome. Fuuuuuu.... I can't even leave it at that. I look at so many amazing people in the Ruby, Javascript, and other communities that actually are amazing and I feel like I haven't done anything. I wrote three books on very different technologies that I knew nothing about. I wrote The SPDY Book, which is still the only book on SPDY: Three months later, I co-authored Recipes with Backbone(.js) with Nick Gauthier: Three months later, I wrote the first book on Dart, Dart for Hipsters: Each of these technologies has two things in common:They are game changing (or at least possibly)I knew nothing about them before I started writing them. How did I do it? Blogged every, single day. I honestly don't know why I started doing this. And it worked. Every time I do this, I learn. And then, doing it again the next day reinforces the learning. I am proud that I didn't let this get in the way of what's important. So what's next?
Penguin Analysis: SEO Isn't Dead, But You Need to Act Smarter | Microsite Masters EmailShare 2704EmailShare The new Google Penguin update was a big change that has been very unsettling to SEO’ers, both blackhats and whitehats. It seems that everywhere you go, people who had previously considered themselves to be “professionals”, are now dumbfounded as their stable authority sites have moved from ranking in the top 5 for competitive keywords, to not ranking at all. There has never been more whispers (both jokingly and not), that SEO is dead. Which leads me to… The Number One Question People Are Asking: What Did This Update Do and How Do I Recover? Microsite Masters is in a unique position as we operate as a rank tracker; we have historical ranking data for thousands of websites. Ok, Now On To What You Really Care About. Link over-optimization is one of the most thrown around concepts in the SEO community now, so it was naturally where we decided to look first. What does this mean? Taking a look at the above information we compiled says much of the same. What are those?
23 *Slam Dunk* Landing Page Posts You Shouldn’t Miss Michael Jordan would be proud: Here are “23” new articles to keep your iPad full and your mind on marketing 24/7 (hey, it’s only fair – that’s what we do). If you read all of these, please feel free to do a celebratory dunk before leaving a comment to let us know what you think. We’ll be covering: Landing Page Design (also see this: 35 Beautiful Landing Page Design Examples to Drool Over [With Critiques])Mobile Landing Pages (tip: Unbounce has some)Miscellaneous – #categorizationfail Landing Page Design 1. Quick is good. 2. 30 Useful Landing Page Templates For when you feel like you’ve reached a design dead end, here is some inspiration to recharge your momentum. 3. Codecademy is a platform that teaches people technical skills. 4. Airbnb balances graphical robustness with a community look and feel. 5. Your landing page probably doesn’t deserve a spot in a museum, but it is still a work of art that balances form with function. 6. 7. 11 Quick Tips for a Better Landing Page 9. 11. 13. 14. 17.
TUTORIAL: How to import leads into HubSpot | HubSpot You can import lists of existing leads into your HubSpot account after creating a spreadsheet of leads following the instructions in this article. When leads are in your HubSpot account you can: Re-engage your leads - Segment your leads so you can send them targeted communications via email and lead nurturing workflows, automating the process of turning leads into customersGet lead intelligence - Receive lead revisit alerts, see when your imported leads view your site, and get social media information so you can make more effective sales callsClean up your list - De-dupe your lists automatically, and then use lead nurturing campaigns to determine which of your leads are most qualified to become customers Importing your database of leads will equip your sales team with unique lead intelligence, and help you automate the process of driving leads further along the sales cycle. Instructions Follow these steps to import a CSV spreadsheet of leads into your account. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
mattwilliamson/arduino-sms-alarm Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site The Exceptional Performance team has identified a number of best practices for making web pages fast. The list includes 35 best practices divided into 7 categories. Minimize HTTP Requests tag: content 80% of the end-user response time is spent on the front-end. Most of this time is tied up in downloading all the components in the page: images, stylesheets, scripts, Flash, etc. One way to reduce the number of components in the page is to simplify the page's design. Combined files are a way to reduce the number of HTTP requests by combining all scripts into a single script, and similarly combining all CSS into a single stylesheet. CSS Sprites are the preferred method for reducing the number of image requests. Image maps combine multiple images into a single image. Inline images use the data: URL scheme to embed the image data in the actual page. Reducing the number of HTTP requests in your page is the place to start. top | discuss this rule Use a Content Delivery Network tag: server tag: css
3 Principles of a High Converting Lead Gen Landing Page If you don’t balance the expectations of your customers with what you’re giving away, you’re basically kissing your customers goodbye. (Original image source) You’re probably wondering why there’s a photo of a gymnast above. This is to illustrate one of the most important conversion element of lead gen pages – balance. 1. Clearly the hurdle was too much in this case. One of the biggest factors in whether you’ll capture your lead is whether you are able to balance the size of the prize (what you’re giving away) with the perceived barrier to getting it. This is where A/B testing can come in really handy. 2. Now I’m not saying “make it look beautiful” – although it never hurts to look professional. The architecture of a great lead gen landing page This is really all you need on a lead gen landing page. Next up, is your hero shot or the image/video that shows what you are offering. For social sharing (you want people to pass on your great offering right?) 3. – Oli Gardner