Digital Marketing Guide for Authors & Online Entrepreneurs | Denise Wakeman

How to Get Better Visibility on the Web

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Want More Traffic? Here are 27 Steps to Promote Your Blog Posts [Checklist]

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Want More Traffic? Here are 27 Ways to Promote Your Blog Posts [Checklist]

Way back in the olden days of blogging, around 2004, it wasn’t very complicated. 

You wrote an article, around 500 words or so. You published the article. And, that was it.  You definitely didn’t need a checklist of 27 ways to promote your blog posts!

If you wanted people to subscribe to get automatic updates when you published new blog posts, you set up an RSS feed to email subscription with Feedburner or Feedblitz (both are still alive and well, I’m happy to say) and asked your blog readers to subscribe. That’s it. The automation was simple and worked.

If your content was great, you got hundreds or thousands of subscribers and could monetize your content with affiliate offers, ebooks, ads, teleseminars and other products and services. You could build an audience of fans and build a sustainable business.

In fact, that’s how I started my company, The Blog Squad, in 2005. There was a ton of demand to help people set up blogs and train them how to use it. I started my first business blog in 2004 and never looked back.

Things are more complex now. There are millions of blog posts written every day.  [Read more…]

Millions of blog posts are written every day. How can your blog stand out with so much competition? Implement these 27 steps to promote your blog posts. [FREE Checklist]

3 Words to Guide My Business and Actions in 2018 – Video

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3 Words to Guide My Business and Actions in 2018

January brings out the desire to reset and adjust the path we’re on. Whether it’s personal or professional, it’s a natural time to take a look at where you’ve been, where you want to go and set the intention for how you want to get there.

There are as many ways to set yourself up for success as there are coaches and mentors and experts to help you!  😀 

For years I’ve known and followed Chris Brogan. Every January since 2006 he has shared the three words he’s selected to guide his actions for the coming year (you can read about his three words for 2018 here). This process has never completely resonated with me, but when I read Chris’s recent blog post, it seemed right to stop and contemplate what my three words might be for 2018. It felt like the right time to do this exercise. [Read more…]

Here Are 7 Better Ways To Organize Your Online Connections

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Here Are 7 Better Ways To Organize Your Online Connections

I go to conferences and conventions on a semi-regular basis. Sometimes I am a speaker, sometimes an attendee. I make it a priority because it is a fantastic way to increase my networking circle while producing content and even improving my authority. Since attending events I have seen a definite upswing in my resulting profit margin and brand awareness.

Unfortunately, I am not really that good at real-life connections. I was always horrible with physical business cards, rarely remembering faces alongside the dozens of cards I was given. Once I finally began to get the hang of things, half the network I speak to has switched to purely digital connections while the other half have kept things traditional.

When I realized I was missing out on solid business opportunities, I began looking at ways to improve these connections. From there, I began to expand on that idea with my online contacts that I have made in other ways. [Read more…]

Lead Generation – 5 Easy Steps That Will Grow Your Prospect List

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Lead Generation - 5 Easy Steps That Will Grow Your Prospect List

I was taking a walk the other day, thinking about lead generation and how to express the concept and essential processes required to attract new leads for your business.

What came to mind is fishing. It’s not an original metaphor and I don’t even like fishing, but I do understand what it takes to catch a fish and it’s a pretty good way to illustrate lead generation.

When I was a kid, our family went camping a lot during the summer. Cheap vacations! And, living in California, there are lots of state and national parks that are perfect for family adventures. 

One year we camped at Mineral King in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. We were with my grandparents, aunt and uncle and cousins. I have no recollection how old I was – maybe 7 or 8, but this was the year I learned how to fish. Paw, my grandfather loved to fish.

I was not crazy about fishing. And, when I caught a fish, I immediately threw it back in the water much to the dismay of my parents who were anticipating a fish dinner. I digress. [Read more…]

Why You Are Afraid to Sell on the Phone – A Fairy Tale

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Why You Are Afraid to Sell on the Phone - A Fairy Tale - Guest post by Ellen Britt

If you had told me a few years ago that I would be advising you to learn how to sell your high-end products and services over the phone, much less that I would be ultra-comfortable doing phone selling myself…well, the truth is, I would have thought you were as mad as the March Hare! And maybe even madder!

Even though I had been in the marketing world for a long time, I never considered doing any phone selling, because for one thing, I’m fairly introverted and I just thought to be a successful phone salesperson, you had to be, well…slick or fast-talking or something. And that, I was definitely not!

I also associated phone sales with sleazy high-pressure tactics or having to read a sales script non-stop as soon as some unsuspecting prospect answered the phone and a myriad of other unsavory things. All of which turned out to be fairy tales by the way!! [Read more…]

How to Get Your Business Seen with Online Content

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BE SEEN WITH ONLINE CONTENT

In a recent interview on the Thriving Launch podcast, I addressed themes that will be familiar to you if you’re a regular reader of this blog…how to get seen with your online content.

I talked about how to grow your following through adding value to your content and how having value and being clear on your message helps leverage your online presence. [Read more…]

How to Win More Attention with this Awesome Video Checklist

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How to Win More Attention with this Awesome Live Video Checklist

In The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande asserts that the simple checklist is the key to taming a high-tech economy. Malcolm Gladwell in his review of the manifesto says,  

“…he [Gwande] is really interested in a problem that afflicts virtually every aspect of the modern world–and that is how professionals deal with the increasing complexity of their responsibilities.” 

If you haven’t read The Checklist Manifesto, I highly recommend it. A checklist is not a to-do list, but a written guide that takes you through the key steps to get something done… correctly, without missing important steps that contribute to the success of the whole.

In the realm of digital marketing, from creating your marketing assets to promoting your program, product, book, service, etc., there are myriad steps big and small and missing any can impact the success and outcome of what you want to accomplish.  [Read more…]

How to Promote Your Blog Post with a Simple Video Trailer

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How to Promote Your Blog Post with a Simple Video Trailer with Lumen5

You just can’t argue with the statistics. We are firmly entrenched in the age of video marketing and you ignore it at your peril. 

Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined. (Wordstream)

If you want more eyeballs on your content a.k.a your business, then you need to promote your blog posts with video. There are a couple of ways you can do this: talking head style announcing your new blog post or a simple video trailer featuring images and quotes from your article. Both are relatively simple to create.

FYI… this is yet another way to repurpose your blog content.

[Read more…]

How To Repurpose Your Content Without Running into Duplicate Content Issues

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Want To Repurpose Your Content? Here’s How To Do It Without Running into Duplicate Content Issues

Let’s get one thing straight: There’s no such a thing as a duplicate content penalty which existence would confirm any Google representative. There are two possible issues associated with non-original content:

  • The removal of a search result based on a DMCA notice. Google is said to be receiving around 75 million DMCA-related takedown requests, so this issue is bigger than you may think. The good thing is that this option of filing a DMCA notice with Google is a way to fight content scrapers who steal your content, so it’s a useful option to have.
  • The loss of rankings due to the fact that there is a web page that has the same (or almost the same) content as yours, so Google decided to rank that page for the sake of variety. For the obvious reasons, Google wants to show people varied search results, so they have to choose one result out of many copies. It’s hardly a penalty, but it’s not a pleasant thing to deal with: Having to compete in search with yourself.

When you want to syndicate your content on a popular blog for the sake of authority building and referral traffic, that is the risk you are running into: You may one day find that syndicated content over ranks yours. [Read more…]

Showing Up, Modeling, and Taking a Leap of Faith

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Life doesn’t always go as planned or expected. I’ve been running (actually “wogging”) since 2007. I’ve had my share of trips and aches and sprains, but never any serious injuries. The worst physical injury I’ve ever experienced was a torn ACL in my right knee in 2013 that happened as I was attempting to get out of a boat on Lago de Sandoval in the Peruvian Amazon. That was excruciating and set me back for months.

Two weeks ago I was near Bass Lake, just south of Yosemite National Park, three miles into a half marathon when I tripped and fell flat on my face. I knew I was going down and was cursing all the way. Thankfully several runners stopped, helped me, and called the sweeper truck to come get me.  [Read more…]