Online vs. Traditional Education for Digital Marketers

Posted: 05 Oct 2016 09:30 PM PDT

People often email me asking what is the best way to get certified as an online marketing professional. There are basically two options if you are looking for an education program: You can get an offline, traditional college degree or master, or you can enroll on a online program or master.

Both options can work and will give you the information and qualifications you need if you pick a decent institution. However, choosing an online program has several advantages, ranging from the cost to eligibility criteria and employement opportunities.
Here’s a comparisson:

Traditional Education
– Costs around $50,000 per year for a masters
– Unemployment rate of college graduates in 2008 was over 35%
– Require academic scores, English certifications and so on

Online Education
– There are programs available starting at $1200
– High chance of landing a job due to job-oriented training
– Only work experience is required

Apart from those factors, by choosing an online program you also have the advantage of studying from anywhere and at your own hours/pace.

At this point you might be wondering what are some good digital marketing online programs.

One that I came across recently is called Digital Marketing Specialist Masters Program, offered by the Simplinearn guys. The program is quite complete, lasting for one year and covering the following areas:

1. General Internet Marketing: Here you’ll learn the basics of websites, the Internet, marking online and so on.

2. Advanced Web Analytics: A great part of having success online comes from knowing what to measure and what to measure, cause marketing campaigns, especially online, only become profitable after some fine-tuning. That is what you’ll learn here.

3. Advanced SEO: Search Engine Optimization involves making sure that the elements on your website and outside it are in the right place so that your Google rankings will be as high as possible. This, in turn, will send more visitors to your website, which is essential to its success.

4. Advanced Pay per Click: PPC or Pay Per Click is the most popular and efficient type of advertising online, and it’s the fastest way to get people to visit your site. Knowing how to create and optimize PPC campaigns is a must for any digital marketing professional.

5. Advanced Social Media: In this section you’ll learn how to leverage social media to boost the traffic and visibility of your websites and online projects. Social networks are becoming are very important source of visitors these days, and that is why this section is quite important.

Many programs I have seen around only give you the lessons and you are on your own. On this Masters program you’ll have access to 35+ live instructure bartches, so you’ll be able to learn by watching the pros do it.

You’ll also have access to a community of digital marketers where you can ask questions and exchange advice.

Finally, if you need a certificate to show your employer you actually went through the program, they provide one upon conclusion. Here’s the official page where you can get all the details and enroll.

Original post: Online vs. Traditional Education for Digital Marketers

3 Powerful Ways to Turn Your Hit-And- Run Blog Visitors Into Lifelong Readers

Posted: 05 Oct 2016 12:05 PM PDT

Did you know that 55% of your visitors spend 15 seconds or less reading your blog?

It doesn't matter how much effort you put into creating your articles or products, most people don't care. It's a sad but harsh truth.

But you need to make your visitors stay longer on your sites if you want to increase your conversion rates and sales.

So what's the best way to transform your hit and run blog visitors into loyal readers? Here are few simple yet most effective ways to transform your one time blog visitors into lifelong readers.

Quick bonus: Do you want to get your first 1000 email subscribers in next 30 days? I've a great news for you. For a limited time, I'm offering you a free cheat sheet on how to get your first 1K email subscribers where you will discover the only 2 things you need to grow your email list. Go here and grab it now.

#1. One page, one goal

Do you know the simplest way to turn your first time website visitors into raving fans?

Turn them into email subscribers.

Building an email list is a no brainer to turn random visitors into customers. But building an email list is not enough, you need to do it strategically to get the best rewards from it.

Here's what I mean by that.

Have one goal for every page on your blog or website.

If your goal is to collect as many emails as you can from your site, use a landing page. Offer an incentive and have just one goal i.e to convince people to join your email list.

Why giving your readers only one call to action (CTA) works?

In the book The Paradox of Choice, the author Barry Schwartz says "If you give people too many options, they choose none".

With so many options to choose from, people find it very difficult to choose at all. It is especially true when it comes to online.

For the same reason, majority of the bloggers struggle to increase their sales. They always give a lot of options to their audience instead of providing fewer choices.

So next time when you're trying to boost your website conversion rates, remember that "more options lead to fewer actions and fewer options lead to more actions".

That's why having one goal a page works incredibly well.

#2. Create a "New? Start here" page

Want to welcome your first time blog visitors? There's a clever way.

Create a "New? Start Here" page and include the following things.

-Your most popular blog posts
-Your freebies (eBooks, videos or any other stuff you use for building your list)
-Your recommended products or services

Most first time visitors would love to click on the "Start here" page. The reason is most of us are curious to know what's inside the store for us when visiting a new blog or website.

Make sure to collect emails of people who click on your "start here" page so you will know that all the email signups that you get from that page are from "first time visitors of your site".

Michael Hyatt usually includes his most popular posts, products, services on his "start here" page to convert his random visitors into loyal readers. Go through one or two articles on his blog and I'm sure you'll start visiting his blog again and again. His blog is so addictive.

Action tip: Find out your most popular posts, create a "start here" page and include all your best posts, resources and free stuff to make it really useful for your first time blog visitors.

#3. Include strong call to actions

If someone uses strong call to actions like “Call Now!”, “Shop Today”, “Find Out More” etc on their sites, they are likely to get more clicks.

The reason behind it is simple. Powerful call to actions always works like a charm. But still majority of the bloggers don’t use any call to actions on their sites.

If you don’t instruct your blog audience to do something when they visit your site, how on earth would they do what you want?

Start using call to actions if you quickly want to turn your blog visitors into prospects.

That being said, here are 3 highly effective places where you can include persuading call to actions to turn your random visitors into loyal audience.

-Hellobar: I'm a great fan of Hellobar. It helps me navigate my blog visitors to anywhere I want by using a single link. It's highly effective when you use a compelling call to action.

-Blog posts: At the ending of each of your blog posts, make sure to include a call to action. Ask people to share your articles, leave comments or subscribe to your email list. If they really like your content, they will react to your CTA's positively.

-Sidebar: Use your sidebar effectively. Ask yourself "what's the #1 goal I want to achieve from my blog?" and use your sidebar to achieve that goal. You can use strong call to actions from your sidebar by using email opt-in forms, product pages or even sharing your own stories.

Bonus tip: Write magnetic headlines

If a random visitor lands on your blog for the first time, what’s the first thing he does? He skims through your headlines.

Did you know that 8 out of 10 people will read your headlines but only 2 out 10 will continue reading? Yes, that's true because we all have attention span less than a goldfish.

The only way to create curiosity among your first time blog visitors to stick to your blog is to create click-worthy headlines. The only goal of your headlines is this "to make your readers click".

Here are few proven ways to craft award winning headlines almost every single time.

Use free tools like Portent to generate hundreds of headline ideas for your blog posts. Just insert a keyword related to your blog's topic and it will give you a lot of ideas.

Brainstorm 5 to 10 headline variations for each of your article. Use the best one among them and you can use the remaining in your sub headings or while tweeting.

Analyze your competitors top performing posts. Find out which headlines worked for them. You can tweak them a little bit to create effective headlines really quickly.

Over to you

Increasing traffic is a BIG deal especially when you are running a new blog. That's why it's a smart idea to make your first time visitors stick to your blog for a long time.

Once they start finding value in your blog, they will come back again and again. That's when you can start pitching them about your products or services. Just don't focus on getting one time visitors and you will be fine.

Do you know of any other clever ways to turn one time blog visitors into long term visitors? Also make sure to grab your special free gift on getting your first 1000 subscribers from here.

Original post: 3 Powerful Ways to Turn Your Hit-And- Run Blog Visitors Into Lifelong Readers

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