Jessy Troy, Author at Successful Blog Page

How to Improve Your Freelancing Productivity

February 9, 2019 by Jessy Troy Leave a Comment

I do a lot of my work from home. While this is great in many ways, there is one where I have a lot of trouble: productivity. It is just so easy to lose track of time, or to begin procrastinating. There are some days where you just can’t get started, and before you know it you realize it is one in the afternoon and you are still in your bathrobe, without a single bit of work done.

One of the reasons it is so hard to be productive at home is that it isn’t easy to feel stressed or like there is a time constraint when you aren’t in an office. Some days it is absolutely impossible – which is why making your home a place for relaxed productivity is a great way to fix the problem.

Here are some tips:

Get Quirky With Your Seating Arrangements

Sitting in an office chair all day can be such a pain, whether you are at home or elsewhere. But they are also a necessity, so if you want to mix it up it is better to add another couple of options around you so you can move around, get comfortable, and even improve the look of your work space.

Have a sofa in your office against one wall for breaks. Or get really quirky and throw in a couple of bean bag chairs.

Have a Dedicated Work Space

Have you ever heard people say that if you want to sleep better you should make the bedroom a place only for night activities? That same principle can be applied to your office. Treat your freelancing business as a real business.

Have a place where you always work, whether it is a full room or just a small segment of the house. Only use it for productive things (no playing games or browsing Facebook), and let that association boost your work output. It is a nifty little trick of the mind.

Surround Yourself With Serenity

A burbling waterfall art piece, a stereo playing gentle music, a couple of house plants, relaxing lighting….all of these can give your workspace a feeling of serenity that improves mood and keeps you loose and happy through the day.

You can even section off a portion of your office for stretching, yoga or workouts to help you de-stress and free your mind of unwanted thoughts.

Decorate With Bright Colors

Bright colors will trigger a reaction in the brain that makes you feel more energized and focused. Red, oranges, yellows and golds are great. So are brighter versions of usually cooler colors, like an electric blue or green.

You don’t necessarily want it to be so busy that it is distracting, but a splash of color can do wonders.

Have Everything You Need Within Reach

A coffee pot, some healthy snacks, your work phone, hand wipes or lotions, chapstick, a sweater or blanket; fantastic items to have on hand just in case you find yourself needing something and don’t want to leave the room.

Having the little things that improve your mood will keep you from getting too tense, of having to go out for something. Try a weekly checklist to make sure before the workweek starts that everything is fully stocked and ready for you.

Create a Schedule

A schedule is your best friend for keeping calm and on track through the day. Set a times for work in blocks through the day, working in any meetings, conference calls or emails you have to do. Add in plenty of breaks, a decent lunch time, and maybe a time for something active like a quick walk or workout. Here are a few cool calendar plugins for WordPress to always keep your schedule handy.

This will keep you at your best. Make sure you also have an end time for the day, and don’t work beyond it. Working from home, it can be really tempting to push things to the end of the day and overshoot our schedule, or just get a few more emails in.

Do you have a tip for making your home a place of relaxed productivity? Let’s discuss!

Six Examples of Solid Facebook Marketing

January 27, 2019 by Jessy Troy 1 Comment

Facebook is a very powerful, extremely viral social networking and micro-blogging platform that has catapulted many businesses to new levels. It has enjoyed a famously popular online exposure and an ever-increasing appeal to corporations, social networkers, and online entrepreneurs.

Some companies who recognize the Facebook effect experience enormous brand recognition and success that accompanies their marketing efforts. These six companies are currently enjoying successful social networking, high traffic to their sites, and a branding experience that they credit to Facebook.

1. Pringles

The famous potato chip snack company is quite popular on Facebook – something to the tune of over 3 million fans! The site’s attraction is more than the snack lover’s interest in their wares, but for their comedic and crafty use of their product videos.

The videos are a mixture of professional, commercial-style shoots and others that were taped possibly using personal video recorders. All of the videos are entertaining and funny, but without fail in each video, Pringles brands themselves very effectively through visual marketing.

2. Dell

If Facebook fans ever needed a reason to love a computer manufacturer, Dell has given them one – if not several. With over 100,000 fans and several niche Facebook pages, Dell is the company who proudly embraces a green campaign and makes a conservation commitment to their Facebook followers.

Each time one of Dell’s fan’s picks a friend, Dell plants a tree on their behalf. This effort is a part of their commitment to creating a healthier planet, additionally making a donation to The Conservation Fund to plant up to 150,000 trees. How’s that for social interaction?

3. LawListings

LawListings has a very engaging Facebook page that is a good example of visual quoting: They put together well-branded visual quotes and engage their Facebook audience with that content.

This Facebook Page is a great example of effective Facebook marketing even in tough niches.

4. Pizza Hut

The pizza chain giant has over one million fans on their page. What makes their site so viral? Their generous interaction with the pizza community. They tag other users on Facebook, make it fun and very sociable by allowing fans to upload various pictures, images, photos and artistry depicting their brand in various ways.

Some of the fan photos are with family, creating a visual imagery of unity, while other photos that are incorporated onto their page are snapshots of different Pizza Hut restaurants or paraphernalia.

5. Harley-Davidson

The motorcycle giant has over 700,000 fans on their Facebook page and use several marketing methods to attract and retain those fans. Much of the information on their site consists of photos and videos, but there is a heavier focus on information and updates about their product and the motor bike industry at large.

Fans flock to their pages to sneak a hopeful peek at what the upcoming bikes will look like and to read about any changes in their current bike line. Harely-Davidson is definitely an industry leader with a proven track record. Facebook has helped their online marketing efforts by reaching a technical aspect of their customer pool.

6. Starbuck’s

With one of the highest number of fans on Facebook, Starbuck’s remains at the top because of their frequent and engaging interaction with coffee lovers everywhere!

They are very involved in the local communities and abroad, and use videos, blog posts, surveys, and coffee giveaways to appeal to their customer base. Starbuck’s takes the time to carefully groom their social networking page to be sure that they effectively reach their customers, making them an outstanding industry leader.

How to Evaluate Your Content Performance

November 5, 2018 by Jessy Troy Leave a Comment

It isn’t always easy to evaluate ourselves and our work. Anyone who has created content in any professional capacity has had the experience many times of people responding strongly to a piece you didn’t think was any good, and then all but ignoring the one you poured your heart and soul into. It is an exasperating experience that reminds us that it isn’t always so easy to determine quality based on perspective alone.

The bad news is that evaluating content performance is a very necessary job. We have to be able to see what is working, and what isn’t, in order to continue to grow. Luckily, there is hard data to assist in the process, as well as a few things to keep in mind.

What Makes Content Successful?

Before looking at how to analyze the success of your content, you need to define something very important: what constitutes success. You might get a lot of views on a blog posts, but be disappointed by its lack of comments. Something could generate a ton of comments, but never get shared once on social media. It could be republished (with permission) on another site, but hardly generate any traffic for your own.

There are several ways that you could define success:

The content receives a lot of engagement on social media, and brings people to your profile.
The content drives clickthroughs to your actual site.
The content generates a lot of traffic via SEO and search engine results.
The content improves your visibility, and attracts an audience you were trying to target.
The content enriches the authority of yourself and your brand.
The content assists the steady growth of your site, even if only in part.

Here are only some examples. Really, success is defined entirely by what it is you choose it to be.

Once you have established this criteria, you will know what to look at moving forward.

Further reading: The Comprehensive Guide to Content Marketing Analytics & Metrics

The Need For Analytics

The simplest way to go about evaluating your content is to find patterns within data. That is where analytics come in. Google Analytics is your most basic tool (it is free for most people), and easiest to use. But you can find any number of tools online, including plugins that can be integrated into WordPress to provide the details right in your dashboard, or on individual posts.

Don’t make any decisions based on a couple of months of information. While three to five months can give you a small glance at how certain content is doing, it is a very small sampling. Six months should be your minimum, but a year or more is much better. The more posts you have to analyze, the better the picture as you see what has happened over time.

Analytics will tell you how much organic traffic has been generated, how long people have on average remained on the page (did they immediately click out, skim, or read in detail), and what posts are top performing.

Once you have that data comes the tricky part is deciding what to do with it. It isn’t enough to know what content is doing well. You have to figure out why. Ask yourself:

What patterns are emerging based on the topic?
How was the SEO handled on those posts?
Was there a specific tone within those posts?
Did it include any kind of visual content that enhanced it?
Was the style done in a particular way?
Who created the content?
Did anything special happen on social media, such as the use of particular hashtags when sharing?
Were the topics related to something trending at the time?

You want to find the common links with this content, in order to figure out what it is about them that has been working.

Further resources: Here’s a good collection of analytics and search engine optimization resources and tools to go through

When The Same Thing That Always Works Stops Working

One thing you may notice is a surge of popularity based on these patterns, and then a decline. If what you thought was always working isn’t anymore, analytic data will show you that with brutal clarity. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; times change, and you have to adapt with better content for new eras. Otherwise, you will be left behind.

If you find yourself noticing that what used to work is no longer bringing you the results you need, it is time to try something new. That might also be hidden in the data, as you can see the second most popular content that is still rising beyond the decline you’ve noted. It could inspire you to create something new. Take it as an opportunity to grow!

Further reading: talkingAds, a company that “translates data into actionable results”, puts it very well:

Interpreting and acting on the basis of marketing analysis is the key… Aligning marketing analytics with company requirements makes a difference.

Being Honest About Your Content

You are going to be shocked by what you find, from time to time. You are going to want to deny it. No, there is no way your readers have started to avoid your Freaky Fridays theme week, or lost interest in meandering stories about your time working that job only you find interesting!

Further reading: To help you out, here’s a great article on creating great content from startablog123.com: How To Write A Good Blog Post

Well, that is just the way the cookie crumbles. People get bored, they move on, and you have to bring them back. Don’t get so bogged down with what you’re used to. Enjoy this chance to start fresh, and pay attention to what the data tells you. Even if what it tells you makes you a little bit sad.

How to Add a Contact-Us Form to Your Site

September 4, 2018 by Jessy Troy Leave a Comment

The last three times I have gone to contact someone through a website, there has been no contact page. I am not joking or exaggerating, there was no contact page at all. One of the three had a little, tiny blurb mixed into too much text providing an email address, which was a very strange choice in design. But otherwise I would have had to go through their social media accounts to speak to them.

I was very disappointed with this turn of events, because at least one of the blogs I contacted barely used their Twitter and I never got a response, and another still hasn’t read their Facebook message. Why wouldn’t they be more concerned with connecting to their readers? And why wouldn’t they take the five minutes it requires to install a plugin (these were all WordPress sites), and create a Contact Page?

After all, implementing ways to hear back from your site users is one of the most important elements of any landing page.

Create an Awesome Contact Page Fast

I don’t want anyone else to make this very pointless mistake. Not when it can be rectified so easily.

First of all, the Internet is full of free tempates and tutorials for you to handle almost everything at home. If you are looking for beautiful forms, here’s a great selection of free HTML5 and CSS3 contact form templates for you to choose from. There’s also a great tutorial on how to edit those here.

If your site is not on WordPress, here’s a good selection of other available content management systems and useful resources to learn using them.

Here are six WordPress plugins for making a contact page that is fast, easy and effective.

1. WP Forms (or WP Forms Lite)

When someone who has no website building experience first gets the more advanced version of WordPress, they can feel a bit intimidated. Getting the plugins down can be hard, and there is a learning curve associated with any new software. WP Forms was made to cater to those beginners, and is probably the easiest form builder around.

You can use one of their many contact page templates with drag and drop functionality, and fully customize it to fit your needs. It is compatible with responsive websites, and they offer instant notifications of contact so you never miss a message. There is a free version also available, if you don’t mind skipping some of the advanced features.

2. Formidable Pro

If in addition to your contact form you want to be able to display data, you may prefer Formidable. It is a great tool for extendable forms and information that will be posted across your website.

I have seen it used to great effect on joint Contact and About pages that sim to show the person why they should contact them. Something that I personally like very much. They are a bit more costly, but effective.

3. Ninja Forms

Looking for something totally free that just creates great looking forms for you to use? Then Ninja Forms is your best bet. It provides easily adjustable settings that customize the form, and leads you through every step of the way.

They provide widgets and shortcodes to integrate into WP seamlessly. Plus, they are translation ready.

4. Contact Forms 7

This is an oldie but a goodie, and one that is still being supported by the developer in spite of its age. It is very basic, just a fill out form from the plugin’s dashboard.

There are no bells or whistles at all, which can be considered a good thing. The results are a very clean, functional contact form.

5. Pirate Forms

Want to make your contact form more feedback based? You may like Pirate Forms, then. It gives you full control over customization, and has the option of sending emails via SMTP.

It has a recaptcha generator, so you can try and limit spam.

Manage Your Leads Like a Pro

Putting up a form is just the first step. Don’t forget that as your site is going to become more popular, you’ll be receiving hundreds of email requests and pitches. You need to manage and organize those properly.

One good way to keep an eye on your mail is Cyfe. It connects to Gmail, your CRM or anything else under the sun. Put simply, Cyfe lets you keep a lot of pieces of your marketing under one roof.

Different Forms for Different Purposes

I am a firm believer in cold contacts for guest blogging. I have sent out my fair share of unsolicited offers and while they don’t all work, about a third of the time they do. The ones that almost always succeed? Those that come from sites with a Write For Us page.

To attract guest bloggers, some of them quite well established, put up a Write For Us page yourself with a set policy on posts. You should get some interesting pitches and offers from people of varying talent and influence.

How and Why To Host Webinars for Lead Generation

July 19, 2018 by Jessy Troy Leave a Comment

Webinars have proven to be a powerful marketing strategy, therefore, hosting your own event will undoubtedly be a smart marketing strategy for your business or brand.

Now if you’re considering setting up your webinar, here are 9 ways it’ll help you attract new clients and grow your business.

Webinar Marketing Offers Multiple Marketing Opportunities

Webinars help develop trust and authority

Hosting a webinar doesn’t only let you showcase your products and services, but your expertise, skills, abilities and industry knowledge as well. And what about the human element?

Webinars allow you to put a real face to your business. Your audiences can identify with your face and become emotionally invested in your business.

Hosting webinars create business relationships

“Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationships.”

Ross Perot via bqotd.com

Think about it, how much do you think prospects can know you in a 30 second commercial? A little, right? Engaging your prospects via webinars lets your prospects to know you on a deeper level.

After all, people only do business with people, not companies. With a webinar, your attendees have the chance to know your person, admire you and trust you from the content you share.

Understand your audience more via interactive webinars

With the question and answer segment of an interactive webinar, you get to know your target audience, their challenges, expectations, and needs.

And with that, you are able to understand what motivates these audiences and create tailor-made products and services that match these needs.

Create brand awareness

Hosting webinars let you easily promote your business or brand – especially when you’re consistently feeding your audience with topnotch content and not simply handling it as another sales pitch presentation.

And when you also factor the nonexistent additional overhead, promoting your brand via webinars is incredibly cost-effective. With very little or no financial outlay, you can skyrocket the outreach of your nosiness.

Hosting webinars is affordable

Conventional seminars, meetings, and even conferences are no doubt expensive to set up. Interestingly, you can drastically reduce this high costs with webinars, especially with the wide variety of affordable webinar software solutions out there.

All that’s needed is a broadband connection, webcam, and microphone.

Webinars can be re-purposed

You might have only held your webinar – but that’s not the end of it. The content can be repurposed to offer the same value to those who couldn’t attend the webinar.

You can convert your presentation into an eBook or series of blog post. This lets you share your webinar content in other engaging ways.

Webinars can be recorded

When you re-purpose your content, your audience is able to relive your content and better understand your content as much as possible.

Webinars, unlike traditional conferences, are extremely easy and cost effective to record.

Increase your revenue via webinars

If you an audience base that’s big enough to monetize, you can simple set up a paid webinar event.

In so far your webinar is guaranteed to offer genuine value to your customers, your customers wouldn’t mind parting with a few bucks. And with a relatively unlimited capacity for attendees, you can easily generate an added revenue stream via webinars.

Webinars let you build up your list and generate quality leads

With the sign-up forms for your webinar, you can collect lead information such as email, addresses and job titles. Even better, the information and education that you offer in your webinar can be used to inform your audiences about your products and services – thereby creating a strategic sales lead in the process.

The benefits highlighted in this piece reflects the power of hosting your webinar. If you’re looking to boost your revenue, create cordial relationships with clients, minimize your costs and establish your credibility, then its time you begin to hold that webinar.

5 Ways to Better Do Webinar Lead Gen

Show the registrant numbers: social proof as a demonstration of the herd mentality is one thing that gets talked about a lot. “Join the 10,000 people who have registered for this webinar.” Really, sign me up. Now that’s how it works.
Urgency: tell people to hurry up. Setting up a maximum number of available “virtual seats” lets people be more inclined to sign up quickly because they don’t want to miss out. Indeed, nobody wants to be left out in something interesting.
Show what’s next: make sure that your website has a calendar showcasing your upcoming webinars. This can get sign ups in advance which you can then market to on the lead up to the main event.
Share free content: one exemplary way to convert your leads is to share valuable free materials. Practically, you can share eBooks with the people who have registered for your event. This way, you can facilitate easy conversion of your leads.
Follow up: after a successful event, send email to your attendees with a recording of the event. Also, include links to other closely related free content to the webinar they just watched. Trust me; they’ll love it.

QUESTION: What’s been your most significant challenge in hosting your own webinars? Do share with me. I’ll like to hear from you.

Featured image source: Pixabay

10 Simple (But Important) Things To Remember About Business Directories And SEO

May 22, 2018 by Jessy Troy Leave a Comment

Business directories represent a proven way to be found on Google search. While directory sites don’t enjoy the same SEO clout they once did, they can still improve organic search rankings, especially when local searches are conducted.

The main difference related to how directories affect SEO today as compared to ten years ago is that they no longer improve a site’s backlink profile. As Google has evolved, so has the algorithm for search engine optimization (SEO), ensuring higher quality sites with relevant content always rank highest.

There are different types of business directories and it is important to recognize the differences. Featured web listing sites are high-quality directories you want to focus on as you get business listings setup. These types of directories have a better reputation. Sometimes you have to pay a fee to be featured on certain directories. Many are free though.

Below are 10 things you should remember about business directories and SEO.

1. Be careful about which directories you join. Review the site first before adding your business to the directory. The legitimate web directories that you want to be included on will edit your listing. You don’t want your business name in a directory if the directory does not have strict editorial requirements, it can actually have a negative impact on your website ranking if the directory is one of the low-quality sites.

2. Getting your listing setup “right” is important. In cases where the service your business offers is specific to a particular country or region, then you list your site there. When submitting your website information to a directory, always use the official website name. In the description section of your listing, do not use words like best or cheapest. These superlatives may be edited out by some directory sites and also make a negative impression on consumers.

3. Business owners are losing business if they don’t add their listing to well-known directories. This is true even in small towns where you might think everyone knows everybody else, and that ever resident knows about your business. There are always visitors and new people moving in who might be looking for the service or product that you are selling.

4. Be sure to add your name to the Google My Business Directory. Since Google drives this directory as the largest search engine, you want to be sure to get your free listing here. By not taking advantage of your free listing, you might be opening the door for a competitor to hijack your listing by adding their own phone number to your phony listing. Not only can business be lost in situations like this, but your business reputation can also be affected if the company under-performs using your name and Google listing.

5. When you create your Google my Business listing, be sure to remove the check from the box that says, “make this my website address on Google search and Maps.” This is important because if you leave that box checked then the free URL from your Google website will be used and substituted for your corporate website address, possibly losing traffic you want that is directed instead to your corporate site.

6. It is always a good idea to track your directory signups. That will allow you to review the progress made. This will also prevent you from signing up for a directory more than once which can be confusing for customers if somehow they both go through the system.

7. One of the reasons online databases are so valuable to business owners is because they direct mobile search. Considering the growing number of local searches and how people traveling through your town are prone to conduct a search for restaurants and other businesses via their mobile devices, competitive businesses who want to compete should always be sure to add their business to high-quality local directories.

8. Different search engine directories are aligned with that particular search engine’s map. There can be a lot of overlap between the directories. For this reason, it is not always clear how to categorize a listing. Proceed with caution or ask questions. Some directories will change your category if they think you chose the wrong one.

9. Using a good online ranker tool is recommended as a way to monitor your competition and how well their pages are doing in search results. Some tools to check out are Ahrefs, Alexa, and Rank Tracker (plus, there are many more SEO tools and plugins out there to check out). When revising your corporate strategies, it is always helpful to understand how well your business is doing in comparison with your competitors so that you can make adjustments as necessary.

10. Directories worth mentioning and adding your company information to are: Jasmine Directory.com, DirJournal.com, Aviva Directory.com, and Alive Directory.com. These are reputable business web directories because they’re all apply a high editorial discretion. Local directories such as Yelp.com, Yahoo Local Directory, and Bing My Places represent high-quality options to get your name out to local consumers who are looking for local businesses.

Here’s a list five directories worth website your business into:

Best of the Web (BOTW) offers a web directory, BOTW Local, Blog Directory and UK & Ireland Directory. With 25 million people searching this directory per year, Best of the Web represents an excellent opportunity to get your company name out there to be noticed. There are a range of categories worth checking out
Jasmine Business Directory in cited in several books and journals as being a directory that has a very high editorial discretion. Compared to BOTW, each listing added Jasmine Directory has its own details page where businesses address is listed (according to the directory’s guidelines only if the business owner or representative submits those details) and Google Map is used. Thumbnails are also another available feature.
Aviva Directory is a general web directory. While many of the websites and blogs listed in this directory are added by Aviva’s staff, a business or blog owner can pay a fee and have their site reviewed to be added to the directory. Editors are strict and have rules prohibiting adult material.
Alive Directory is another Google compliant directory worth listing on. First, you should search for your name to see if you are already on the site. Then, if you don’t find your name, you can submit your listing for approval. Hot categories listed are Business, Shopping and Regional. There are discounts given for bulk listing that start at 20 percent and can go up to 50 percent.
Directory Journal offers a few listing types with some attractive features. Photos and keywords can be added to enhance your listing. During the last couple years DirJournal mixed their general directory with their local directory.

Getting listed on local directories makes good business sense. According to Nielsen in 2016, 74 percent of consumers check review sites when online looking for information. Yelp is a popular local directory.

With millions of eyes on the site daily to get information before spending decisions are made, this site represents and important option for business owners. Based on this data, there is no reason not to claim your free Yelp page. Facebook is another popular review site where you can claim your free business page.

It is important not to automate your directory submission effort. You want each listing to b unique in some way. By considering this important fact, search engines will work in your favor and you are less likely to be penalized.

Conclusion

It is clear that more business is done each year on the internet. Even in cases where consumers want to see and touch the merchandise before buying, many people are doing their research first online, before driving to the store. Business owners who want to compete in this digital world where companies are evaluated online before buyers show up at the store, must recognize the power of local searches or risk being left behind by savvy competitors.

Taking advantage of the free listings on directories that are compliant with Google means you will benefit from the power of this monster search engine. Reviews sites are also being used to decide where to go to get what they need. Trust can not be underestimated when courting new buyers.

As mentioned above, not all business directories are created equal. It is important to be discriminating when adding your business to a business directory. Be sure there is a strong editing staff and they don’t accept “spammy” listings for non-businesses. The directories mentioned in this article represent excellent options for business owners. If you sign-up with these directories, your business will benefit from the exposure.

Image source: Pixabay