With so many sessions over a 3 day period, it can be hard to keep everything straight. It’s for this reason that I really enjoyed the presentation from Sean Jackson with Copyblogger. Coppyblogger has grown to be one of the best online marketing blogs on the web, frequently writing about content optimization for search. The beautiful thing about Copyblogger Media’s success is that they follow a very simple plan for driving traffic to their website and have two clear conversion goals for site visitors.

The three primary social networks of choice for Copyblogger are: Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus. They use these social media sites to drive traffic to their website and grow their following. Once the visitor arrives at the site, the two conversion goals are clear – subscribe to the blog via an RSS feed or sign up for updates via email.

Copyblogger uses the Internet Marketing for Smart People free 20 part series to instantly build value and credibility for all new subscribers. Educating visitors first and selling later. It’s the way things should be!

Take a look at the slide from Sean Jackson’s PubCon presentation below. What do you think of this Online marketing strategy?

Check out the Copyblogger website and pay close attention to their headlines. Brian Clark and company write some of the most magnetic headlines that convert visitors.

Note: This is my first post done entirely on my iPhone 4S. I apologize for any formatting or spelling mistakes. Thanks for reading!

The Complete Internet Marketing Lifecycle

Don’t Forget Conversion

Blog Indiana – Day 1 Digest and Blog Indiana Day# 2

Social Media Advertising – Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion…

Here is the basic gist:

As writers we can often play it safe by using words like: quite, fairly, often, sometimes and may.  These words are boring, show a lack of confidence and thus turn readers away.  This is where the vampire analogy comes into play- these words act like vampires and suck the life right out of your sentence.   So the next time you are thinking of writing a headline like “You May Gain More Customers and You Might Make More Money” you need to stop and stake the vampire words to keep your readers coming back for more.

Douglas Karr did a great job of this today over on the Marketing Technology Blog with his post entitled “Why I Don’t Like Facebook.” This instantly caught my eye and I had to read it.  Now if his blog title had been “Why I Kinda Sometimes Don’t Like Facebook” I would not have  been as inclined to read it.  Heck he even went so far as to put “facebook-sucks” right there in the URL.  It’s not every day a social media superstar proclaims that!

So the next time you are writing a blog post title, take a moment to review and find those vampires there as well.  Today’s theme:  Be confident.  Be Bold.

Check out some of my earlier posts for more information on why I started blogging:

Why Should I Start A Blog

Blogging-Just Go For it!

What can you expect from D-Mac’s Blog in the future?
I will continue to vary my posts in style and make an effort to include more posts that really reflect a strong opinion about a particular topic.  Robby Slaughter suggested including a rant and more constructive critcism…and I have to agree I need more of these posts.

I will include more Reviews and How-To themed posts.  I continue to see a great deal of feedback from these types of posts with our clients at Fusework Studios and also on my personal blog.  My BlackBerry Storm reviews and Facebook How To posts really helped some people out which is always an awesome feeling.

Finally, I will be changing the design up a bit and including more videos, slideshows, and other interactive.  But make no mistake about it…my number one focus will always be to deliver quality content.

Thank you for being a reader and I look forward to sharing my next 100 blog posts with you!

Find another blogger that you respect, it can be someone you know or do not know.  Then take a few minutes out of your day to help improve his or her blog.  Many people will go around leaving the same comment on every blog they run across, but your challenge is to spend some quality time here helping someone else out.  Here are just a few ways you can do that:

• Leave insightful comments
• Promote the blog post on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter
• Offer to write a guest post on a particular subject
• Link to their blog in your next post
• Suggest topics you would like to see them cover in future posts

We often spend so much time with our own blog that we miss out on some great things that can happen when helping out someone else.  I have met a lot of great people and had a a lof of great conversations doing this.  Give it a try and I think that you will find Karma does come back around.

In a recent blog post entitled Landing Pages and Search Engine Optimization, Douglas dissects the landing page found at BloggingForSEO.com.  This post is a great 9 bullet point reference on the key elements to include in a well structured landing page.  Everything from the basic Header (H1 Tag) to the more advanced Google Voice Widget, Douglas tells all in this post.  This is yet another example on why we are very fortunate to have such knowledgeable individuals in the Indianapolis Internet Marketing arena that are so willing to educate and share. 

The below image is borrowed from his blog post, but you will have to click it to find out the 9 points of Landing Pages and Search Engine Optimization. 

One person may be ready to go right now with a Web site or Internet marketing strategy – they can now contact us to set up a meeting over coffee and we will pick up the tab.

Someone kind of “on the fence” can contact us to receive a web site evaluation.

Other visitors may simply want to gather information on email marketing or Search Engine Optimization.  They can do that now as well. 

We will continue to work on these CTA’s to see how our inquiries are affected.  The next step is customized landing pages for each of the different buttons.  I will continue to keep you posted as I hope this blogging CTA case study will be valuable to you as well.

Look at the headlines.  What are some current hot topics?

Are the magazines including lists of any kind?  Many advertise the Top 10 or 20 Tips.  Or a Top 50 list of celebrities.

Is there some type of incentive?  Is the magazine offering a vacation getway or a chance to win something else?  Douglas Karr does a Monthly Subscriber Contest.

How are photos used in the magazines?

Flip through the pages, not reading the articles, but rather paying attention  which ads and headlines stick out.  ProBlogger suggests using sticky notes on the magazine to remind you of the elements that you feel make the magazine successful.  Give it a try!

Yes, you gain a great deal of exposure from this, exposure that you might not have received otherwise – but do your readers take any type of action?  Better yet, what exactly is the call to action for your blog? 

Is it having someone contact you through a standard contact form?  Is it encouraging someone to leave a comment for that particular post?  Or do you just want to continue to connect with people through other forms of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn?

I will admit, this is where I really struggle.  What should my calls to action be?  Promoting Fusework Studios?  Encouraging other businesses to advertise on my blog?  It is a tough decision.  But something that you must address in order to get an ROI from your blogging efforts – be it for personal or business use.  No one wants to just write blogs and get nothing from it.

So I am challenging myself to come up with clear, solid calls to action on my personal blog.  We are also going to be redesigning the calls to action on our Fusework Studios blog.  Over the next few weeks there will be some changes and I am looking forward to learning from this experience.  Hopefully it will result in developing a successful case study to share.

The call to action for this blog post – leave a comment to share with me.  What are your calls to action?  Do they work?  How have they evolved over time?  Let me know! 

Fortunately the team over at Compendium Blogware have put together a great slideshow presentation to help with this quest:

Breakthrough Calls to Action