My Favorite Business Model for a Breakthrough Digital Business

It was the end of 2008. Something you might remember about that year - in October, the markets took a nasty fall and the global economy melted down.

I was the sole breadwinner for my family. The company I worked for was going through round after round of layoffs. The well-paying, secure job I'd had for five years looked likely to evaporate underneath me.

I had some savings, but not a ton. I had a mortgage and preschool for my three-year-old to pay for, as well as silly habits like buying groceries and having health insurance for my family.

I had been noodling around with business ideas, but I hadn't gotten serious.

In the final few months of 2008, I had to get serious. Early in 2009, I took the leap. Here's how I did it.

My year of living dangerously

In 2009, I felt a lot like a chicken trying to cross an eight-lane highway. It was theoretically possible, but there was a non-optimal level of stress involved.

The first thing I did was hang out my shingle as a freelance copywriter.

In a lot of ways, it was wonderful. I worked on fascinating projects that I cared about. I had lovely clients who actually listened to me. I was able to implement content strategy (which I learned, incidentally, mainly from Copyblogger), instead of sitting in endless meetings talking about it.

The main downside for me was the “you don't kill, you don't eat” freelance model, in which I was endlessly having to close new clients in order to keep my revenue going.

I know people who are masters of this. I was not one of them.

But it worked, more or less. I was supporting my family.

Growing the audience

One thing I'm so grateful for about that time: I had started growing my audience well before I needed clients. My original intent had been to find another job - I figured a blog would help me stand out with prospective employers.

As it turned out, I was functionally unemployable, but the blog was an amazing resource. It didn't have zillions of readers or email subscribers - but it had enough.

(By the way, I launched an email list with a simple autoresponder before I even had that site up, which I recommend if you're starting from scratch today. You want to capture every drop of attention you can.)

By the time I went out on my own, that blog had already started to pull a small audience together. It also connected me with like-minded people for projects, support, expertise, and eventually business partnerships.

The email list allowed me to put offers in front of potential customers - and discover what worked and what didn't.

Finding stability

2009 was a year of hustle, and trying out all kinds of business models.

I tried freelancing, which sort of worked. I tried some content strategy consulting (we called it something else then), which also sort of worked. I put together a few simple information products with friends. I had some affiliate offers going.

My friend Gary, a business coach who talked me down from Mount Freakout about a thousand times that year, had been on my case to launch an online course with a membership component. I told him I'd get it done that year.

It was not pretty. Building the site was complicated, and I needed to hire someone to put together a variety of puzzle pieces that came from entirely different puzzles. It was fairly expensive to build. But I got it launched - in mid-December, since I'd promised Gary I'd do it that year. (Accountability is a useful thing.)

I called that site The Remarkable Marketing Blueprint, and it changed everything.

(There are still lovely and successful folks out there who identify themselves as “The Remarkables.” That makes me deeply happy.)

I launched the Blueprint at a pretty modest monthly fee. The checkout system was a PayPal nightmare, and I'm lucky it worked at all. The membership management tools were primitive, with lousy security. (Remind me to tell you about the week that Russian hackers kept putting porn into my member library. Fun times.)

That's why I'm a bit emphatic about how much easier the Rainmaker Platform makes things. Trust me, the early tools were not so user-friendly.

But they got the job done. People bought the course. They benefited from the course.

After a short time, I relaunched the Blueprint (Gary was bugging me again) at a higher price. And that launch went even better.

I didn't become a millionaire. But I had momentum and steady revenue. I was helping people with their problems, and in turn, I was making a reasonable living. I had a business that worked.

If you think that would be an amazing feeling … you're absolutely right.

Come to the free webinar

Building an online course or membership community is a great business model - but it's not a guaranteed home run. You can set yourself up for failure, or set yourself up for success.

Brian Clark's original Teaching Sells was the course that taught me how to set the Blueprint up for success. How to structure it, how to make it marketable, how to position it, how to get the content created, how to launch it, and how to run it.

Teaching Sells isn't on the market anymore, but Brian Clark still teaches folks how to build online courses - only these days, it's a much more streamlined process.

Brian's holding a free webinar on Wednesday, December 7, 2016 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time that will get you started.

Click the button below for easy (and free!) registration.

Free Webinar:


How to Develop an Irresistible Online Course People Will Line Up to Buy (and Then Actually Use)

I love this model for so many reasons.

• I won't say it was easy, but it was doable.


• It supported me and my family when we really needed it.


• It provided steady, predictable revenue so I could catch my breath and actually plan something.


• It was conducive to my commitment to be a good parent and spouse as well as a capable businessperson.


• It connected me with wonderful customers, who became friends, and who went into the world and did amazing things.


• And it opened doors to other possibilities - the business stage that Brian Clark calls “Acceleration.”

It's a model that works if you know how to do something really well. It's also a model that works if you don't have your own particular area of expertise, but you partner with someone who does. (You set the course up and run it; they provide the content and expert authority. These can be remarkably productive businesses.)

Even though we've been business partners for years now, I always make a point of listening to what Brian has to say about online courses. He always has new insights and points of clarity that I learn from.

So I'll be there … and if you have any interest at all in this model, I recommend you check it out as well. You can just click the button to get registered.

Free Webinar:


How to Develop an Irresistible Online Course People Will Line Up to Buy (and Then Actually Use)

The post My Favorite Business Model for a Breakthrough Digital Business appeared first on Copyblogger.

How to Find Epic Keyword Opportunities That Turn Into Easy SERP Wins by @josephhhoward

Do you write content and never see it on page one in search results? Find less competitive keyword opportunities so you can finally win at Google!

The post How to Find Epic Keyword Opportunities That Turn Into Easy SERP Wins by @josephhhoward appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

NES Classic Edition gets Bluetooth support with a $40 accessory

Nintendo's NES Classic Edition is a gift from the gaming gods, but it's marred by one explicable flaw: the controller cable is too short, forcing you to sit extremely close to your TV. The solution was to get an aftermarket extension cable or alternate controller, but why not just get rid of the cable completely? That's what 8Bitdo's Retro Reciever does, operating via Bluetooth with an included remote that adds an extra two face and shoulder buttons, (should you want to use the controller for other, more button-y systems). Moreover, you can connect just about any Bluetooth controller to the Retro Receiver too.…

This story continues at The Next Web

Google Adding More GMB Notifications?

Barry Schwartz reported on a new feature that allows configuration of your Google My Business settings to send notifications on a wider range of tasks than was previously permitted. The new feature will allow the account (as opposed to each location) to set email and mobile app notifications for the following activities: Important updates Google … Continue reading Google Adding More GMB Notifications? →

Related posts:

1. Google MyBusiness Email Verification Now Confirmed


2. The New Google Plus – All About Collections Not About Business


3. Google Releases Mobile My Business Updates

How do outbound links affect organic search rankings?

Chart of the Day: New experiment on outbound links shows their impact

A lot of discussion of SEO is around the right type of backlinks, links into a site, and rightly so given their continued importance to ranking. But what about links out from a site, do they have an impact? These are discussed less often, but can have an impact as the chart from this experiment by Reboot Online shows.

The experiment involved purchasing 10 new domains which mentioned the niche term "Phylandocic". Each article mentioned 2 authoritative, related websites. On 5 of the websites, mentions are in plain text whilst on the other 5 sites, they are hyperlinked. The domains were all registered at the same time to remove any domain age influence. All domains contained 10 random but pronounceable characters and all domains were confirmed as having 0 search volume produced in Google. All sites were co-hosted to minimise any hosting related bias.

The full research gives more details, but these visual results summaries are compelling. You can see that the ranking stablised after a period of 8-10 weeks to give higher rankings for the sites with outbound links.

Here are the rankings for the term which also makes the point effectively.

Implications of the experiment?

It seems to me as I review SEO practices of different sites, that some businesses and some copywriters seem to have an attitude that all in-line links to other pages on their own site or on other sites are negative, so they don't follow this practice. Perhaps they are fearful of leaking visitors, but to me, the benefit to users of providing relevant links and the benefits of improved rankings will typically outweigh any disadvantages, particularly on a blog post. This experiment is interesting since it suggests that outbound links do have a positive impact.

In the early days of Google, whitepapers from Google research (and patents) referenced the Hilltop ranking concept related to "Expert documents". This concept hasn't been forgotten though, more recently a Moz Whiteboard Friday video asked: "Is External linking good for SEO?"

• Full details of Experiment: Reboot Online


• Recommended Smart Insights member toolkit: SEO Toolkit

5 Takeaways from Earning Links in 130 Countries

Posted by kerryjones

I was in Peru earlier this year for a digital marketing conference, and I overwhelmingly heard the same frustration: “It's really hard to use outreach to earn links or PR coverage in our country.”

This wasn't for lack of trying. As I continued to hear this sentiment during my visit, I learned there simply weren't a lot of opportunities. For one thing, in Peru, there aren't nearly as many publishers as in more populous countries. Most publishers expected payment for mentioning a brand. Furthermore, journalists did a lot of job-hopping, so maintaining relationships was difficult.

This is a conundrum not limited to Peru. I know many people outside of the US can relate. When you see the Fractl team and others sharing stories about how we earn hundreds of links for a single content piece, you might think it must be nice to do outreach somewhere like the US where online publishers are plentiful and they'll feature great content with no strings attached. While the work my team does isn't easy by any means, I do recognize that there are ample opportunities for earning links and press coverage from American publishers.

What can you do if opportunities are scarce in your country?

One solution is focusing your outreach efforts on publishers in neighboring countries or countries with the same language and a similar culture. During conversations with the Attachmedia team (the company hosting the conference I was at), I learned they had much greater success earning media stories and building links outside of Peru because publishers in surrounding South American countries were more receptive to their email pitches and publishing third-party content.

But you may not need to do any international outreach if you know how to create the type of content that will organically attract attention beyond your borders.

At Fractl, many of our top-performing client campaigns have secured a lot of international links even without us doing much, or any, international outreach. To dig deeper, we recently conducted an analysis of 290 top-performing client content campaigns to determine which content naturally attracted coverage from international publishers (and thus, international links). Altogether, these campaigns were featured by publishers in 130 countries, earning more than 4,000 international media stories.

In this post, I'll share what we found about what causes content to spread around the world.

1. Domestic success was a key factor in driving international placements for Fractl's campaigns.

For years, we've noticed that if content gets enough attention in the US, it will organically begin to receive international press and links. Watch how this happens in the GIF below, which visualizes how one of our campaigns spread globally after reaching critical mass in the US:

Our study confirmed that there's a correlation between earning a high number of links domestically and earning international links.

When we looked at our 50 most successful client campaigns that have earned the highest number of media stories, we discovered that these campaigns also received the most international coverage. Out of the 4,000 international placements we analyzed, 70 percent of them came from these 50 top-performing campaigns.

We also found that content which earned at least 25 international media pickups also earned at least 25 domestic pickups, so there's a minimum one-to-one ratio of international to domestic pickups.

2. Overcome language barriers with visual formats that don't rely on text.

Maps showing a contrast between countries were the visualizations of choice for international publishers.

World maps can be easily understood by global audiences, and make it easy for publishers to find an angle to cover. A client campaign, which looked at how much people eat and drink around the world, included maps highlighting differences between the countries. This was our fourth-highest-performing campaign in terms of international coverage.

It's easy for a writer whose primary language isn't English to look at a shaded map like the one above and pick out the story about his or her country. For example, a Belgian publisher who covered the consumption campaign used a headline that roughly translated to “Belgians eat more calories than Americans”:

Images were the second most popular visual format, which tells us that a picture may be worth a thousand words in any language. One great example of this is our “Evolution of Miss Universe” campaign, where we created a series of animated and interactive visualizations using photos of Miss Universe winners since 1952:

The simplicity of the visuals made this content accessible to all viewers regardless of the language they spoke. Paired with the international angle, this helped the campaign gain more than 40 pickups from global sites.

As we move down the rankings, formats that relied on more text, such as infographics, were less popular internationally. No doubt this is because international audiences can't connect with content they can't understand.

When creating text-heavy visualizations, consider if someone who speaks a different language can understand it - would it still make sense if you removed all the text?

Pro tip: If your outreach strategy is targeting multiple countries or a country where more than one language is widely spoken, it may be worth the effort to produce text-heavy visuals in multiple languages.

3. Topics that speak to universal human interests performed best internationally.

Our top-performing international campaigns show a clear preference for topics that resonate globally. The six topics that performed best internationally were:

1. Drugs and alcohol


2. Health and fitness


3. Entertainment


4. Sex and relationships


5. Travel


6. Technology

Bear in the mind that these topics are reflective of our client campaigns, so every topic imaginable was not included in this study.

We drilled this down a little more and looked at the specific topics covered in our top 50 campaigns. You'll notice many of the most popular topics would make your grandma blush.

We know that controversial topics are highly effective in grabbing attention, and the list above confirms that pushing boundaries works on a global scale. (We weren't exactly surprised that a campaign called “Does Size Matter?” resonated internationally.)

But don't look at the chart above and assume that you need to make your content about sex, drugs, and rock and roll if you want to gain international attention. As you can see, even pedestrian fare performed well globally. Consider how you can create content that speaks to basic human interests, like technology, food, and … Instagram.

4. A global angle isn't necessary.

While our top five international campaigns did have a global focus, more than half of our 50 top-performing international campaigns did not have a global angle. This tells us that a geographic angle doesn't determine international success.

Some examples of non-geographic ideas that performed well are:

• A tool that calculates indirect sexual exposure based on how many partners you've had


• The types of white lies people commonly tell and hear


• A face-off between Siri, Cortana, and Google Now performance


• A sampling of how many bacteria and germs are found in hotel rooms

We also found that US-centric campaigns were, unsurprisingly, less likely to succeed. Only three of our campaigns with America-focused titles received more than 25 international placements. If your content topic does have a geographic angle, make sure to broaden it to have a multi-national or worldwide focus.

Pro tip: Consider how you can add an international twist to content ideas that already performed well domestically. The Miss Universe campaign example I shared above? That came to fruition after we successfully did a similar campaign about Miss America. Similarly, we could likely reboot our “Tolerance in America” campaign to look at racism around the world and expect it to be successful, as this topic already proved popular at home and is certainly relevant worldwide.

5. The elements of share-worthy content hold true internationally.

Over the years, we've seen time and time again that including certain elements in content greatly increases the chance of success. All of our content that achieved international success included some combination of the following:

• Surprising information


• An emotionally resonant topic


• A universally appealing topic


• Comparison or ranking of multiple places, things, or ideas


• A geographic angle


• A pop culture angle

Look back at the content examples I shared in this post, and make note of how many of the characteristics above are present in each one. To increase the likelihood that your content appeals to global audiences, be sure to read this post about the vital role these elements play in creating content that earns a lot of links and social shares.

What has your experience been like using content to attract international press and links? I'd love to hear what's worked for you - leave a comment below!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Google Testing New Feature for Messaging Businesses From Search Results by @MattGSouthern

A select number of site owners are being invited to test a new feature that allows searchers to message businesses from search results.

The post Google Testing New Feature for Messaging Businesses From Search Results by @MattGSouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google knowledge panel now showing videos from the web carousel

Videos are now showing up below the Google knowledge panel for some queries, including local panels and other knowledge panels.

The post Google knowledge panel now showing videos from the web carousel appeared first on Search Engine Land.



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

How to Write a High-Value Lesson Plan that Makes Your Course Easy to Sell

The demand for online education is exploding.

The global market for online courses is estimated around $107 billion. A mind-boggling figure, right?

Imagine stuffing one-dollar bills into a 53-foot truck. Depending on how crumpled your bills are, you'd need around 1,000 trucks stuffed up to the roof to transport those 107-billion dollar bills.

Would you like one of those trucks to deliver a heap of money to you?

Then you must create a lesson plan so valuable that students get excited about buying your online course.

A high-value lesson plan motivates people to both study and implement your advice. It makes students so happy about their newly acquired skills that they tell all of their friends about your course. That's how your course starts selling like hot cakes.

Ready to get started?

Step #1: Carefully assess your students' needs

When developing a course on your own platform, the most logical starting point often seems to be your expertise.

How can you teach your skills to others?

This common approach is asking for trouble. Big trouble.

Because it's hard to create a valuable learning experience when you think from your own perspective rather than from the student's perspective.

Think about your course buyers first:

• Who will buy your course?


• How will the course transform them?


• Why are they interested in this transformation?

Imagine, for instance, that you're a social media expert, and you want to create a course to share your Twitter knowledge. You could answer the three questions above in widely different ways:

• You might want to target Twitter novices who are hoping to build a Twitter following because they want more traffic to their websites.


• You might want to target freelance writers who want to connect with publishers and influencers because they want to write for well-known publications that pay higher fees.


• You might want to target small business marketers who find Twitter a time suck; they want to promote their brands in less time.

Each of these audiences requires a different lesson plan because they have different learning objectives and different levels of experience.

So before you create your lesson plan, define who your audience is and how you'll help them.

If you're unsure, read questions in relevant forums and check out the comment sections of popular blogs. Or, even better, ask your own email subscribers what they're struggling with and how you can help.

Once you understand your audience and the overall aim of your course, you can start creating your lesson plan - the foundation of a popular course.

Step #2: Assign learning objectives to each part of your course

Courses often fail to deliver a smooth learning experience because participants lose track of their objectives.

Students become demotivated when they don't understand the value of each lesson. They don't see how your information contributes to their goals. They might even forget why they're taking your course.

To keep your participants motivated, break the overall objective of your course down into mini-targets for each lesson.

You can fill in the blanks of this magical sentence for each target:

Learn [how this works], so you can [achieve so-and-so].

Each module, each lesson, and each assignment in your course should have a purpose. When participants understand the value of the information and how they'll benefit from it, they're more likely to engage with your course and implement your advice.

And what's more, your valuable lesson plan makes crafting a sales page a breeze, too.

You already know who's going to buy your course and why (for the transformation). You've already listed features (what people learn) and benefits (why they care about learning the information you teach). So, your lesson plan is the ideal selling tool for your course.

But how do you define the purpose of each lesson? And how do you make sure all of the lessons help students achieve their overall goal - their transformation?

Step #3: Create simple, digestible lessons

Ever felt overwhelmed when taking a course?

Or perhaps you've studied a course diligently, but were left wondering: “Now, what?”

Ensuring your course meets or exceeds your buyer's expectations is a tough job. You can't leave any gaps, but you also can't overwhelm students by inundating them with too much information.

To avoid any gaps in your lesson plan, start with listing the steps you take to complete a specific task.

Let's look at an easy example first.

Imagine creating a mini-course for cycling enthusiasts about packing a bicycle for transportation on a plane. You can create this course by making notes of the steps you take when packing your bike.

In this case, it's even easier to record a video of yourself and provide a running commentary. But when you're teaching an abstract topic, like leadership or digital marketing skills, it's more difficult.

For abstract topics, reverse-engineer your processes

As an expert, you often accomplish tasks effortlessly. You don't think about how you create a presentation; you simply put the slides together. You don't think about how to write an email or give a client a quote. You simply perform the tasks.

To break down your processes, start by asking yourself, “How did I arrive at this result?”

Imagine creating online training materials for senior managers. One skill you want to teach is conducting performance reviews that motivate staff members and make them more productive.

You can picture yourself going through the process:

• How do you prepare?


• How do you ask your team members to prepare?


• How do you conduct the performance review?


• What type of notes do you take?

You can mentally rehearse your latest performance reviews and break down the complicated parts. You can play back how you dealt with an underperforming team member. You can think about the questions you asked to help you understand what your team member was struggling with.

You'll find that you often need to mix different types of digestible chunks, especially for complicated topics or advanced skills. For instance, in my Enchanting Business Blogging course:

• You learn how to write headlines, subheads, opening paragraphs, the main body text, and closing paragraphs - these are all different parts of a blog post


• You learn how to generate ideas, outline, write a first draft, and edit - these are all different stages of the blog writing process


• You also learn how to tell a mini-story, use metaphors, and include specific examples - these are all different writing techniques

You have to dig deep to distinguish different parts, chop up a process, and pinpoint techniques. You have to understand the essence of your topic and the foundation of your skills.

In the Da Vinci course from Sean D'Souza at Psychotactics, for instance, you can learn how to draw cartoons. But first, what's the foundation of drawing? The course begins with drawing circles.

Now you've reverse-engineered your process. You've created a lesson plan that's logical and enticing. Each lesson has a clear learning objective, and your valuable lesson plan is nearly ready.

Step #4: Motivate students to implement your advice

Consuming information in digestible chunks is not the same as learning.

To give your students real value and create raving fans, encourage students to implement your advice. At the end of each lesson, create an assignment for them.

For example, my guide for writing About pages, co-written with Julia Rymut, is a five-day mini-course.

Each day features new information plus an assignment so you can implement what you've learned:

• Learn how to order the key components of an About page to create an engaging flow. Review how your favorite websites communicate the essential components of an About page (analysis of other people's work helps reinforce the lesson).


• Learn how to generate ideas for your About page. Complete a 23-point questionnaire so writing about yourself becomes a breeze.


• Learn specific editing tips for About pages. Edit your page to make your content credible, persuasive, and enjoyable.

Remember, a valuable lesson plan doesn't simply share information. It inspires students to implement your advice by suggesting activities and assignments.

Step #5: Avoid the biggest pitfall in lesson creation

You're an expert. You're brimming with enthusiasm for your topic. You want to share your knowledge and teach your skills. You want to inspire people.

Your red-cheeked enthusiasm is both a huge advantage and an enormous potential pitfall.

While your teaching materials will likely reflect your enthusiasm and get students excited about your course, your enthusiasm may also make you prone to overwhelming your students.

Because you want to teach them everything. Each method. Each trick. Each example. Each exception. And you risk leaving your students gasping for air.

Sharing everything you know is not necessary. Go back to the objective of your course, and ask yourself, “What's the minimum students need to learn to fulfill that objective?”

Then evaluate your lesson plan:

• Can you eliminate any learning material that's not absolutely necessary? (Instead of scrapping lessons, consider turning them into bonus material.)


• Does each lesson have one, straightforward learning objective, or have you muddled your program by sneaking multiple objectives into one lesson? Try cutting lessons into smaller chunks.


• For each exercise or assignment, have you covered the relevant knowledge and skills?


• Do the learning objectives follow each other in a logical order?


• What could prevent students from implementing your advice? And how can you help overcome those hurdles?


• Have you warned students about common mistakes?


• Do the learning objectives match your overall promise?

Too much information makes students feel overwhelmed and leads to inaction. Not enough information leaves students confused and defeated. Good teachers inspire their students by giving exactly the right amount of information.

When running a test drive or beta version of your course, keep a close eye on the questions people ask.

Is important information missing? Are specific assignments stumbling blocks? Do students need a pep talk halfway through your course because they're losing confidence? Or do you need to slow down and recap the lessons so far?

As a good teacher, do more than share information. Encourage. Motivate. Inspire.

Set the foundation for a thriving online training business

Some say that online learning may be more effective than the traditional model of classroom learning.

People can study at their own pace. They don't waste time traveling and can save energy by studying from home. They can connect with like-minded people across the world.

But online learning only works if we, as providers, deliver a valuable learning experience.

Creating a valuable lesson plan can be tricky. I'm sure you've taken courses that left you confused, cross-eyed, and without hair. Or perhaps you gave up long before that. Defeated, you moved on to the next shiny course. Without making progress.

Your students deserve better than that.

So don't simply share your knowledge. Create a course that teaches a real skill. Make your course so inspirational that people are begging you to create another course next.

Your valuable lesson plan is the solid foundation of a thriving training business.

Can you hear that truck honking?

The driver leans out of the window, a smile on his face. He's waving at you, ready to deliver a heap of dollar bills.

Free Webinar: How to Develop an Irresistible Online Course People Will Line Up to Buy (and Then Actually Use)

• Are you currently planning or developing an online course and looking for a few key pieces of practical advice (from a proven expert) that will put you in a position to have a successful launch?


• Do you already have an online course that you're looking to improve before your next launch?


• Or are you simply curious what this online course craze is all about?

If you answered “Yes” to any of the three questions above, then join Rainmaker Digital founder and CEO Brian Clark on Wednesday, December 7, 2016 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time for a free webinar.

By the end of the hour, you'll have a much clearer understanding of how to develop an online course that your target audience needs … and that they will be compelled to pay for.

Learn More and Register for Free

Editor's note: The original version of this post was published on August 18, 2015.

The post How to Write a High-Value Lesson Plan that Makes Your Course Easy to Sell appeared first on Copyblogger.

Brand ambassadors are most important for influencer marketing

With the news that social influencers being a big hit with hard-to-reach men online, recent research suggests that brand ambassadors and ongoing relationships with brand ambassadors are the most effective forms of influencer marketing.

The study was conducted online with 1,753 influencers and 102 marketers, by Tapinfluence and Altmeter and investigated marketers impressions of influencer marketing and discussed how they are using it.

Ongoing ambassadorships and product reviews are the most effective forms of influencer marketing, as ranked by marketers. Only Less than 11% believe affiliate marketing links are effective, whilst many marketers are also using brand ambassadors for mentions of event coverage, relationships are crucial to the long term success of this form of marketing.

The study also found that only 50% think sponsored content is the most effective form of influencer marketing, yet almost 82% use sponsored content, whilst 52.5% use brand ambassadors. This suggests there is a disconnect between that is perceived as being effective and what marketers actually do. There could be many reasons for this, perhaps content marketing has previously proved it's value and brand ambassadorships are more risky, or more expensive. Maybe ROI has been harder to prove?

• Source: Tapinfluence: The Influencer Marketing Manifesto By Brian Solis


• Sample: Online questionnaire between February 26, 2016 and April 29, 2016. 1,753 influencers and 102 marketers responded.


• Recommended resource: Influencer Outreach Guide

The 7 Citation Building Myths Plaguing Local SEO

Posted by JoyHawkins

Previously, I wrote an article unveiling some of the most common myths I see in the Local SEO space. I thought I'd do a follow-up that specifically talked about the myths pertaining to citations that I commonly hear from both small business owners and SEOs alike.

Myth #1: If your citations don't include your suite number, you should stop everything you're doing and fix this ASAP.

Truth: Google doesn't even recognize suite numbers for a whopping majority of Google business listings. Even though you enter a suite number in Google My Business, it doesn't translate into the "Suite #" field in Google MapMaker - it simply gets eliminated. Google also pays more attention to the location (pin) marker of the business when it comes to determining the actual location and less to the actual words people enter in as the address, as there can be multiple ways to name a street address. Google's Possum update recently introduced a filter for search queries that is based on location. We've seen this has to do with the address itself and how close other businesses in the same industry are to your location. Whether or not you have a suite number in Google My Business has nothing to do with it.

Darren Shaw from Whitespark, an expert on everything related to citations, says:

“You often can't control the suite number on your citations. Some sites force the suite number to appear before the address, some after the address, some with a # symbol, some with “Ste,” and others with “Suite.” If minor discrepancies like these in your citations affected your citation consistency or negatively impacted your rankings, then everyone would have a problem.”

In summary, if your citations look great but are missing the suite number, move along. There are most likely more important things you could be spending time on that would actually impact your ranking.

Myth #2: Minor differences in your business name in citations are a big deal.

Truth: Say your business name is "State Farm: Bob Smith," yet one citation lists you as “Bob Smith Insurance” and another as “Bob Smith State Farm.” As Mike Blumenthal states: “Put a little trust in the algorithm.” If Google was incapable of realizing that those 3 names are really the same business (especially when their address & phone number are identical), we'd have a big problem on our hands. There would be so many duplicate listings on Google we wouldn't even begin to be able to keep track. Currently, I only generally see a lot of duplicates if there are major discrepancies in the address and phone number.

Darren Shaw also agrees on this:

“I see this all the time with law firms. Every time a new partner joins the firm or leaves the firm, they change their name. A firm can change from “Fletcher, McDonald, & Jones” to “Fletcher, Jones, & Smith” to “Fletcher Family Law” over the course of 3 years, and as long as the phone number and address stay the same, it will have no negative impact on their rankings. Google triangulates the data it finds on the web by three data points: name, address, and phone number. If two of these are a match, and then the name is a partial match, Google will have no problem associating those citations with the correct listing in GMB.”

Myth #3: NAP cleanup should involve fixing your listings on hundreds of sites.

Truth: SEO companies use this as a scare tactic, and it works very well. They have a small business pay them for citation cleanup. They'll do a scan of your incorrect data and send you a list of hundreds of directories that have your information wrong. This causes you to gasp and panic and instantly realize you must hire them to spend hours cleaning all this up, as it must be causing the ranking of your listing on Google to tank.

Let's dive into an example that I've seen. Local.com is a site that feeds to hundreds of smaller directories on newspaper sites. If you have a listing wrong on Local.com, it might appear that your listing is incorrect on hundreds of directories. For example, these three listings are on different domains, but if you look at the pages they're identical and they all say “Local.com” at the top:

http://directory.hawaiitribune-herald.com/profile?listingid=108895814

http://directory.lufkindailynews.com/profile?listingid=108895814

http://flbiz.oscnewsgazette.com/profile?listingid=108895814

Should this cause you to panic? No. Fixing it on Local.com itself should fix all the hundreds of other places. Even if it didn't, Google hasn't even indexed any of these URLs. (Note: they might index my examples since I just linked to them in this Moz article, so I'm including some screenshots from while I was writing this):

If Google hasn't even indexed the content, it's a good sign that the content doesn't mean much and it's nothing you should stress about. Google would have no incentive or reason to index all these different URLs due to the fact that the content on them is literally the same. Additionally, no one links to them (aside from me in this article, of course).

As Darren Shaw puts it,

“This one really irks me. There are WAY more important things for you to spend your time/money on than trying to fix a listing on a site like scranton.myyellowpageclassifieds.biz. Chances are, any attempt to update this listing would be futile anyway, because small sites like these are basically unmanaged. They're collecting their $200/m in Adsense revenue and don't have any interest in dealing with or responding to any listing update requests. In our Citation Audit and Cleanup service we offer two packages. One covers the top 30 sites + 5 industry/city-specific sites, and the other covers the top 50 sites + 5 industry/city-specific sites. These are sites that are actually important and valuable to local search. Audit and cleanup on sites beyond these is generally a waste of time and money.”

Myth #4: There's no risk in cancelling an automated citation service.

People often wonder what might happen to their NAP issues if they cancel their subscription with a company like Yext or Moz Local. Although these companies don't do anything to intentionally cause old data to come back, there have been some recent interesting findings around what actually happens when you cancel.

Truth: In one case, Phil Rozek did a little case study for a business that had to cancel Moz Local recently. The good news is that although staying with them is generally a good decision, this business didn't seem to have any major issues after cancelling.

Yext claims on their site that they don't do anything to push the old data back that was previously wrong. They explain that when you cancel, “the lock that was put in place to protect the business listing is no longer present. Once this occurs, the business listing is subject to the normal compilation process at the search engine, online directory, mobile app, or social network. In fact, because Yext no longer has this lock in place, Yext has no control over the listing directly at all, and the business listing data will now act as it normally would occur without Yext.”

Nyagoslav Zhekov just recently published a study on cancelling Yext and concluded that most of the listings either disappear or revert back to their previous incorrect state after cancelling. It seems that Yext acts as a sort of cover on top of the listing, and once Yext is cancelled, that cover is removed. So, there does seem to be some risk with cancelling Yext.

In summary, there is definitely a risk when you decide to cancel an ongoing automated service that was previously in place to correct your citations. It's important for people to realize that if they decide to do this, they might want to budget for some manual citation building/cleanup in case any issues arise.

Myth #5: Citation building is the only type of link building strategy you need to succeed at Local SEO.

Many Local SEO companies have the impression that citation building is the only type of backlinking strategy needed for small businesses to rank well in the 3-pack. According to this survey that Bright Local did, 72% of Local SEOs use citation building as a way of building links.

Truth: Local SEO Guide found in their Local Search Ranking Factors study that although citations are important, if that's the only backlinking strategy you're using, you're most likely not going to rank well in competitive markets. They found also found that links are the key competitive differentiator even when it comes to Google My Business Rankings. So if you're in a competitive industry or market and want to dominate the 3-pack, you need to look into additional backlinking strategies over and above citations.

Darren adds more clarity to the survey's results by stating,

“They're saying that citations are still very important, but they are a foundational tactic. You absolutely need a core base of citations to gain trust at Google, and if you don't have them you don't have a chance in hell at ranking, but they are no longer a competitive difference maker. Once you have the core 50 or so citations squared away, building more and more citations probably isn't what your local SEO campaign needs to move the needle further.”

Myth #6: Citations for unrelated industries should be ignored if they share the same phone number.

This was a question that has come up a number of times with our team. If you have a restaurant that once had a phone number but then closes its doors, and a new law firm opens up down the street and gets assigned that phone number, should the lawyer worry about all the listings that exist for the restaurant (since they're in different industries)?

Truth: I reached out to Nyagoslav Zhekov, the Director of Local Search at Whitespark, to get the truth on this one. His response was:

“As Google tries to mimic real-life experiences, sooner or later this negative experience will result in some sort of algorithmic downgrading of the information by Google. If Google manages to figure out that a lot of customers look for and call a phone number that they think belongs to another business, it is logical that it will result in negative user experience. Thus, Google will assign a lower trust score to a Google Maps business record that offers information that does not clearly and unquestionably belong to the business for which the record is. Keeping in mind that the phone number is, by design and by default, the most unique and the most standardized information for a business (everything else is less standardize-able than the phone number), this is, as far as I am concerned, the most important information bit and the most significant identifier Google uses when determining how trustworthy particular information for a business is.”

He also pointed out that users finding the phone number for the restaurant and calling it continually would be a negative experience for both the customer and the law firm (who would have to continually confirm they're not a restaurant) so there would be added benefit in getting these listings for the restaurant marked closed or removed.

Since Darren Shaw gave me so much input for this article, he also wanted to add a seventh myth that he comes across regularly:

Myth #7: Google My Business is a citation.

“This one is maybe more of a mis-labelling problem than a myth, but your listing at Google isn't really a citation. At Whitespark we refer to Google, Bing, and Apple Maps as 'Core Search Engines' (yes, Yahoo has been demoted to just a citation). The word 'citation' comes from the concept of 'citing' your sources in an academic paper. Using this conceptual framework, you can think of your Google listing as the academic paper, and all of your listings out on the web as the sources that cite the business. Your Google listing is like the queen bee and all the citations out there are the workers contributing to keep the queen bee alive and healthy.”

Hopefully that lays some of the fears and myths around citations to rest. If you have questions or ideas of other myths on this topic, we'd love to hear about it in the comments!

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4 Surprising Ways You'll Profit from Building an Online Course

I had no idea what I was getting myself into back in the fall of 2009.

The only thing I knew for sure was that I was feeling antsy.

I had been running my design and marketing business for almost two decades. Over almost twenty years, I had helped every kind of client with every kind of project. Truth be told: I was getting a little bored.

And boredom, as far as I'm concerned, is Enemy #1.

Up to that point, my business was strictly offline. I had a web presence, but it was a brochure site. You know, a “here's what I do and here's how to contact me” website with no content, no audience-building component, no connection whatsoever with the people who landed on its pages. Old school.

The thrill was gone from my current career. Something had to change. So I started searching.

And exactly one Google search later, I landed here on the pages of Copyblogger.

It just so happened that I stumbled onto these pages in the weeks leading up to the launch of one of the early versions of Teaching Sells, the online course that taught online course building. It's the product that helped establish the company I now work for.

I signed up for Teaching Sells as soon as the doors opened. And I dug right into the materials. All five months' worth!

As I watched the videos and did the worksheets, I filled a folder full of notes. I worked overtime to consume every lesson. I asked and answered questions in the forum. I attended Q&A sessions. I was all in.

But it's what happened after taking the course that changed my career and my life.

Here's what happened after I took the Teaching Sells course

I built my online presence from scratch after taking the Teaching Sells course. Everything - from my brand name, to my website, to my blog content, to my opt-in offer, to my first course - was born from what I learned in the course materials.

Once I knew my ultimate goal was to offer online education, I was able to reverse engineer my online presence to attract an audience of readers who would become my students.

It worked like a charm. My only complaint? I wished there was a more compact way to learn what I learned. And now there is (more on that below).

It turns out that teaching still sells, now more than ever. The online education market is growing. New technologies like simulation-based teaching, cognitive learning, augmented reality, and bot-based tutorials are engaging people of all age groups and interests.

Back when I first learned about how to create online education, there was a stigma surrounding learning this way, as if it “wasn't the real deal.” How could web-based learning possibly replace the back-and-forth interaction of a classroom?

Now we've realized that we're just scratching the surface of how computing power can augment and improve our educational experiences. The sky's the limit.

Are you in? Because in today's article, I want to share four not-so-obvious advantages of creating online courses. These are benefits I've experienced personally.

And they offer compelling reasons you might want to explore creating an online course in the near future.

1. You'll discover that adult learners become loyal customers

When you empower someone with information that allows them to do something they've never done, or work more efficiently, or enjoy life more … they'll never forget you.

It's the ultimate top-of-mind awareness for your business and your brand.

Believe it or not, I still meet people who thank me for courses they took from me four, five, and six years ago. That's remarkable!

Education has that effect - it can transform people's lives. And people whose lives you transform become loyal, devoted customers.

2. You'll develop your position (and that will help later)

Creating a course is hard work. If you want to do it right, you spend time laying the groundwork for your course with some fundamentals first:

• You find a market of “hungry learners”


• You develop a unique approach for your course


• You define a learner profile so you fully understand who you're serving


• You identify the benefits of knowledge - how your learner will grow from what you'll teach them


• You spell out learning objectives for your course

All this before creating a single lesson!

But here's the thing - the time you spend defining your market, your position, and the knowledge you'll convey will benefit you in so many ways. In a very sneaky way, you'll be:

• Pinpointing a target market for your content and confirming demand


• Uniquely positioning your brand


• Understanding what motivates your ideal customer


• Creating selling points for your course


• Writing marketing copy you can use on sales pages and in emails

Doing the work of building your course will put you well ahead in your marketing efforts.

And working through the fundamentals will help you write better content that draws new people to your website and your offerings.

3. You'll learn All The Things

A full-blown online course is not a Minimum Viable Product. Not even close.

The biggest mistake I made was to tackle putting together a fully functional online course as my first product.

(It's embarrassing even to type this.)

But looking back, I have no regrets. Putting together a full-fledged online course forced me to learn All The Things. Things like:

• How to write effective content that attracts the right audience


• How to accept payments for online products


• How to position, launch, and generate ongoing sales for a digital product


• How to put my paid content behind a secure paywall


• How to allow members to communicate with each other and with me


• How to create, present, and host online video content


• How to build a community around my teaching

When I look at that list, it's pretty daunting. Thinking about doing all these things may push you well beyond your comfort zone.

Learning to create a full-featured online course is like attending a digital content bootcamp.

The good news? After creating a full-blown online course, creating other types of digital content will seem easy. You'll have an impressive skill set that will serve you well as you create, set up, and sell other online products.

4. You'll know your topic better than ever before

Want to really master a topic? Teach it.

There's nothing like codifying your expertise and teaching it to others to cement certain concepts in your own mind.

You research information, synthesize what you've learned, and then express it in your own words. This process builds your understanding and deepens your grasp of your topic.

One word of caution: sometimes teaching a topic can lead to knowing so much about it you begin to lose touch with what beginners need to know.

This is the dreaded “curse of knowledge,” and it separates you from your newbie students. Stay in touch with your audience, understand their needs - no matter where they are in relation to your topic - and focus on how you can help them.

Doing this will help you create a better course and allow you to create better offers in the future, too.

A new (updated) course about building online courses

I'm happy to share that Teaching Sells, the course I took that set my career on a brand-new path, has evolved into something even better.

It's leaner, faster to consume, and has the most up-to-date information about what works in online education right now.

And it's taught by the originator of Teaching Sells, our CEO Brian Clark. Brian poured what was best about Teaching Sells into this new course and added a healthy dose of what he's learned since his early days in the online education market.

The course, Build Your Online Education Business the Smarter Way, will soon be available as a standalone product.

To learn more about the online education market, I urge you to sign up and attend Brian's upcoming free webinar that's happening on Wednesday, December 7, 2016 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

Click the button below for easy (and free!) registration.

Free Webinar:


How to Develop an Irresistible Online Course People Will Line Up to Buy (and Then Actually Use)

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