In our technological era, commerce has undergone some tremendous changes. Mass production has enabled product deliveries to take place even within 48 or fewer hours irrespective of where you are. The flip side of this is the sea of sameness that can be experienced globally. People worldwide are buying the same mass-produced products, from similar outfits to tech stuff such as smartphones and even interior décor items. But where is the uniqueness? Etsy strives to bring a unique alternative since its inception. Thus, to answer anyone’s first question; “Is Etsy worth it?” You already have your answer. Plus, how to start an Etsy shop in 2023?
This beckoning need for more personalized items that carry a unique story behind them is what makes Etsy a unique marketplace. It’s a platform where people from anywhere in the world can connect to buy or sell creative unique handmade products.
Etsy sellers are a combination of professional merchants and hobbyists that sell either for professional or personal goals; it, therefore, supports a large group of designers, artists, and other similar creatives globally. It’s little wonder that Amazon launched “Amazon Handmade” to compete in this unique market.
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With over 35 million active buyers and still counting, Etsy continues to create a big name for itself especially since it’s serving a very particular audience. Any buyer looking for anything that is handcrafted knows that Etsy is the place to go. As an Etsy shop owner, this means that you have a great potential of getting sales purely from organic search traffic directly from the Etsy homepage, on top of any other leads you may have attracted via other marketing efforts.
ii. Access to Built-in Analytics
Etsy tracks all your metrics for you, based on your data. The metrics you’re able to see include traffic on your page, orders, the number of shop visits, the number of favorites, revenue earned by each item on your shop, etc.
Besides these, you get to see the main drivers of your overall sales. They truly want your shop to thrive.
iii. It’s Pretty Easy to Setup and Maintain an Etsy Shop
Starting an Etsy shop takes a really short time and opening a basic shop is actually free. You also have an option of getting premium features which may not really be necessary as you begin. As you’ll see below, they have listed down everything that you need to know regarding shipping, legal taxes in order for you to start on the right foot.
As you grow, Etsy keeps sending you tips and strategies on how to get better. For instance, they automatically renew your listing after you sell an item, so you don’t have to do it all over again if you have more inventory.
iv. Engage Customers
On Etsy, you have the flexibility to engage your visitors. Etsy allows other sellers (3rd parties) to leave their social media handles or coupons and enables you to get their emails so you can follow up personally.
v. Your Own Shipping Policies
As an Etsy shop owner, you’re in charge of your listings, so this allows you to come up with your own shipping, return or exchange policies. This is mainly because a good number of sellers on Etsy do it as a part-time business, so it may not be fair to impose policies on their behalf.
vi. You Can Sell on Etsy App
Etsy has a mobile app that also extends to 3rd party sellers. This offers you an extended presence.
While you’re learning how to start an Etsy shop, here are a few things you will need to be aware of:
How to Start an Etsy Shop? Challenges While Selling on Etsy
i. You Can Only Sell Handmade Items
To be able to sell on Etsy, you must fit into handmade items, crafting supplies, and vintage goods. On top of these, you’re only allowed to resell items in vintage categories or crafting supplies. What this means is that you’re restricted from selling repackaged commercial goods or crafts you didn’t design. If, for example, you want to sell shoes on Etsy, you either need to have designed these yourself or they have to be at least 20 years old.
Just 2 categories may be too limiting to some people.
ii. Listing and Transaction Fees
To list your items, you’re charged $0.20, then five percent of each sale as transaction fees for your shipping and gift-wrapping. In addition to these, you’re subjected to a fee of 0.25 in the event that you’ll choose Etsy payment which allows your buyers to pay via credit card or PayPal. (See below to understand this better)
iii. It’s a Saturated Market
Unless you’re truly unique with your merchandise, you’ll be competing with millions of others selling similar stuff. The most popular categories include jewelry, toys, home décor, clothing, and games. This means you have to bring in your own flair.
Despite the above few cons, you can still learn how to sell on Etsy successfully especially if you have the right products that are unique, and you couple this with an effective marketing strategy. Here is a complete guide on how to build a successful Etsy shop:
How to Start an Etsy Shop 2023
Even though it’s been said before that Etsy has made it really easy to set up a shop, you ought to remember that it’s still a business and it’s going to take some extra work on your side to showcase and sell successfully the beautiful crafts you’ve created with your own hands.
With that said, here is what to do before opening an Etsy shop:
1. Research
Just like any other business venture, it’s always recommended to start by researching what is happening in the niche market that you want to venture into. On Etsy, you may need to search around for the types of merchandise that you’re looking to sell. Dig deeper into the listings that pique your interest and look at their sidebar to see the number of sales they’ve made so far.
Notice the keywords they have used to describe their items as well as the number of items listed. Remember the purpose of this search is not to be a copycat, rather it’s meant to reveal to you the elements that are helping them thrive! In the end, when you set up your own shop, your success is going to be purely based on your product. Complemented by these findings, your unique packaging (branding) and that unique personal touch will make you stand out.
2. What Are the Rules?
Taking into consideration that as an Etsy shop owner you’re hosted by Etsy, then it’s inevitable that they impose some limits. For this reason, they have put down what they call house rules to steer you in the safe direction to avoid lawsuits or even shop closures. For instance, they prohibit selling alcohol, tobacco, or drugs, they also prohibit selling items that promote or glorify hatred, or generally hazardous goods such as weapons.
To be on the safe side, it’s important that you familiarize yourself with all these guidelines here before starting your Etsy shop.
3. Identify Your Niche
When starting an Etsy shop checklist, this is the 3rd most important step that is usually forgotten by many people. But to sell successfully on Etsy, you should narrow down your area of interest and pick what will make you truly stand out.
While this process may not be easy, when done strategically it’s the one thing that will help your items sell with ease. To help you cultivate a unique approach for your products, here are some questions to ask yourself:
a. What makes your product unique in comparison with the ones you saw in your research above?
b. What is a special/different element you can offer that others can’t?
The main goal of these questions is to help you put together all your creative ideas and plans into one cohesive and focused business concept. It’s also going to help you identify the ideal customers that are likely to be interested in your crafts. In simple terms, a well-defined niche will serve a specific need of a specified group of people.
For Etsy sellers, it may be easy to assume that everyone is your potential customer and therefore you don’t require limiting yourself to a niche, but the truth is no retailer can sell everything to everyone.
The uniqueness and that fresh approach brought out by indie designers offer different solutions for different people. So, offer a solution to people that need your stuff, and they will tell others about you. When you’ll have to market your products, you’ll realize why this is a great advantage.
Other benefits of identifying your niche early enough include:
· It will guide you as you start building your brand; it will provide a clear direction.
· You’ll spend wisely your marketing and advertising budget because you’ll already know where to focus
· Your shop will do a better job of attracting relevant, loyal, and dedicated buyers.
It can be exciting to come up with clever names for your crafts, but if they can’t be identified in your buyers’ search list then they won’t be of any benefit to you. Keyword research is typically the research you do to establish what buyers are searching for on Etsy to find items like yours.
It’s of paramount importance to know the phrases that buyers are using to find the products that they want within your niche. When properly incorporated in your product description and listings, then you’re on your way to making sales.
There are several Etsy keyword search tools on the internet both free and paid, but you can avoid this third-party software by using simple SEO strategies. One such strategy is to think like a buyer. Think of how you’d search for your product if you were the buyer. Where would your focus be? Is it on the design? material? or color or the occasion the product has been crafted for? How would you phrase it?
When using keywords, don’t be too broad. Be a little specific. For example, you could be selling a wall hanging, so “wall-hanging” could be your keyword, however, if you add “oil paint canvas wall hanging” you’re likely to get a buyer specifically looking for oil-based canvas wall hanging.
After all, isn’t it better to be found by 10 buyers who are sure of what they want and are likely to buy, than be seen by a million who are not looking for what you’re selling? Don’t get us wrong, this is not to say that being seen by a million is bad, rather, it’s better to be found by your target customers.
5. Brand Yourself
In case you didn’t know, on Etsy, your products are displayed right next to your competitors. So, the very first hook that draws your buyers to your product is the visuals.
This is what gives your shop the very first impression, so you really have to ace this one. Invest time in each and every image you want to use. The quality and standards must be impeccable.
Daylight – always consider utilizing daylight, not direct sunlight though, and use basic white poster board to act as your backdrop. Test different angles to ensure there’s no glare.
Background – consider this seriously (surely no one wants to see your unmade bed). Ensure the background color compliments your general branding theme color.
Steady shots – when taking close-ups, it may be difficult to get a steady shot, you can use a tripod or place your camera on a flat surface.
Now that you’ve got the picture aspect covered, and you’ve got clicks on it, what happens next? You have to give your Etsy shop a real store feeling, give it an identity, that unique flavor that we mentioned earlier. Create a logo that reinforces this “je ne sais quoi” to your buyers. This remains etched in your customers’ minds even after they leave.
Basically, this logo is the first symbolic bit of your artwork that represents your shop, it therefore must:
· Be recognizable
· Embody your brand
· Be timeless
· Be versatile
After putting your branding in place, think about your unique selling point (USP) that makes you stand out. For instance, are your handcrafted items driven toward charity? Or, are they sourced from the highest quality material? What exclusivity are your products offering?
Whatever your USP is, find a way to incorporate it into your Etsy store to give it a concrete identity.
Beyond your online store, spread your brand name everywhere you can. In your packaging, for instance, incorporate your unique brand through logos on the product packaging. Share it on your social media platforms as well as your business cards and other marketing materials.
Your product description is likely the last thing your customer is going to look at before they decide to buy or not. The pictures have translated into a click and now they want to see how well your item is going to fit into their lives.
If you do this right, even your price won’t stop them from buying. A great description answers the following questions:
· What solution are you offering the buyer? Accurately describe your product paying attention to everything it includes and specifying what it can’t do. (Honesty)
· What benefits does your product offer? Briefly explain what’s in it for them, e.g. Cashmere scarf, warm but light, etc.
· Care instructions to make the item effective and last longer
· Shipping information
· Dimensions of your item, give the exact measurements
· Your unique selling point
· A brief story behind the item that would encourage a purchase
· Warranty information gives the buyers confidence in purchasing the item
· Anything else that could be important to the buyer such as allergies etc.
As said, a great product description will dispel any objections that the buyer could have and lead to a purchase. It will also reduce the number of returns since you were clear with the product from the onset.
7. Price Your Products
Pricing is a tricky but vital concept that requires a lot of research especially now as you prepare on how to start an Etsy shop. It’s a situation that’s handled differently by every Etsy seller as there’s no one-fits-all approach for this. Here is a general formula to give you an idea:
Materials + Business Expenses + Labor Time + Profit = Wholesale Price
This formula, however, may lead to a higher price for your products, you would be better off coming up with your own formula that will work for you.
In this regard, you must take into consideration who your target audience is, the nature of your product e.g. uses or design, and for how much your competitors are selling it. In addition to these, if your material is rare and of high quality, then your price tag should reflect that.
When it comes to pricing, you should test various prices initially to see how they do, as long as you don’t sell at loss. The bottom line is that the price should pay for your creativity and time, and be appealing enough to your buyers.
So, starting an Etsy shop checklist is about to get a little easier. With all the above hard work successfully accomplished, you’re now about to do the more fun stuff. Let’s go!
How to Set Up Your Etsy Shop
Step 1. Create an Etsy Seller Account
On the Etsy homepage, scroll down to the bottom then click the “Sell on Etsy” button. This will take you to a new landing page. While on that page, click on “Open your Etsy shop”. It will ask you to enter your email address, then click on “Continue”; alternatively, you can just sign up with your Facebook or Google account. From there you’ll be prompted to enter your first name then password and then click Register.
You will be taken to another Etsy seller landing page from where you’ll click “Open your Etsy Shop” to get to “Shop Manager”.
Step 2 – Set Shop Preferences
In this second step, you’ll pick the default language that you’ll generally use to describe your items. You’ll also select your country as well as your currency. Then you can choose the type of selling you want to do on Etsy, you’ll pick between full-time or part-time. You’ll also be required to enter your goals. Then click “Save” and continue on your right at the bottom.
Step 3 – Enter Your Unique Etsy Shop Name
Here as the name suggests, you’ll be required to enter one of those unique Etsy shop names that you came up with, and then check on its availability. You’re allotted 20 characters for your shop name; these include spaces, accented letters, and numbers. In case your exact name is already taken, you’ll be given a number of variations that you can choose from. Alternatively, you can pick an entirely new name that’s available.
As said earlier, uniqueness will be beneficial to you, choosing an entirely new, unique, and easy-to-remember shop name is better than going with variations.
Step 4 – Stock up Your Etsy Shop
You now have a store that even has a name. This next step is about adding items and Etsy recommends entering a minimum of 10 items to start off. So, when you click on “Add a listing”, you navigate to another page where you should enter the details of your product. This is where the photos you took are posted and Etsy recommends using a minimum of 5 photos per item to allow the buyer to view it from different angles.
Next, you need to insert your product name, its category, available quantity, color and size variations, your eye-catching description, price, and shipping costs. In this section you can also list digital items, you can learn more here.
It’s important to note that you have to insert 13 “tags” for each item. Leverage this by using the keywords discussed above and remember this is how your buyers will find you, so use these keywords as your tags.
When you’re done, click on the preview to see whether you missed out on anything and also simply see how it looks. Then click on Save and proceed.
Step 5 – Pick Your Payment Preferences
After adding your items, you are now required to set up your preferred payment method. The options here include Check, PayPal or “Other” or “Etsy Payments” which is the popular avenue for most Etsy sellers. If you pick this option, then you’ll still decide whether to accept debit cards, credit cards, Etsy gift cards, and so on, there are a number of options that are all up to you.
Finally, you’ll give your bank account (or business bank account) as well as your residential address in order for you to receive your hard-earned cash.
Step 6 – Set up Billing
Your shop is almost complete. This step depends entirely on your location. In some countries, Etsy requires you to provide a credit card for purposes of identity authorization. Besides this, you’re required to have a card on file for your selling fees charges (read below).
If based in the U.S., you can enroll for auto-billing which basically means that Etsy will charge your credit card on file automatically for any selling fees that you’ll incur; this saves you the trouble of paying the monthly statement.
Step 7 – Congratulations! Voila! You Have a Shop!
You’re officially open for business. But, there is a little more you need to do to be able to compete in this crowded world. It’s your next and final step.
Step 8 – Customize Your Etsy Shop Further
Spruce up your Etsy shop by going deeper into the details. The branding discussed earlier is brought to work at this stage. Your color theme and design you pick will contribute largely to the impression you’ll create on your customers.
Here are some key areas:
a. The Shop Profile Picture
Here you can use the unique logo that you created or a stunning picture of one of your products. Just remember that this is the face of your business, your very first impression. Give it your very best.
b. Your Shop Title
This will be your tagline, describe your business in a sentence, and remember to incorporate at least one keyword because this is what comes up in Google search results.
c. Shop Owner Picture and About
Don’t consider selfies here. This is a business and you need to show a professional image. With that said, you don’t need to look too serious, get a professionally taken picture where the light flatters your face and you can complete the look with a mild smile.
Under About, you can write about yourself talking about who are, where you’re from, your hobbies and interests, and why you’re creating the beautiful stuff you’re selling.
d. Your Shop Policies
Having your own policies increases buyers’ confidence and trust. Thus, here you should be specific about your crafting, your shipping time (so your customers can estimate the delivery time), and your return and exchange policy.
e. Include Sections
Give your buyers ample time while going through your shop by grouping your merchandise into categories. These are sections that appear on the left of your shop’s homepage, where you can indicate the number of items in each category.
f. Add an “About” Section
Did you know that your shop needs an About page just like you do? And why not? It’s a business. You have up to 5000 characters for your business story, what inspired its inception? What’s your USP? Do you craft it all by yourself?
At this step, you can include a few great pictures of you at work in your studio or include videos as well. The important thing that offers crafts on Etsy an advantage is the genuine, transparent, and original nature of the stories behind them.
Etsy Fees
Before finishing off with the best marketing tips for your Etsy shop, and as earlier indicated, here is a detailed explanation of Etsy fees.
There is something called Etsy seller fees, so what is it?
As with most eCommerce platforms, Etsy charges their shop owners fees related to listing and selling their ware, in other words, you’ll pay them for doing business on their platform. If you select the Etsy Payment method, these charges are automatically deducted from your sales amount. If at the end of the month, you’ve not settled this money, a bill will be sent to you.
If you’re based within the U.S., Etsy automatically charges this on the credit card you have on file. But, if you’re based in another country that can’t use Etsy Payments, then you’ll be required to plan for a monthly bill payment for these charges.
There are 3 main types of fees:
i. Seller fees
ii. Listing fees
iii. Payment processing fees
Etsy Listing Fees
These are fees Etsy charges you to list your goods on your shop. Each listing costs you $0.20; this money is added to your payment account each time an item is listed. This fee is irrespective of whether this product sells or not. Each listing expires after 4 months at which point you can choose to renew it at an additional fee of $0.20. These are billed in US dollars, if you’re not in the U.S. then you can convert it based on your exchange rate.
Etsy Transaction Fees
When your listed items are sold, Etsy will charge you a transaction fee which will be 5% of the whole product cost. This includes shipping and wrapping. Again, the exchange rate applies for persons outside the U.S. at which Etsy charges another 2.5% for this.
Etsy Payment Processing Fees
If you opted for your payments to go through Etsy Payments, you’ll be charged a processing fee for each transaction after an item is sold. This amount varies based on your bank account location. For U.S. merchants, Etsy charges 3% of the unit cost plus $0.25. If your country charges VAT, this too will be deducted by Etsy.
Other Etsy Seller Fees
These are other charges that you may incur besides the above main ones. For instance, if you buy your shipping labels through Etsy, you’ll incur additional charges depending on your location. Another category of charges that may incur is if you sell your merchandise from your Etsy shop in person without syncing from your Etsy shop inventory, you’ll be charged a $0.20 Square manual fee per transaction plus another processing fee from Square.
And finally, if you opt to use the add-on services provided by Etsy, there will be other charges associated with that, e.g. if you run ad campaigns you’ll need to have a daily budget where you’ll be charged per click.
How to Market Your Etsy Shop
Now that you’re an Etsy shop owner and you’ve grasped all the nitty gritty of their charges, the next thing is to get the word out there and get it started on the right foot.
Here are a few effective strategies you can employ:
These are low-cost yet effective marketing tools you can take advantage of. When used right they can grow your customer base, boost brand awareness, and get your Etsy shop new buyers. Depending on what your merchandise is, these social media platforms work differently for different people. One thing that can help you decide on the platform to use is your target audience.
Here is a brief guide to help you pick a platform as well as a possible campaign that can work for your shop.
Facebook – This works best if you’ll use video content for your marketing, it’s also a great platform for sharing pictures and product listings. Here you’ll be able to connect and engage your customers. But avoid Facebook if your target audience is younger and includes teens.
Instagram – This is your ideal platform because it relies heavily on visuals. You can attract new buyers and reach younger generations if that’s who your target audience is. You can leverage IG stories to show how you hand-make your goods. This builds a human connection with them.
Pinterest– Another social venue emphasizing visuals. You can use it to promote yourself through inspirational boards, trending crafts, and simple DIYs.
However, if you are new to social media, it’s ok to just pick a single platform that you feel will resonate best with your target buyers. But, if you’re savvy, you can maximize your skills on each platform ensuring that what you post resonates with that audience.
2. Etsy’s SEO
As said earlier, in order for you to be found by potential buyers you have to optimize for Etsy search. This optimization is a little different from the regular Google SEO, and for further details, you need to go through the Seller’s Handbook to take maximum profit on the features.
3. Allying with Fellow Shop Owners
Etsy offers a service called Etsy Teams that help sellers connect in order to help each other grow. You can collaborate with merchants that sell products that are complimentary to yours; you can then launch a marketing campaign where you can offer kits of these combined items at a subsidized price. This will open you to a whole new audience of potential buyers.
The above easy and complete guide on how to start an Etsy shop for dummies outlines all that you’ll need to know in order to successfully sell on Etsy. With a ready market for unique hand-crafted items, all you need to do is a little research and have all the tools necessary before opening an Etsy shop and the steps are quick and easy. But promotion is the mother of commerce, so continuously promoting your Etsy shop will bring success.
For online businesses and finally for all businesses, generating continuous targeted traffic to their sites is a major preoccupation. Questions like: how to increase blog website traffic for free, how to increase blog traffic fast, and how to increase traffic to your site are most common among bloggers, solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, and established businesses.
Each and everyone needs traffic. Period!
Increasing traffic for our sites or blogs ranks among the first priorities and traffic is never enough.
There is a plethora of tactics, strategies, and tricks to increase your blog’s traffic, you just have to start with the ones that are the most appropriate for your business and then expand on other modalities. Practically is not possible to implement all these tactics simultaneously from start, but one at a time, and soon you will start to see results. For sure!
Increasing traffic involves lots of testing because there is no one-fits-all method. Some strategies will have great results and some very little impact. Pick and invest just in what offers you the best results on your invested resources.
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Just keep in mind that you need diversified traffic sources. If for example, Facebook or Google change their algorithms, you don’t want to be deadly hit because you rely heavily on one source of traffic. Always have a backup solution.
To give you a hand, I gathered below some of the most important tactics that you can use to increase your traffic. I split them into two categories:
· Core Ways to Increase Website Traffic
· Supplementary Ways to Improve Your Website Traffic
And also, a comprehensive checklist to help you keep track of your endeavors.
Before digging into the specific traffic increase strategies, pay attention to some basic considerations:
· Clearly establish your business SMART objectives. Before generating traffic, you have to decide what you offer to your potential clients, what can they expect from your business, and why should they use your services/products.
· Define your audience. It’s easier to attract a targeted audience if you know who exactly she is. For instance, you may target real estate property investors in a certain area or young mothers looking to live a healthy frugal life.
· Choose a voice for your site or blog. Your authenticity will be expressed by the voice of your blog, maybe a professional one, a conversational-friendly one, or maybe a funny one. Your writing style, the colors of your brand, and your graphics are all contributing to your blog’s personality.
· Your content needs to be helpful and solve a problem, be useful. Each of us reads just the content that he is interested in, either to find out some information, either to get a solution or to learn something. “What’s in it for me” is what the reader is looking for, each and every time.
How to Increase Website Traffic – Core Ways
Create Great Content
The overused dictum “content is king” is really true, as content is the basis for everything marketing related. If you don’t have content that your audience wants to consume, you generate traffic for nothing. So, give Caesar what is Caesar’s: create high quality content, that is helpful and valuable for your readers.
Be authentic and provide personal experiences, and insights that might help others. Create comprehensive guides, tutorials, best practices lists, how-to posts, and reviews to help your readers achieve their goals and entice them to return to your blog.
Format your content for easy readability and avoid populating your posts with too many ads or pop-ups that make reading a struggle.
The aesthetics of your site is quite important when attracting visitors, so choose fonts that are easy to read, and a color scheme that is pleasant for the eye. Don’t forget to make your site mobile responsive as more and more users are using mobiles to consume content.
How to Increase Website Traffic? Publish Consistently
Publishing quality content regularly is an important trigger and fundamental pillar for traffic increase. Google loves new content; your audience will have a variety of topics to choose from and you will increase your chances of ranking in search results.
If you have content you have material to promote. So, publish consistently. Now there is a large debate on how often you need to publish content. It’s better to have a longer more comprehensive piece of content once or twice a week than publish every day 500 words blogs.
Be sure to privilege quality and not quantity.
Spread the Word Via Social Media Platforms
Social Media is nowadays a huge source of free traffic with its numerous variations. And one of the best places to find your audience is where she hangs out. Choose among the social media networks where your audience is most present. And concentrate your efforts on one-two channel at a time to see relevant results, not on multiple.
Join Pinterest
Many bloggers claim Pinterest is by far their major source of free traffic (I am on my way to confirming this theory 😉) and a true gold mine. Pinterest is a search engine, a visually focused one indeed, but one of the most powerful. You just might have a huge surprise!
Pinterest allows you to get in front of thousands or hundreds of thousands of persons in principle without paying. But to be more effective you have to use scheduling tools like Tailwind, so finally, this is not exactly free.
The key to Pinterest’s success is pins design, you have to find the successful formula that works for you in terms of graphic design.
How to Increase Website Traffic? Join Facebook and Facebook Groups
Facebook doesn’t need any presentations anymore. These days if you are not on Facebook you do not exist. Consequently, it is compulsory to have a Facebook page for your business, where you can post your content, share content that inspires you, share and host online events, offer freebies, and not ultimately network. Social networks are meant for socializing.
Establishing relationships with other businesses or influencers in your niche will help you spread the word about your business, expand your audience and increase traffic, increase brand awareness, and ultimately grow sales.
Tip: Consider joining Facebook groups active in your niche.
Despite being supportive and offering opportunities to connect with like-minded people, Facebook groups most often have daily threads that allow you to promote your blog.
Tip: You also may consider creating your own Facebook group, as another way to help skyrocket your traffic.
Join LinkedIn
LinkedIn is another source of traffic particularly for B2B businesses, for bloggers blogging about personal finance, marketing, designers, SEO experts, etc. Be sure to optimize your profile for your target keywords so that your profile pops up in relevant searches. LinkedIn is a professional network and having a strong profile there tells your potential readers and clients about your business and strengthens credibility.
Tip: Join LinkedIn groups that relate to your niche.
Join Twitter
Even if many are rather skeptical that Twitter can be a reliable source of traffic, it’s still a good option. Twitter has a great blogging community after all. And hashtags are still a reliable way to get discovered and provide traffic. Embedded tweets are an interesting manner to share your content and format your post by breaking long paragraphs.
You have the opportunity to approach the “Twitter retweet” accounts that will help retweet your blog posts. Hashtags like: #BloggersTribe #FemaleBloggerRetweet could help expand your reach.
How to Increase Website Traffic? Join Instagram
Particularly helpful for visually appealing businesses, in industries like beauty, traveling, fashion, cooking, design, etc. Instagram can make a difference. But not necessarily, business accounts like Foundr have found huge success on Instagram. Make detailed research and see if Instagram may be a good option for your business and if your audience uses Instagram.
Anyway, using Instagram means great visuals that catch the eye of the Instagrammer. Don’t forget to insert the link to your site in your profile, as the most obvious way to access traffic from Instagram. Use tools like Instagram stories to enhance your reach.
Tip. If you are in doubt about which of these social media platforms to use, check the influencers and experts in your niche and see where they concentrate their efforts on social media.
Socialize and Network
Networking for business is an old practice. Now, we are fortunate enough to have tools that facilitate greatly this type of activity. Do yourself a favor and interact with other relevant bloggers in your niche. Follow the ones you like or your mentors, comment on their posts, share their content, and get involved in discussions. In some cases, you will see the favor returned.
Be nice and helpful as this is another way of attracting leads and customers. And it’s a sure way to gain authority in your niche and be trusted by others. You can also promote your content this way but do it just when it is relevant in context.
Most probably one of the best sources of returning traffic and the major asset of your business that’s your own property. The money is in the list correspond to the truth for most business. Your email list will generate most part of your sales.
Offer multiple valuable opt-ins to increase your mailing list faster. Communicate regularly with your mailing list and provide valuable content to help you create a connection with your readers and deliver them helpful stuff. Engage with the subscribers of your list, answer their questions and concerns, and encourage them to contact you.
To properly manage your list, you will need an email service provider that fits your goals. My choice for this stage of my blog is Mailerlite. Their service is free till you reach 1000 subscribers and is easy to handle, their design is nice. ConvertKit is also a very reliable option.
Opt-in sample to build an email list
Guest Posting
Like it or not, this is still one of the most reliable methods to get backlinks and traffic. With guest posts, you will get in front of new audiences, get referral traffic, and gain authority and credibility if you post on high-authority sites. And also, will support your site with backlinks for SEO purposes.
Guest posting should be a long-term game for you and it’s better to start it as soon as possible.
To find guest posting opportunities just ask Google. Search with “write for us”/ “guest posts” + your niche.
Here is the result of guest posting research on marketing topics.
How to Increase Website Traffic? Optimize Your Site for Search Engines
SEO is a long-run game, a marathon not a sprint. It takes time, so don’t expect results overnight. Make all the necessary efforts to optimize your blog and your posts for search engines, to help you rank as high as possible in SERPs. The higher the position the larger amount of traffic you gain for your site.
SEO will supply your blog with free traffic in the long term, so you should start focusing on SEO from day one. There are many tools to help you with search engine optimization like Yoast plug-in for WordPress, Google Keywords Planner, SemRush, Buzzsumo, KeyWordFinder, etc.
It’s an incontestable fact that the headline and the keywords have a heavy impact on driving organic traffic. You can test your headline with a tool like the Headline Analyzer of CoSchedule.
Supplementary Ways to Improve Your Website’s Traffic
Create Promotional Videos
People in general connect quicker to a face that represents a business and establish faster a relationship. Consider creating promotional videos, as they will increase your credibility.
Now, video is on the verge of a great expansion and is one very effective way to attract free traffic, as is considered more engaging. Video statistics indicate that 93% of businesses use video content for their online marketing and sustain that their main focus will be video this year.
Ensure That Subscribing to Your List Is Super Easy
In our speed century if the visitor doesn’t find instantly what is looking for, clicks back and he is gone. So, subscribing should be a breeze with just a minimalist form and nothing more. Remember that your subscribers are responsible for your returning traffic and form the gross of your customers. Make their life easier!
Share Your Story
Connect easier with your readers and blog visitors by telling them your story, why are you doing what you are doing and how did you arrive here. Share with them your success and also your mistakes. Why are you a trustworthy person? What’s your authority to teach them or to help them?
Insert Sharing Buttons
More shares translate into more traffic – the more the better. Hence, make it as easy as possible for your readers to share your content and help them promote your business. Add sharing buttons to your site and ask your visitors to share the content if they find it appropriate.
There are lots of tools to help you do this, from applications to various plugins. I preferred Elegant Theme’s Monarch, it is responsible for the buttons you see on your left, for the upper bar, and for a pop-up that will appear in front of you at a certain moment. (I hope that will not bother you, I tried to make it good-looking 😊).
Consider Starting a Podcast
The reality is that not everyone enjoys reading as I do; I will always prefer reading to listening to a podcast or watching a video when it comes to learning something. But listening to podcasts has its own advantage, can be done during other activities, like driving or commuting, or running.
You can increase your blog’s traffic by starting a podcast based on your already-written posts. And you will attack another market segment, that of those who prefer listening and not reading.
Commenting on Popular Blogs
Commenting on other blogs, preferably on high authority blogs helps you increase your reach and simultaneously creates backlinks to your site. This tactic also sustains your networking efforts. Create a Gravatar and with just one click other persons will find relevant information about you and your business.
Write an Ebook
Writing an ebook will establish you as a specialist or expert in your niche and will reinforce your credibility. An ebook is a great base to expand your audience and cultivate long-term relationships with your existing and future customers.
Create a Free Mini Course as an Opt-in
It’s universally known that we all love free stuff. The more the better. Creating a mini email course is an excellent way to provide valuable information for your readers in exchange for their email. You gain new subscribers and your readers get valuable stuff, a win-win.
Use Paid Advertising
If your budget allows it, take into consideration promoting your posts or your products, with paid advertising on Facebook, sponsored content on Instagram, paid Pins on Pinterest, etc. Start small and test each option before infusing large amounts of money. See which channel gives you the best ROI.
Testimonials of happy customers are a very effective way to promote your business. And satisfied customers are the fuel of your business development. Entice satisfied customers to provide feedback for free or in exchange for a bonus, discount, or freebie.
Their testimony will act as a hook for future clients.
Write Posts Featuring Interviews with Influencers
Most of us are interested in learning from the best in our industry and from those that have already achieved the results we want to achieve. Interviewing experts and influencers in your niche can skyrocket your traffic and reach new audiences, those of influencers. Not to mention you will have top-quality material for your own audience.
Having a plethora of information at your disposal and a myriad of ways to increase your blog traffic, well that can be overwhelming at least. To identify those methods that are most reliable and cost-effective for you, start with two or three options at a time. Avoid the mistake of spreading your efforts in ten directions so that none brings relevant results.
When you have picked one that works well, pass it to another one or two, or three. But concentrate on a few at a time.
Now that you have a comprehensive list that shows you how to increase your website traffic at your disposal, decide and select the ones that you think will be the most impactful for your business. Start with a few, work on them, master them and move to the next ones till you have identified the best strategies to promote your blog and business.
Passive income, making money online, or just otherwise than having a regular job? Did that cross your mind? How many times have you dreamt of becoming your own boss and quitting your 9 to 5 boring job? I know I did and I am sure you have thought about it at least once. They are not too many those who dare to start their own business or work from home.
And, if you reflect on it for a second, it’s perfectly normal to think twice before making such a decision. We all have families to support, bills to pay, houses to maintain, and credits to reimburse. So, we need a stable income, right? But what would you think if I would tell you that you can make money online fast? What if I told you that there are plenty of passive income opportunities waiting for you at one click distance?
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There are many options that can generate a stable and generous passive income. What is great about it is not just the amount of money you can make, but also the satisfaction you have when working for yourself. You can say goodbye to your crazy boss and low pay and start changing your life today.
Start a Blog
Blogging is one of the most popular options you have when you decide to make money online. Even though it may take a bit until you make a steady income, as soon as your blog starts to become successful, it will pay off and you can enjoy a stress-free life doing what you like.
First, you have to search for hosting options and you will identify many affordable packages that allow you to personalize your blog and launch it in a professional way and according to your expectations.
One of the most important things, when you start blogging, is to be perseverant. Be patient, keep writing in a constant way, and you will see that the money will follow paying off your efforts.
Golden rules to follow when you want to start a successful blog and earn money:
· Even though in the beginning it may be difficult to invest in a paid web host, if you want to be successful you need a web server that allows you to customize your website. Search for hosting options and you will find many affordable packages that allow you to personalize your blog and launch it in a professional way.
· The content is very important if you want to increase your page views. Usually, people are attracted by problem-solving content. No one will read your personal struggles unless they find answers to their questions and struggles. Therefore, always remember that you are not writing for yourself, but for your readers to help them solve their problems. “What’s in it for me” is the primary question that a reader will envisage.
· Always keep an eye on your competition. Decide which is going to be your niche and find out who your competitors are. Check which are their most shared posts and try to write about those topics. Whenever you have a new topic or blog post idea, write it down. This is how you will be able to stay organized and write engaging content.
· Use social media to get more traffic. The rule is very simple: if you don’t have any traffic, you won’t have money. You will need more and more readers every month and social media platforms are a reliable pillar to help you reach your goal.
· Depict what other bloggers are doing to earn money. It may be that your blog has many readers and still make less money than other blogs with fewer views. This is why you should always check what the other bloggers are doing to get more traffic. For instance, there are bloggers who make money by selling online courses or through affiliate marketing. Learn from the best and apply their strategies yourself.
If you are not tech-savvy, affiliate marketing is one of the most efficient passive income ideas in 2023. And offers you the possibility to make money at home. Usually, affiliate marketing is associated with blogging. But, you don’t have to own a blog to be successful. You can use your social media accounts to promote products and services that others offer or produce. You will get a percentage directly from the producer once the sale has been done after accessing your link.
Writing an eBook is one of the most successful ways to get a steady income. The writing process can be as difficult or easy as you want it to be. In addition, a successful eBook doesn’t have to be long. There are plenty of popular eBooks having less than 50 pages. After all, it’s not the number of pages that counts, but the problem you solve. Moreover, if you already have a blog, writing an eBook is a great way to make your blog more successful.
Make More Money with Drop Shipping
Have you ever wanted to sell stuff online, but you found it difficult to handle the delivery process? With drop shipping, it is very easy to make money online without investment. When you use drop shipping, you don’t have to hold any stock. You just create the online shop and whenever you have a new order, the drop shipper will take care of the delivery.
Create an Online Course
Creating an online course is similar to writing eBooks. Again, it is a great method to share your knowledge and create a steady income. The remarkable thing about online courses is that their prices are higher than eBooks. So, it is worth spending your time and producing some interesting and valuable content that will attract people like a magnet.
Learn How to Make Money Online Without Paying Anything with Peer to Peer Lending
This is a fantastic way to multiply the money you already have without doing anything. Peer-to-peer lending means that you lend money to other people who don’t qualify for bank loans. In peer-to-peer lending, you act as the bank. You usually earn 5 to 10% interest without too much stress or effort. How cool is that?
Create YouTube Videos
I already mentioned how social media can impact your passive income online activity. YouTube is one of the most popular social media options that can help increase your passive income. You will receive money every time someone watches your videos. For instance, you can start with a how-to tutorial or you can share some funny videos with your pets. You would be amazed at how easy it is to make money with YouTube if you produce popular videos.
Source: Youtube
Product Design
If you are a creative person and you enjoy creating unique gifts for your family and friends, then why not be paid for your ideas? You can promote your design ideas on various specialized sites and receive money for them. For example, you can personalize some coffee mugs or phone cases and become one of the most popular designers in this area. What is even more interesting is that there is no upfront cost to you.
Are you an enthusiastic fan of photography or a talented photographer? If you make hundreds of photos every time you go on holiday or at an event, then you should consider your photos as one of the biggest passive income generators. And your photography passion as your passive income investment. You can sell your photos on stock photos sites and get paid a commission every time someone downloads them. So, next time you take a photo, think it can be a valuable asset that will help you make money.
Do you have a bit of computer know-how? Then you can use your knowledge and create some digital products to sell. For instance, you can create a digital planner, a template, or an eBook that people will use in their day-to-day activities. And charge money for the more advanced products.
Create an App
If your passion is technology and enjoy spending many hours in front of the computer, then you can create an app. You don’t have to create something complicated. It is enough to create an app that helps people organize themselves and do things faster and easier. You will see how quickly your app will become successful and increase your revenues.
You can make good money by displaying ads on your blog. This is how you can earn money by displaying advertising:
· You can get paid if the reader does a specific action. For example, you post an ad where you ask your readers to click on it and register with a brand.
· You get paid per thousand impressions. You will get paid by just displaying the ad on your page and you don’t depend on the number of people who click on it.
· You can choose Cost per Click advertising and get paid if the reader clicks on your ad.
Do you enjoy spending time on social media and communicating with your followers? Do you have thousands of followers on your Instagram account? Then you have found the perfect method to make money online. There are many companies willing to pay good money and looking for an influencer who can help promote their brands.
Earn Money from Freelance Writing
Writing can become a serious source of revenue when you are looking for extra income. If you have good research skills, and writing skills, and are always curious to learn more, then you can become a successful writer. Moreover, you can get clients by creating an account on freelance platforms and start building your portfolio. Or you may find many online opportunities on job search engines like Jooble.
Source: Upwork
Create a Membership Site
Membership sites are great when you already have an established audience. You can create a membership site and offer your readers a forum or monthly video lessons that can help find the answers to and solve different problems.
How do you spend your spare time? Are you a crafter or an artist? Then Etsy is the best place for you. Etsy is a fabulous platform where you can sell your handmade items. Don’t forget to consider the shipping costs when you sell your handmade products, but you will see that once you get started you will enjoy this method a lot.
Become an Online Coach
Do you have advanced expertise in a certain area and you want to help others by sharing it? Then you can successfully become an online coach. If you enjoy working with people, then you can sell your knowledge and change others’ lives, while earning more.
Become a Virtual Assistant
There are many busy entrepreneurs who are looking for some help from time to time. If you are an organized person, communicative, and with decent online skills, then you can offer your services and become a virtual assistant. There are various services that you can do like admin support, data entry, bookkeeping, blog editing, or social media admin.
Buy and Sell Domain Names
You can make research and find which domain names people are interested in. There are some sites where you can buy and sell domain names and earn money by doing so. This can become a good source of income for anyone who is looking to make money online without too much effort.
Flip Things on Craigslist
If you think of Craigslist as a garage sale, then you will find plenty of things that you can flip here. You can always find many mispriced items for sale on Craigslist which you can then resell. So, you should better start searching and finding as many items as possible for your own profit.
If you enjoy creating digital items, then you shouldn’t keep them for yourself. You can sell them on creativemarket.com. There are 27k+ independent creators selling their work here. So, you will find many inspiring sources and start making money online using this option.
Make Money on What You Spend
Is it really possible? Yes! For example, eBates identifies where you do your online shopping. At the end of each month, they send you money back for those purchases. There are also other companies, like Ibotta, that give you money back if you scan the receipts from some specific stores. Give them a try and enjoy the extra money deposited into your bank account monthly.
Become an Amazon Reseller
You can take advantage of a great Amazon program that allows you to shop for items that you will then resell. You can choose the products frequently bought by people and resell them at a higher price, while still remaining competitive. This is how you can easily make 10 to 20% profit.
In conclusion, you can use any of the above options to make money online for free. Choose to do something you really like and forget about the strict office schedule. You can create something that adds value to you and the people around you and you will see that the money will come. Stay determined and persistent and all the work will pay off in the end.
In the first half of 2018, a report by Interactive Advertising Bureau and PWC showed that marketers spent $30.9 billion on mobile advertising alone, marking 63% of their total digital ad-spend. This change has been spurred by the rapid growth of mobile device usage. This growth can further be attributed to the fact that consumers are quickly embracing the newest technology that will ease their life a little more.
It also means that businesses are leveling up their marketing efforts in order to keep up with these advances in technology specifically tailoring their ads to be more mobile-friendly. Smartphones and tablets are gaining popularity because they’re smaller, lighter, more affordable, and portable compared to PCs and laptops. Manufacturers on the other hand keep feeding the demand by developing faster and more user-friendly mobile devices.
With this said, digital marketing will keep evolving and mobile advertising will keep playing the main role. So it’s up to marketers to ensure they have a cohesive mobile marketing strategy in order to connect with the digital consumers in this market that keeps getting riper for further growth.
There are several mobile advertising advantages and disadvantages, but because the advantages outdo the disadvantages, here is a closer look at why they’re winning.
1. The Increasing Time Spent on Mobile Devices
More than 4,5 billion people own and use smartphones in the world as of 2019. Think about it, how much time do you spend on your phone, as compared to your PC or laptop? These statistics are what advertisers are trying to catch up on in order to reach more customers.
With up to 80% of web traffic happening on mobile, it’s then more than clear why, this is where most customers will be found at any given time.
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The mobile’s precision is one of its greatest advantages as far as advertising is concerned. The increased connectivity that mobile devices especially smartphones have enabled is creating a dynamic shift as far as relevance, speed, and target location are concerned.
Your stellar creative campaigns have great potential thanks to the fact that smartphones are not only receivers, but they’re also transmitters of information. They’re huge information mines on individual tastes and preferences.
This means advertisers and marketers have the chance to be more specific by personalizing ads based on individual user preferences, buyer behavior, and location, and therefore offer more relevant content to their users.
3. Immediate
Besides being very precise, mobile advertising is also about the perfect mobile moment. What does this mean?
It’s possible to create a sense of urgency that can inspire immediate engagement if you find the perfect mobile moment. This means creating ads based on time combined with location. For example, if you’re advertising a coffee joint, you may want to do that in the morning, if your ad has a CTA, then it’s likely to create that sense of urgency that will encourage the customer to go get the coffee at that time.
This immediate engagement is very practical and easy.
4. Mobile Ads Are Interactive
Mobile ads aim to provide better quality advertising engagement for their users by combining precise targeting with compelling formats to give relevant and engaging content to their users. This makes the user spend a little more time with the brand, boosting the overall engagement time.
This interactive nature of the ads provides a valuable midpoint between the advertiser’s needs and users’ solutions.
5. Conversion Oriented and Cost Effective
Why are mobile ads cheaper? Remember as said above, these ads are precise in their targeting. This is one of the reasons they are cheap as compared to other forms of advertising, you create ads for only who you need to see it. The nature of this medium is also cheap, unlike most other advertising platforms that may involve countless ad prints or expensive ad spaces or ad time.
Another reason they’re affordable is that tracking and measuring your results is easy therefore you’re able to save money where the strategy is not working.
Types of Mobile Advertising
Here is a highlight of the most effective types of mobile advertising.
These ads mimic the original app format for optimal user experience and thus are least intrusive and this is why they’re so successful. Being part of the app, they are displayed in varying forms. They can work with any type of app since they’re perceived as additional information for users and not just ads looking to make a sale.
These ads are more interactive and they spread across the entire screen, often when either the app is loading or after the app closes. They often feature a very creative call to action to engage the user.
They’re often in the form of photos or videos and because they occupy the whole screen, they will always have a close or navigate button at the top right side of the screen.
Interstitial ads may seem intrusive if you will not try being as creative and interesting as possible. You can also avoid boring your users if you place the ad between main activities.
Mobile video ads are easy in their concept yet pretty complex in execution. These videos play while a user interacts with an app. As demanding as they can get in terms of budget and execution, they are very effective due to the visual effects.
When done right, these videos can go from just compelling to engaging. Similar to interstitial ads, they have exit buttons for the user to return to whatever activity they were exploring.
Reward Video ads are spruced-up video ads in the sense that they offer benefits for users if they watch till the end. This is especially common when playing games; you can for example get an extra life if you watch the video till the end.
These reward videos are usually very short and don’t have a skippable button. The reason they are very effective is the reward they offer, users are often very pleased and interested in these rewards.
Source: Chocolateplatform
iv. Banner Ads
The good old banner ads still remain popular even though they’re very famous for causing banner-blindness syndrome. People have gotten so used to these types of ads they have mastered ways to simply ignore them together with their (often) very poor user interface. (UI)
But why are they still used?
Because they’re handy and very cheap. The key thing is to have a very catchy CTA and appealing colors because that’s all the space you have, and also because it has to deliver the message in the one second of eyeball it gets.
They’re also easy to implement and compatible with mobile apps, they’ll give you the basic brand awareness you’re looking for.
v. Rich Media Ads
These are more like spruced-up banner ads. They include audio, video, and other elements that are geared toward boosting engagement and interaction with the user.
Also known as multimedia banner ads, these ads can appear in feed or full screen and are specialized to creatively engage with users to generate high click through rate and conversions.
Mobile advertising platforms refer to ad networks, ad servers, programmatic ad buying or any digital advertising solutions that support ad campaigns that span mobile display or mobile app advertising across mobile platforms such as smartphones and tablets.
Here are some of the best platforms:
a. Google Ads
Google Ads are quite convenient because your content can show both on desktop and mobile devices. And if you wish to target mobile users alone, you can use display ads and select device targeting to direct your content only to tablet and or smartphone users.
This platform offers the possibility to run ads within browsers, apps, and of course Google search results. In the specific case of mobile devices text ads, video ads, and image ads may be published within very targeted promotion campaigns via apps.
Why this is really one of the best platforms? Because you have access to the largest search engine, this puts your ads in front of the largest audience possible at this moment.
b. Facebook and Instagram Ads
These social media giants really are the ideal marketplace and both their ads are managed by Facebook’s ad platform. It recently launched Audience Network which is a very user-friendly ad platform. You’re spoilt with choices on what type of advertising to use for your campaign including native ads, rewarded video ads, and all the above-mentioned types of mobile advertising.
You can do advanced targeting on this platform and profit from their gigantic base, using criteria such as location, gender, age, likes and interests, job, education and so much more.
What’s more? They offer very affordable rates if you’re working on a budget.
c. Ad-Mob
Ad-Mob was acquired by Google in November 2009 and has since dominated online advertising. It’s one of the best platforms for beginners because of its simple app integration.
Just like Google Ads, you can target your audience depending on their location, carrier, operating system, and the like.
All the above-mentioned types of mobile advertising can also be used via this platform.
d. AdColony
This is probably the choice for top mobile publishers worldwide because of its unique features such as rich demographic targeting, media, and video integration with both Android and iOS. It’s the pioneer advertising platform that offers Instant-Play™ HD video ad technology that plays on any device irrespective of the quality of their internet speed.
They also offer a premium service that allows advertisers to target their audience very precisely guaranteeing user response. Mobile advertising examples that have used AdColony include Adidas and Farmville.
e. Twitter Ads
This social media platform is also another great mobile advertising channel. Here, you’re also able to target your ad only to your personas of interest, and you can shift this audience depending on their activity on Twitter as well as their location.
Another unique feature they have is that you can pay only for the actions that you would want your target audience to carry out e.g. app download.
f. Unity Ads
This ad platform is very popular with games because it allows developers to boost their monetization by offering in-app purchases displayed on videos to players.
It delivers ads to players that would most likely be interested in playing a certain game. Another great feature of this platform is that you don’t require integrating an additional advertisement software development kit (SDK); it supports several display formats and works seamlessly with both Android and iOS.
g. ChartBoost
This is another great mobile app advertising platform dedicated to game developers because it allows cross-promotion. It works excellently with video ads and interstitial ads as well. It offers easy integration and only one SDK is required.
This platform provides full control over your ad space allowing you to pick who will advertise in your app. Game developers like it because it supports them by allowing them to keep most of their income.
h. Apple Search Ads
Apple Search Ads is an advertising platform owned by Apple. The major problem with this platform is that even as technology breaks all borders, it’s still very regional and can only be found in a selection of countries, are the US, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Switzerland, New Zealand, and the UK. That said, its main feature is that developers only get to pay per install and the ad shows on the top of search results.
So, with all the above information given, how then would you set up an effective mobile advertising campaign?
Main Steps to Set Up a Mobile Advertising Strategy
For anyone in business, it’s important to awaken the fact that customers are consuming data in new dynamic ways. Therefore as a marketer, you need skills that complement your mobile marketing strategies to be able to level up your campaign for the best results.
Your campaign should be customer-centric, the content you’ll serve your customers with is what will develop your brand and ideally pull them into your sales funnel. So, where do you start?
1. Define Your Mobile Ad Objectives
You must have a purpose that got you here in the first place. And this might be to create or strengthen your brand awareness, boost sales, drive web traffic to your site or just promote a specific deal, whatever it is, be clear from the start. This will determine so many other aspects as you progress through the entire campaign.
2. Know Who Your Target Audience Is
After establishing what you want to achieve, the next important thing is who you will be targeting with this campaign. This involves knowing who they are, what solutions they are after in regard to what you’re offering them, and where they are in the buying process.
You can get all this information through a survey, for example.
Consider finer details such as screen sizes and the fact that consumers today have such a short span for any boring stuff including ads. What they expect is creative content and visuals that grab attention.
3. Choose Your Ad-Type
This is truly simple. As explained earlier, there are various types of mobile ads campaigns so you can consider the one that will best work for your product and budget and run with it.
4. Map Out Your Campaign Time
At this point, you have your objective; know your target and ad type that you want to use; the next detail to consider is the period through which you’ll want your ad campaign to run. This will be determined by the number of actions you want the users to take. It may just be one action like clicking on the “Buy” button or several actions starting from brand awareness running all the way to the purchase step.
So, obviously the more numerous the actions the longer will take to create the campaign.
5. Device Consideration
As said above, different mobile devices need different types of content in terms of quality. iPad users and most other tablet users for instance tend to expect higher-quality content. Smaller screens will also need quality content that is tailor-made to fit in their screens.
Simply put, this means that you ought to offer the best for both worlds in order to get the best results.
6. Define Your Metrics
You don’t know how your mobile ad campaign is performing if you don’t have indicators to measure the results. You should know the metrics that you will track and one of the best metrics to track for mobile ads is the Secondary Action Rate, this shows the actions that the user took after clicking on the ad. It’s the best metric because smartphones with touch screens tend to give false measures due to accidental taps. So if the click was accidental, no secondary action will take place.
Secondary actions to look out for include click to buy, click to get a location pin, click to visit the site, add a product to cart, subscription, etc.
Other metrics to track are brand lift; conversion rate and return on ad spend.
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7. Design Your Ad
This is the fun part, right? Putting all your creative juices to work. So, before you start here are a few pointers that you should keep your finger on:
Create persuasive content without forgetting to clearly state your message e.g. through your call to action. Make it compelling and elaborate.
Use thoroughly engaging content to be able to keep the user glued to your ad for longer. This encourages interaction that may lead to a complete customer journey.
Use top-quality graphics having in mind that you’re trying to woo various kinds of users on various devices. Keep in mind also, that your ad may be running on an app which is the user’s main activity so you have to earn the eyeballs.
Ensure you provide a smooth UX by reducing the number of touchpoints a user has to go through between viewing the ad to responding to the call to action.
Enhance your ad targeting to reap more engagement with the user, the more relevant your content will be to the user the more likely they are to engage. You should include all the target elements mentioned above such as location, age, user preferences, etc.
8. Launch and Measure
With all the above in place, you’re ready to launch your mobile advertising campaign. This is to be followed by frequent tests and measures of the important metrics that you identified.
This will guide you on the ones that are working and you can invest more time and resources on them.
Conclusion
Computers took advertising away from humans and now mobile devices have taken it away from computers. Why? Because more effective ways of attracting the right audience, at the right time and place mean delivering more value for consumers. With all the benefits ranging from precision in targets and relevance to the myriad of mobile advertising platforms available, mobile ads have no threat for now. Mobile advertising is the future of advertising.
Being a freelancer, solopreneur, entrepreneur, or business owner involves a myriad of endeavors, and one of the most pressing is to diversify your income. Affiliate marketing is one of the most reliable ways to do that, to put the “eggs in different baskets”. This affiliate marketing for dummies article is here to help you build a solid foundation for affiliate monetization.
Have you seen bloggers that publish their income reports and noticed that a good chunk comes from affiliate marketing? Well, it’s time to take a closer look and depict those secrets and how to transform yourself into a successful affiliate marketer.
What Is Affiliate Marketing and How Does It Work?
Simply put affiliate marketing is the action of promoting another company’s products or services and earning a commission in exchange if you refer a client.
Typically, it works this way:
· you pick a product you love, preferably one you use and know
· promote that product via your blog, social media, email, ads
· the client clicks on your affiliate link and buys
· you receive a commission for the recommended sale
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Also known as vendor, retailer, advertiser, or creator. This is practically the producer, the company that makes or creates the product/service. Could be a large, worldwide known company such as Microsoft, which produces Windows. Or an entrepreneur like Ruth Soukup, who sells a highly appreciated blogging course.
In fact, anyone having a product to sell can be a seller in an affiliate marketing, be it a startup, solopreneur, or Fortune 500 classified company.
The Affiliate Network
Not all specialists consider the affiliate marketing network as an element within the affiliate marketing system, but since in many cases it is the middleman between the seller and the affiliate, it is worth mentioning.
You can, of course, arrange a direct affiliate revenue share with someone that creates an online product. But most often including a reputable network like ClickBank, ShareaSale, or CJ Affiliate to deal with product delivery and payments, will offer you credibility.
The affiliate network has its advantages:
· offers a multitude of products you can promote
· you can access products that are available only via network affiliates
· automates some processes like payments.
Besides sourcing products, handling payments, and delivery, the affiliate network handles the tracking cookie that will be placed into the client’s browser after clicking the affiliate link.
The Affiliate/Publisher
The affiliate/publisher is the person or company that makes the promotion, and the ad in an affiliate system. The publisher can be anybody you, the lady next door, the neighbouring bookstore, or a large company like Etsy.
The affiliate usually uses his site to promote the products/services for which he is affiliated, or these days is also possible without a site via social media for example.
The affiliate site presents the affiliated products via blogs, articles, or product presentations and includes a special link, called the affiliate link, that links to the product on the seller’s site. This is the value of the affiliate, he attracts and convinces visitors to buy a product/service.
Affiliate marketing can generate commissions anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars to millions of dollars monthly.
Here is an example of affiliate marketing promotion via email:
And affiliate marketing promotion through a site blog:
Affiliate marketing article promoting a product. Source: Catherineoneissy.com
The Client/Consumer
The client is the central point of the affiliate marketing program. If the client does not react, the system does not exist, no affiliate commission, and no income to share.
Affiliate Cookies
The affiliate cookie is responsible for the registration of the sale through your unique affiliate ID and consequently for earning the corresponding commission. The cookie is the information that is sent when a client clicks your affiliate link.
The lifetime of an affiliate cookie varies from a couple of hours to days, weeks, or even a lifetime. The duration of a cookie depends on the affiliate marketing program and product. Do yourself a favor and verify this detail, when adhering to an affiliate program.
The affiliate cookie disappears in two situations: when it expires and when the cookies are cleaned from the browser.
Affiliate Marketing for Dummies: Advantages of Affiliate Marketing
* You decide which products you promote and where. The promotional materials will be provided to you.
* You have the advantage of selling products that you do not have to manufacture, store, or transport and moreover, products that proved their value on the market.
* It’s the most reliable and fastest manner to generate income when you are just starting your business.
* You can work from wherever you want, when you want, and how much you want, as long as you obtain the desired results.
* Sky is the limit in terms of potential income. And can easily be transformed into a passive income source.
* You can choose to affiliate with complementary products/services to those that you create.
* You have the possibility to track your affiliate activity, what you sell, where, when, and make the necessary adjustments.
And the Reverse of the Medal
* You don’t have any type of control over the affiliate marketing program or affiliate network that may change policy, renounce the product you are promoting, make technical changes on their platforms, or totally cancel the affiliate program.
* Payout schedule and conditions are also out of your control.
* There is the risk of not getting paid, small in general, but exists.
* For popular products you will have to face tough competition.
Affiliate Marketing for Dummies: The 1Million Dollar Question… How Much Can You Earn via Affiliate Marketing?
When you are just starting, and you are a beginner with affiliate marketing, your revenues from affiliate marketing programs will depend on several aspects:
· The commission and conversion rates levels you succeed to obtain
· The quality of the affiliate network that you adhere to
· Your knowledge or desire to learn in order to obtain the best results possible
· Your commitment
Each network and the commission it pays is different, depending on which fits best your goals. For affiliate marketing beginners sometimes, it might take up to one year to see their first sale, but it also may happen from the first month. Depending on the products the commission varies most often between $5 and $100 for each sale and may be hundreds or thousands in the case of more sophisticated products, like online courses or software subscriptions.
Types of commissions:
· Percentage of the price: you receive a previously established percentage of the product’s price. In general, for physical products, the commissions vary between 4% and 8%, and for digital products percentages are between 30% and 50%.
· Commission per lead: you receive a fixed amount when you refer a customer as a new lead. These are small amount commissions, up to several dollars when a visitor uses your affiliate link and signs up for an account with a company but doesn’t buy anything.
· A fixed sum: you receive an established fixed amount independent of the product price. Most often this is a decent sum. For instance: Bluehost offers a commission in the sum of $65 for any of its plans.
Take into consideration that affiliate marketing is not a get-rich overnight scheme, you need sustained efforts, knowledge, and perseverance to see good results and maybe years to see your goals become reality.
Now, having the mechanism and basic terms defined, let’s pass to the next stage.
Affiliate Marketing for Dummies: How to Start with Affiliate Marketing?
I always say when starting something, start with a strategy. Maybe it’s just me, but I need to ensure that the path I follow leads me to where I want to arrive or to the level I want to reach.
Before starting you may want to read everything you can find on the subject and how others succeeded to make money from affiliate marketing. It’s up to you if you are prepared to pass through a trial and error process on your own till you obtain results or if you want to take some courses to shorten and speed up the process.
Or if it fits your scope, if you plan to build a business exclusively based on affiliate marketing try Wealthyaffiliate.
Before deciding what products and what affiliate networks you will use, you need to take into consideration your audience and her struggles and choose an affiliate marketing program that resonates with your audience, and that your audience wants and is interested in buying. Promote just products that are useful for your audience. And even more important promote products/services you used or use and you are comfortable being associated with.
These will ease your task, strengthen your affiliate sales and create a loyal audience that will trust you.
When starting, opt for a smaller number of products, some experts say no more than three, while others consider optimum up to ten. Depending on your niche try to focus on three affiliates first, after that add more. Start small, know very well the products you promote, test strategies and promotion channels, update and adjust till you obtain the results you want, and after that move on and add new products.
Affiliate Marketing for Dummies: How to Pick the Affiliate Marketing Programs That Are a Fit for You?
You can focus either on affiliate networks, either on individual affiliates or a combination of both.
Affiliate Networks
Affiliate networks are the intermediaries between affiliates and the producing companies. One of their advantages is that they host tens, hundreds, or thousands of affiliate programs and they have an infrastructure that offers more predictability concerning payments. Usually, they have established rules like payment for February earnings is made next month on the 10th.
You should check each affiliate network and verify the programs and the conditions it offers.
Criteria you might take into consideration are:
– What’s your target? You promote for example cooking stuff or fashion items or tools for bloggers. Choose the network accordingly, not all networks propose items in all niches.
– Costs of using the network. How much are you charged for using their platform?
– Which are the features that the network provides? Do you need to track some vital information like new customers or returning customers? Make sure that the platform provides the features you need.
These are some affiliate networks you need to study:
Worldwide known and hosting every product imaginable under the same roof. Amazon Associates has a solid reputation and it is used across the globe and is very easy to use. The commission offered ranges between 4% and 10% and you receive a commission no matter what products the visitor that clicked on your affiliate link bought.
That means you may recommend a product, but on Amazon, your visitor buys something else not what you recommended and you still receive your commission. Be aware that you will be paid only for the sales made by people in your country and payments are made once the threshold of $100 is reached. Also, you need a good amount of traffic to see reasonable revenues from Amazon.
And another minus is that everyone under the sun is Amazon affiliated and the competition is tough.
One of the top affiliate marketing networks in the world, with more than 3900 merchants and a great reputation. If you refer them, you earn $150 and after you are accepted you can pick other programs to represent as affiliates. ShareASale has a nice collection of companies using its services like Optin Monster, Grammarly, Sears, BornToSell, and Zazzle, and covers an impressive number of products and services. They make payments monthly for thresholds over $50, send money in many countries and you can be paid via check or direct deposit.
Another super easy-to-use affiliate network is Shopify, an e-commerce platform that sells myriads of products online. Their approval process is quite speedy, and you may earn up to $2,000 on a sale. Well, that’s quite a bunch of money!!
Rakuten, former LinkShare, one of the veteran affiliate networks, is constantly evolving bringing new business ideas and ways of promoting. It covers almost all countries and has educative programs to help you succeed in affiliate marketing. Rakuten puts at your disposal various methods of payment and executes payments for thresholds of over $50.
Priding with having over 12,000 advertisers (uhh, that’s impressive!) to choose from Flexoffers is worth paying some attention to when choosing an affiliate network. Their main focus is to gather high-end merchants and offer interesting products for their affiliates. Their offer comprises many companies, from countries across the globe.
Independent Affiliate Programs
Your other option is to join independent affiliate programs. The first step is to check on the site from which you bought the product that you want to recommend. If they don’t have an affiliate program you can reach out to them and ask if you can become a partner.
To identify affiliate programs to promote, you always have the option of “asking” Google or checking on your favorite influencers, and bloggers to see what they recommend, try those products, and see if they are a match for your audience too.
Some much-preferred affiliate programs are Grammarly, Bluehost, ConvertKit, etc.
Also, if you have or plan to have your own products, you will consider creating your own affiliate program to promote them.
Create valuable resources for your buyer personas like tutorials, reviews, and roundups, where you provide lots of details and useful information to help and educate your visitors. This is one of the most efficient ways to promote your affiliate links without looking salesy.
Tutorials are posts that show you step-by-step how to execute something and most often they provide high value for the reader.
Writing product reviews is another great way to promote affiliate links. You share with your audience your experience, what you liked, what you didn’t, and why you recommend a product or not. The primary ingredient for writing reviews is genuine honesty. Your readers are interested in knowing your own opinion about a product they consider buying.
Social Media
Social media is the magic word and one of the most efficient ways to promote affiliate links. Useless to say vis social networks you reach far much more people than through your site, in most cases.
Pinterest is the first platform recommended for affiliate links. And more you can fully automate your promotion schedule on Pinterest.
To use social media at its full potential, try different strategies and different networks, share in Facebook groups, pin on Pinterest, share on Twitter, or try Instagram posts with a call to action. Pay attention and respect the rules for each platform and avoid being spammy.
Email List
Since your most valuable asset is your mailing list, it comes naturally that your email list is your most profitable string for affiliate marketing profit. Usually, you promote your affiliate products by sending emails to your subscribers with your affiliate links and relevant information about those products.
Try to find a balance between your promoting emails and free useful content. Do not spam your list with offers, be it your own products or affiliates. This is a serious reason to lose your audience. I just unsubscribed to Michael Hyatt’s list, for this reason, I receive each other day an email promoting various things and even there are days when I receive 5 emails. When it is too much, it is too much. Even if the sender is an admired world-recognized expert.
A Resources Page
You can create a resources page to share with your readers what tools, and products are you using in your business. Or you can create a post with your tools collection. For instance, a business blogger will list their favorite applications and tools, courses, books, influencers, mentors, etc. Then make a pin for the page and promote it on Pinterest.
Inserting Affiliate Links in Your Old Posts
One of the first things you need to do after adhering to affiliate programs is to insert affiliate links in all your blogs, where appropriate of course. Update and tweak your old posts to accommodate your affiliate links.
Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to diversify your income and make some supplementary income from your blog. Particularly if you are a beginner. Be patient and willing to learn how affiliate marketing works and sooner or later your efforts will pay off. Let’s hope it will be sooner!
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