Being a content marketer requires research, planning and the tools to help you execute your ideas.
In this post, I’m going to reflect ,and riff a bit, on what I’ve failed at and what I succeeded at. I’m also going to go over the tools and resources that I use on a regular basis to help me achieve my goals.
Internet Marketing tools I use on the daily..
Besides using WordPress for my sites, aweber for my autoresponder and Google Analytics for my tracking. I use many other apps and products:
1. Open Office: I use it write out my lead magnets and convert them to PDFs.
2. AVS video editor: I use it to edit and screen capture video for my YouTube channels.
3. GIMP: I use it to edit images for squeeze pages and site banners.
4. NVU: I use it to create stand alone landing pages and squeeze pages.
5. Thrive Leads: I use to create ‘smart’ squeeze pages and for A/B split testing.
Here are my 3 marketing strengths
#1 Strength: I’m good at providing solutions people want via my videos, my posts and my printable downloads. This also means adhering to a tight schedule and a time frame.
#2 Strength: I’m consistent in all my marketing efforts (onpage/offpage SEO, giveaways, squeeze page variations). This also includes reaching out to others in my niches (requesting shares from sites I linked to and getting interviews for my site).
#3 Strength: I’m good at keeping it simple. Identifying the traffic source and testing ways to capture leads from that source.
And 3 of my biggest marketing weaknesses
#1 Weakness: So far, I’ve been unable to effectively transition my baby shower subscribers to other offers once my baby shower email series runs out. I’ve tried many types of related offers and services but they don’t seem to convert very well.
#2 Weakness:I’m also having trouble getting the same amount of traffic for this site that I’m getting for my baby shower site. That being said, the IM niche is way more competitive.
#3 Weakness: Besides those issues, I’m also having trouble utilizing the segmenting feature on my aweber account. I believe once mastered, you can communicate your offers more effectively to certain segments of your audience.
Here are the three content marketing sites I visit everyday.
Smartpassiveincome.com – Pat Flynn’s podcast is excellent and a great resource. The dude brings on new guests every week and they all have something in common. They’re all successful internet marketers.
Quicksprout.com – Neil’s case studies are very insightful and have helped me a lot with online marketing. I know three tips I got from Neil that have directly lead to more traffic and profit. The dude is amazing!
Warriorforum.com – I comment at least 7 to 10 tens everyday. I learn a lot and give a lot in return. Yes, some people are snappy but you also have people there that truly help! They make the warrior forum such an exciting site to be on.
5 Important Internet Marketing Things You Need
I rated the most important aspects of digital marketing from 1 to 10 for your convenience. 1 being not at all important and 10 being extremely important.
1. Onpage SEO: the search bots crawl your keyword optimized content to match it with the user’s keyword query. This is important, I give this an 8.
2. Google Keyword Planner: recently Google changed GWP to give ranges instead of approximate monthly search volume. However, GWP is still very important so I give it a 9.
I need Google keyword planner to find out how my target audience searches online.
3. Google Analytics: allows me to see my daily traffic, bounce rate, site flow, my demographic and it allows me to create ‘events’.
I give it a 10, I need this information to optimize conversions and future designs.
4. Link building: getting authority sites to link back to you is important. That being said, dofollow links are extremely hard to come by.
I focus on social media shares across many platforms. I use the social tribe Viralcontentbuzz.com for that. I also blog and forum comment a lot but that’s more for immediate traffic.
However, the most powerful back linking method in my opinion comes from content hungry reporters and niche bloggers.
If you get quoted, you get a back link. It’s that easy. I’ve been quoted and linked on:
- hostgator
- huffington post
- everydaypowerblog
- seochat
- etc..
I find these content hungry reporters and bloggers on these sites:
- sourcebottle.com
- helpareporterout.com
- myblogu.com
I’d give backlinking a solid 8 in importance. All that being said, you should focus on great content. That’s the new SEO and that’s how you’re going to get people to link to your site.
5. Content Creation: it’s who you are, it’s your voice and it’s the way you impact people online. I give it a 10.
Important Notice: Learn to profit daily online creating and selling PDFs from your site –
That being said, if I’m not posting then I’m promoting. It’s important to actively promote your content. I like to say “content is an old king and he needs your help to get around”.
What are your internet marketing strengths and weaknesses? Share them in the comments section below.