So here it goes…

This strategy is not going to work for every kind of site.  In fact, you may find this to be a complete waste of your time.

OK, there.

Can’t say I didn’t warn you.

But hang with me.  Some of you will find ways to use this strategy for your own sites.

Let’s Talk About Pinterest

No doubt you’ve heard of Pinterest by now.

If not, where in the world have ya been?

It’s the online image-sharing phenomenon where people (mostly women) share images they find on the Internet with their followers.

It has elements of both Facebook and Twitter because people can comment on and “like” pictures you post, and they can follow you to keep up with images you share on your “boards.”

Boards represent areas of interest.  If you like shoes, you might create a board called “Shoes” and share various shoes you like on the Web.

So every shoe you post, can go to your “shoe” board and so on.

Every image that gets pinned to a board links back to the web page the image is on.  So as you can see, there is some traffic potential if images from your own site get pinned.

People also pin images because of the associated content.  For example, someone might have a board for Pinterest strategies where they pin images associated with articles on Pinterest.

When their followers click the image, it takes them to the article.

What is an Infographic?

Before I jump into my experiment, let’s talk about infographics.

They are typically large images that illustrate data, statistics, etc.  People love to share them on social media because they look cool and they make it easy to absorb the information presented.

In a world where our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, you can say a whole lot with pictures and a few tidbits of information.

These images are a hit with social media!

My Little Experiment

So rather than just sharing other people’s work, which is what a lot of people do, I thought I’d try creating my own infographic in Photoshop.

The plan was to add it to a new page on my site, then share it on my hair-related Pinterest account to see what would happen.

Now, I’m no Photoshop expert.  I know just enough to be dangerous, as the saying goes.

I also have a membership with Photos.com, so I used a couple of cartoon images to compliment my creation.

And instead of just creating an infographic with stats and figures (which is what most infographics illustrate), I decided to make it more tip/instruction-based (often called “instructographics.”)

I tinkered around (literally) in Photoshop, and after about 45 minutes or so, I came up with this image…

I added it to a new Page (not a Post) on my site and then pinned the image to my natural hair-focused Pinterest account, where I have about 1100 followers.

Wait!  I HAD 1100 followers when I posted that infographic, but I just went to my account to confirm the number and looks like I’m up to 1800 now.

OK, back to my experiment…

Within 2 days of posting, the image was shared over 100 times and I didn’t even expect that much.

Three weeks later, the number of pins/shares totaled over 3,000 — meaning 3,000 people shared/pinned this image to their own Pinterest boards.

And of course, the image links back to the page on my site where the images is hosted.

See the screenshot below showing the number of Pins.

For the record, the image was only pinned about 200 times directly from my followers.

The remaining 2,800+ pins came from followers of my followers.  So I had a bit of viral action going on!

Now to you Pinterest pros out there, these numbers may look small-ish, but I was happy with the results from my little creation.

What About Traffic?

Did I get 3,000 visits from those 3,000 pins?

No.  Not even close.

This image is still bringing in traffic from Pinterest everyday. But the total amount of visitors in a 3-week period is about 500 or so.

So that’s not a lot of traffic in three weeks (relative to the traffic the site gets and how many times the image was pinned).  However, there are a lot of things I could have done differently to maximize the exposure.

For example, I added it to a Page instead of a Post.

As you probably know, when you create a Page in WordPress, it doesn’t go out to your blog feed or email list.  So there were no notifications sent out when I launched the page.

I also should have added more content to the page to make it juicier so it would be “Post worthy”.

Low Expectations.  High Hopes.

To be honest, I hadn’t seen any natural hair-related infographics on Pinterest before so I wasn’t really sure how mine would be received.

Now that I know people in that niche like this kind of stuff, I have a lot of different ideas for how I can incorporate infographics within existing articles to help illustrate points, educate, etc.

With natural hair being such a visual niche, I think there may be some added potential if I’m a little more strategic with my execution.

There are so many things I could have done and I’m looking forward to testing some more.

Not to mention, I really enjoy creating the images.  If nothing else, maybe I can create Photoshop templates for people and sell them.

But that’s a whole other blog post! 

Creating Your Own Infographics

If you know your way around Photoshop, GIMP or any graphic editor, you have a big advantage because you can create your own images for free.

There are no limitations to what you can do.

However, if you don’t have software or don’t care to learn, no worries. There are several sites out there that will let you create your own infographics like PiktoChart or Easel.ly.

Visual.ly even allows you to create and share them.

Want more options? This site has a list of over 20 infographic creation sites and tools.

And if you don’t mind outsourcing, you can hire a graphic designer at Dribbble.com.  Yes, that’s “dribble” with 3 B’s.

More Tips for Creating Infographics

1. The images are supposed to be easy and fun to read.  Don’t make it too text-heavy or it defeats the purpose.  It shouldn’t look like a blog post.
2. Most infographics you’ve seen probably display stats, but they don’t have to present that kind of data.  You can make an instructographic like I did with the one above.
3. Think of information that is relevant to your audience and break it down into digestible bites of information.
4. Brand your image with your site URL.  Remember, when it’s shared on Pinterest, the image will become clickable and take the person to your web page where the image is located. Even if the image is shared on places where it won’t be clickable, it never hurts to add a call to action.  Branding, branding, branding!
5. If you add statistical data to your image, be sure to cite the sources somewhere on the image.
6. Use Google images (search for infographics) to get inspiration and ideas for your own designs.
7. Use them as informational teasers and direct people to your site for more info.

Is This Worth Your Time?

There’s only one way to know and that’s to experiment like I’m doing.

As I’ve already mentioned, there were quite a few things I could have done differently to maximize the exposure, but I was pretty happy with the results of my first infographic creation that took me less than one hour to create.

This seems to be worth my time for my hair site because it’s such a visual niche — the perfect environment for Pinterest.

The other thing I love about Pinterest is I spend less than 15-20 minutes per month pinning other people’s pictures and my own, and it’s my 3rd most popular traffic source for Napturally Curly.

Once you unlock the formula for the right kind of image/content to pin, you can reap the rewards.

But I also believe this can work with all kinds of sites if the image is eye-catching and interesting.

There are a lot of infographics shared related to Internet marketing, social media, etc.  So I’m going to be experimenting on this site too.

In fact, you can follow my 2 Create a Website Pinterest account here.

As you can see, it’s a bit vacant since I don’t use it, never really shared it, and I don’t follow many people on this account yet.

If you use Pinterest for Internet Marketing and blogging, leave your username in the comments so I can see how you use it.

This Isn’t a Fad

Pinterest is the real deal and so many people are using it to drive traffic to their sites today.

In fact, when I asked my StudioPress Theme contest participants to name their best traffic-building technique, many mentioned Pinterest.

Cynthia Sanchez, a self-proclaimed Pinterest addict and owner of OhSoPinteresting.com (I love the name!), even created an entire business around the site and she’s ready to help you — so check her out!

I had the pleasure of meeting her at a local meetup last year.  I kept her business card handy so I could give her a shout.

Quality Check

The other item you have to pay attention to is the quality of traffic that Pinterest is sending.

Are people viewing more than one page?  How long are they staying on your site?  What’s the bounce rate?

Remember, not all visitors are quality traffic.

For my hair site, the average person who comes from Pinterest stays 2-3 minutes, views 2-3 pages and the bounce rate is around 50% — which is right under my site’s average.

So it’s decent quality traffic relative to the rest of my referring sources.

In any event, I will keep playing around with infographics.  Whether I will focus more on selling custom templates or using my own to build traffic remains to be seen.

All I know is I’m sure having fun experimenting.

Will keep you posted!

Now, it’s your turn.  Share your Pinterest experiences.

Yes.  I do think they are overrated.

Now, pump your brakes.

I’m not saying they are completely worthless, I just think some people assume they are THE definitive answer to some massive search engine ranking increase.

The Advantages

SEO plugins can be useful when they provide additional reporting features, display errors, reminders or if they help you utilize and understand basic SEO markup, build sitemaps, etc.

For example, Yoast allows you to create breadcrumbs to help people navigate through your site.  This feature is not just beneficial for SEO, but for the user experience.

Premium Plugins

Yoast happens to be free, but there are a couple of plugins on the market that are not.

To be honest, I’ve never spent too much time researching them.  No interest.

All I can say is I suppose there could be value if they provide additional reporting, tracking, etc. and do not make unrealistic claims about what they can do for your traffic.

But whatever you do, please do not install an SEO plugin (free or paid) and expect the search engine heavens to part while flooding you with traffic overnight.

Today SEO is largely driven by social media shares, the quality of your backlinks, your Google Authority and content.  So waiting for a plugin to dramatically influence your rankings in 2013 is unrealistic.

Why I Uninstalled My Plugin

I don’t have an SEO plugin installed on this blog anymore.

Yoast was causing a conflict with my theme, which already has some fundamental SEO settings and options.  And to be honest, I never really used many of the additional settings that Yoast provides anyway.

Actually, I was a tad bit overwhelmed by all the choices.

The only settings I ever changed can be updated in my current theme, so I had redundant markup and some issues saving a few settings.

Since disabling the plugin several months ago, I’ve seen no negative impact.  As long as my posts are still getting indexed and I have the option to edit basic SEO settings that my theme provides, that’s all I need.

And I just did another check….

My organic traffic is actually a bit higher than it was last winter when I had Yoast installed.

Now, I don’t want to get into cause and effect because I think it’s really hard to know what is specifically influencing SEO today. All I’m saying is it didn’t seem to make much of a difference having a plugin installed or not.

And for the record, I wasn’t too terribly concerned with what would happen to my Google traffic after uninstalling Yoast.

Right now, only 35-40% of my blog’s traffic comes from Google… thankfully.   The rest comes from referring sites, email, social media, RSS, etc. And I’d love to get that SE percentage down to 25-30 and raise the other to 70-75.

So if this blog was more dependent on Google traffic, maybe I would have been a little more reluctant (A.K.A. afraid) to make such a change.

Having said that, I’m not convinced a plugin was making a big difference.

What About Sitemaps?

Now I do like the XML Sitemaps plugin.  I have used this since the beginning and do feel it’s necessary to keep your sitemap updated and submitted.

Most SEO plugins already has a sitemap feature, so you may not even need an additional plugin.

Yes, There’s Still Some Value

Hear me out.

I’m not suggesting you run to uninstall your SEO plugin. I just feel they are overrated when it comes to the traffic expectations — especially today.

I also think you need to be very careful when you claim or assume some tool is drastically improving your rankings when Google now uses more off-page signals like social media and select backlinks to influence SEO.

And finally… multiple plugins are not going to give you any greater benefit.  If anything, they can conflict with each other and cause a host of other problems such as duplicate tags, sitemaps and other markup issues.

Now, if you can confirm the features don’t overlap that’s one thing, but be careful of installing plugins that perform similar tasks.

What Say You?

I’m really looking forward to hearing what you have to say.  I can imagine some of you cannot even THINK of parting with your beloved plugins. 

Am I the only one who feels they are overrated?

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, I want to hear from you!

Occasionally I’ll see YouTube comments that say, “Hey, how do I start making money?” Plus, I’m constantly answering the same questions over and over again via email, Facebook, etc.

Even though I have a lot of info on my site, some prefer visuals.

So it was time for me to create a video that contains a lot of getting-started info all in one place.

And I finally tackle some of the MENTAL mistakes to avoid even BEFORE you begin.

Who Is This For?

Now, if you’ve been following me for awhile and are already finding your way with your website, you may not learn too much.

However, you will finally get to hear about about my keyword research strategy.  The post about my experimental site generated so much curiosity about my process that it was time to address it.

I can tell you now.  Some of you are going to be very inspired, and others are going to be disappointed — depending on how methodical you are when doing certain tasks.

I’m a person who goes with my gut and relies very little on what the numbers say.  So no matter how my strategy is perceived, I’m glad to finally set the record straight.

Both videos are pretty long.  So if you are a more seasoned content marketer, you may prefer to watch the videos on YouTube so you can jump to the desired sections.

I added markers in the description to make it easy to skip to different parts.

Video 1 – Topic Choice, Keyword Research and Common Mistakes

This video is great for people who are just getting started or having trouble getting out the gate.  In one section I discuss why I believe certain topics perform better than others.

For example, the buying mood that your visitor is in when they arrive at your site plays a tremendous role in converting sales and making money.  This is an aspect many people ignore when brainstorming.

I also discuss passion vs. earning potential and the mistakes people make regarding topic choice.

And finally, the video ends with an explanation for why I don’t believe you need to look for very high demand (monthly searches) when using keyword research tools.

Video 2 – Website Creation, Traffic and SEO

In this video you will get an update on my Site Build It! site and I’ll also share the pros and cons of the two building methods I suggest.

There is also a very detailed section on search engine optimization (SEO) and backlinks.   Discover what I think about certain strategies like guest blogging, forum signatures, directory submissions and other backlink building activities in 2013 and going forward.

I still believe there is too much misleading information about SEO these days, so I discuss what Google really wants and why you can’t rely on search engine optimization anymore.

Your Support is Appreciated

I covered a lot of ground in these two videos, so I hope you enjoyed them.  If you found the videos useful, please rate and share. Thanks in advance.

Don’t forget to subscribe to my channel so you can keep up with my videos. I recently passed the 50,000 subscriber mark and I am truly humbled by all the support.

Thanks so much for taking time out of your day to watch and I wish you all the best with your websites!

I finally added it to one of my higher trafficked pages (within the content) just to see how it will pan out.

The first week…

I had deplorable click-thru rates and less-than-stellar earnings.

I was tempted to take it down, but then I remembered a situation where the earnings got better with time so I decided to be patient.

Next week…

Earnings were up a bit and the click-thru rate began to improve slightly (still lower than my overall average but better).

Week three…

The click-thru rate surpassed my personal average and the Page RPM (earnings per 1,000 impressions) is also better than my site’s average.

Due to the AdSense terms and conditions, I am not allowed to reveal my CTR or Page RPM.

So What Happened?

Could this unit have attracted a placement advertiser?

Maybe.

Of course, it’s hard to really know for sure, but sometimes when this happens it’s because a placement advertiser has outbid the contextual ads that are displayed.

For those who don’t know, Placement Advertisers can bid on an individual unit on your site directly and they outbid all the contextual ads.

So imagine an AdWords advertiser telling Google…

Hey, I want to put my ad on this particular page.

In order to land that spot, they have to outbid all the other contextual advertisers — which of course earns Google and the Publisher more money.

As I’ve already mentioned, I’ve noticed this before with other new units.  They’ll start out with terrible earnings, but as the unit matures, the Page RPM (earnings per thousand views) begins to pick up.

Many times this could be due to Placement ads taking over that spot.

Understanding The Different Ads

Contextual ads are the most popular kind of ad.  These display because the content on your site is relevant to the ad.   There is an auction taking place behind the scenes and the highest bidders (along with other quality signals) win the placement.

Placement ads are not as common, but can you earn you the most money since they advertiser has to outbid all the contextual ads.

Interest-based ads are shown based on your visitor’s web surfing activities.  So if they just went to Overstock.com to do some shopping, they may see an Overstock ad on your site instead of an ad that is related to your content.

You can actually turn off Interest-based ads in your account, but I’m not entirely sure why this is even an option since my units are still showing Interest-based ads. I see them myself and I also notice earnings from “Interest Based Ads” in my account.

So that’s always been a bit of a mystery to me.  If anyone has insight on this, I’d love to hear it.

How to Check Your Earnings Breakdown

To see how much you’re earning with the various kinds of ads, go to the Performance Reports tab and click “Targeting Types.”

This will display a pie chart and reveal what percentage of your earnings come from Contextual, Placement and Interest-based ads.

Most of you will find that you earn more from Contextual ads.  If you are earning more with Placement, congrats because you are really maximizing your earnings and you’ve attracted the attention of advertisers who want to advertise on your site specifically.

By the way, to ensure your units are available to placement advertisers, always create a Custom Channel for your units and opt to target it.

Wait it Out

So the moral of the story is experiment and be patient with the results — especially if you are adding a unit to a high-trafficked page.

Remember, advertisers love pages that get a decent amount of traffic and have units in a prime location (especially if it’s a larger unit.)

So don’t be so quick to remove a new unit for low performance.  It may pick up in the long run.

———————————

Need more tips?  Check out this overview of Google AdSense.

Everyone’s been talking about the death of Google Reader and many are also speculating Feedburner is the next service to get the boot.

Why?

Well in case you didn’t know, last year Google abandoned the Feedburner Twitter feed, shut down AdSense for Feeds, and hasn’t put anything into the development or support of Feedburner for quite some time.

So with the recent news about Google Reader shutting down, it’s becoming clear Google wants out of the RSS game.

If this happens, this will be a HUGE loss for bloggers and podcasters.  Whether you realize it or not, a lot of people may subscribe to your content using this free service.

RSS Profits

Now, I don’t know much about Google’s financials in this area, but my guess is that RSS is just not a profitable department for the search giant.

For example, if AdSense for Feeds was drawing in money from advertisers, they wouldn’t have discontinued it.  Period.

And with regards to Feedburner email, think of all the bandwidth costs that go into sending out those millions of Feedburner emails everyday.

That’s a lot of resources wrapped into a product if it’s not profitable.

With Google Reader dying in July, Feedly is becoming the go-to alternative for RSS subscriptions.  So if you do follow my blog via RSS or would like to start, now’s a great time introduce yourself to Feedly.  If you want to get away from apps tied to Google’s API, try Newsblur or The Old Reader.

I Really, Really Hope I’m Wrong

Let me just say, this is all speculation that Feedburner could be going away, so please don’t take my word for it.  Nevertheless, all signs seem to point to “yes.”

This will be huge loss for bloggers and podcasters — including myself.  My Feedburner list is now in the 5 figures, and it’s going to be impossible not to lose some of those readers if I switch to something else.

So that’s why I’m making the transition now.

Feedburner Alternatives

The good news is, you can actually migrate your Feedburner email subscribers over to Feedblitz — but not without a cost.

Yes, no one likes going from free to paid services, but at least paid services tend to offer more stability than the free ones.  Plus, you won’t lose any of your current subscribers because they don’t have to re opt in.

The other option is to use AWeber (affiliate link), MailChimp or one of the other email services for broadcasting your blog posts.

AWeber has a very nice blog broadcast feature that you can schedule, plus you can also send other things to your list (unlike Feedburner’s service).

The downside of going this route is there is even though you can import your Feedburner subscribers to AWeber, they will have to opt in again.  And of course that means you will lose some subscribers.

I’m Taking My Chances

Well despite the risk, I’ve decided to merge my Feedburner list with my existing AWeber list.  I have more confidence in their longevity so I’m just going to use my existing email list to broadcast my blog posts too.

(Which is probably what I should have done ages ago.  ARGH!)

I thought about setting up a separate email list just for my blog broadcast, but that would just make it confusing to manage and for my subscribers.  It’s easier to keep everything under one list.

Plus, I only blog once a week (and sometimes every other week), so it’s not like it’s going to add much email volume to my existing AWeber subscribers.

Since Feedburner is still live and kicking, at least those that don’t switch over to my other list will still get my blog updates.  So as of right now, it’s not as risky.

That’s the advantage of transitioning while Feedburner is still active.  At least those that don’t do anything will still get my updates — that is until (if) Feedburner kicks the bucket.

I’m Mad at Myself

You know….

I’m always preaching about how you shouldn’t rely on free services for your business, and I made the same mistake with my own blog relying on Feedburner’s email service.

I guess I felt secure when it was bought out by Google years ago.  I assumed the service would be around for the long haul.   Now that assumption could cost me some subscribers down the road.

In any event, just wanted to give you a heads up if you’re a Feedburner user.  If Google does decide to shut it down, no doubt they will provide enough notice like they did with Google Reader — so no need to panic.

But if you do use it for your blog or podcast, it’s time to think about what that will mean if the service goes away.

How to Prevent Missing My Future Blog Updates

If you receive my blog updates through Feedburner’s email service and would like to continue receiving email updates, make sure you subscribe to my main list below and unsubscribe to the Feedburner email you receive on Tuesdays.

(Feedburner email subscribers:  You may have to click here to view the form.)



Don’t worry, I don’t send a lot email. I also reward my list with exclusive freebies on occasion.

I will continue to send my blog posts out via Feedburner indefinitely in case people miss this message, so make sure you unsubscribe or you’ll receive duplicate emails about my blog posts.

If you are already on my email list, no need to do anything.  And if you’re not sure if you’re subscribed, simply attempt to subscribe in the form above, and AWeber will tell you if you’re already on the list.

It’s Hard to Please Everyone

I know this transition is a bit messy, but there really is no way to do this smoothly.  I realize some of you who are on my main list, prefer not to get emails about my blog posts because you subscribe via other methods (RSS, etc.)

However, I just feel this is the best way for business.  The good news is, I don’t blog that often (2-4 times per month) so it’s not like your inbox is going to be flooded with emails from me.

The other thing I have to remember is if people do unsubscribe from my main list because of this change, they probably aren’t that interested in hearing from me anyway.

So on one hand, this could be a good way to do some list housecleaning.  See there? I’m trying to focus on the positive. 

An Opportunity to Gain/Reinforce Reader Loyalty

The one good thing about Google Reader dying and Feedburner’s uncertain future is this gives us bloggers a chance to reinforce and endorse other ways to keep up with our sites.

A lot of people still don’t even know what RSS is or how it works.  It sounds complicated but it’s really a simple and convenient way to follow blogs.

Not to mention sites like Feedly make subscribing and reading blogs from mobile devices convenient since many of these services have apps.  Feedly will also transfer all your Google Reader blog subscriptions right over to them.

So if you use Google Reader, consider using them to follow blogs you love.  There are convenient add-ons/extensions for both Firefox and Chrome.

Cutting Out The RSS Middleman

You might be wondering, Lisa, why would you recommend Feedly or another free RSS service and risk them shutting down like Google Reader?

First of all, email and RSS are two different animals.

There will always be ways to subscribe to blog RSS feeds because it doesn’t cost anything to create and display a feed.  So I’m less worried about losing track of RSS subscribers because they will find other readers.

Heck, they can even use their browser to subscribe with RSS if they want.  (More details on this in a bit.)

Email is completely different because it can be a very costly service to maintain for the provider — which is why MailChimp is only free for up to 2,000 subscribers and AWeber is not free at all.

Relying on Feedburner’s email service to be free or last forever seems unrealistic — especially if the service is not making money for Google.  So for email, I think you should be careful about relying on free services for your blog.

I’ve sure learned the hard way.

Promoting Your Direct Feed

You may also want to consider educating your readers about subscribing to your direct feed that’s hosted on your domain.  That way you cut out the middleman (Feedburner, Feedly, etc.)

For example, if you use WordPress, your blog’s feed (which is simply a list of your latest posts) is http://yoursite.com/feed.  Your visitors can subscribe to this link right from the their browser.

If you use Firefox, go to Bookmarks >> Subscribe to this Page.  Now you can subscribe directly from your browser using their Live Bookmarks feature.

From now on, you can access any blog’s latest posts from your browser’s Bookmarks.

Chrome has a similar feature with the RSS Subscription Extension. (By the way, Google did recently change their mind and decided to keep this alive in spite of Google Reader’s impending death.)  But you need to install the extension.

So in this case, you’re still relying on Google to keep this extension around.  To my knowledge, Chrome does not have a default, built-in RSS reader like Firefox does. Although, I could be wrong.

In any event, take this opportunity to educate your readers on how they can keep up with your blog updates.

In fact, I’ve just added a More Subscription Options link underneath my opt-in form to enlighten my future subbies on other subscription alternatives.

You can’t always assume everyone understands RSS — even in 2013 (unless your audience is more tech savvy.)

I used a similar page when my blog and RSS was fairly new.  It drastically increased my number of subscribers.  Not sure why I stopped using it.

Let’s Sum This All Up

Google Reader is shutting down on July 1st.

That’s no rumor.  It’s a fact.

That means anyone who subscribes to your blog’s RSS feed using this service will have to find something else.

Feedly seems like a logical choice because they will migrate all your Google Reader subscriptions right over.

So make sure your readers know about this big change coming up.  I’ve even considered adding a small blurb about it at the bottom of my future posts just to remind my readers of all the changes.

There is no official word that Feedburner is dying, but just in case it happens, it might be a good idea to slowly begin migrating away from their email service and use Feedblitz, AWeber, etc. for those who’d rather sign up for email updates on your blog.

And if you think email is dead?  Think again.  I actually have more email subscribers for this blog than I do RSS.  Just because you’re tech savvy, doesn’t mean your readers are.

And finally, it’s really best for people to subscribe to your blog’s feed using the built-in URL from your domain, so they aren’t relying on a 3rd party service or extension.

However, it’s not realistic to expect everyone to select that choice considering some people are heavily reliant on mobile devices and prefer to use Feedly and other similar apps/extensions.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t hurt to explain the options and even consider creating a “How To Subscribe” page that will appease all types of readers.

So what about you?  Do the Feedburner rumors concern you at all?

If you know your way around Photoshop, YouTube channel design would be an awesome niche to dive into to since the YouTube layout seems to change every other month.

Creating Your New Banner/Channel Art

In April, YouTube will force all channels to use the new “One Channel” layout, so you might as well get a jump on creating that new banner if you haven’t already.

Need help?  I created a tutorial for Photoshop users shown below. Even if you don’t know how to use Photoshop, you can follow along and create a very basic image.

In a rush and/or just want to learn what’s new with the layout?  Details are below.

The above video focused more on the channel banner design.  The following video shows you how to customize your homepage layout…

Don’t Have Photoshop?

If you create images in another program that doesn’t allow you to open PSD files, follow the lead of one of my Twitter followers.

Electronics USA (TechDemos on YouTube) used Karen Kavett’s JPG image in her blog post as a guide to create the image in ClarisWorks (a program retired by Apple some years ago.)

@2createawebsite @karenkavett I created a banner WITHOUT Photoshop. Karen’s full size JPG was extremely helpful. Tnx for including that JPG!

— Electronics USA (@ElectronicsUSA) March 16, 2013

So you can open the JPG image shown on Karen’s page in your favorite graphics program, and use it as a guide for your image to ensure that your channel art corresponds to the YouTube specs.

Need a free alternative to Photoshop?  Download GIMP, and I found a template for the new layout you can use.

The downside of using some cheaper graphic editors is you may not be able to save your image as a higher quality (PNG) file as illustrated in the video.  So your image may look grainy after YouTube compresses it.

Free Backgrounds

Here’s some more help for you non-Photoshop users.

I whipped up some high-quality, textured-pattern backgrounds in Photoshop (PNG files) that you can download.

Open them up in any image editor and add your text or images on top.  Use Karen’s image is a guide for text placement.  Also, try to re-save them as PNG files to maintain the quality.

(Email subscribers:  Make sure you enable images in this message or click here to view them.)

Click here to download the ZIP file.

Outsourcing Anyone?

If the very thought of even trying to create an image makes you curl up into a ball, you can always outsource the task to Freelancer, Fiverr or oDesk and call it a day.

I’ve seen some pretty nice channel banners created with Fiverr (outsource work for $5).  At first I was leery about recommending them for graphic outsourcing, but I’ve been impressed on numerous occasions with images that have come from this service.

In fact, Wade Harman was just telling me in our chat on Google Plus yesterday that he used Fiverr to create his Google Plus cover photo.

Just make sure you pay attention to the feedback of the person before hiring, because sometimes you do get what you pay for.

Also, give your designer Karen’s PSD file for reference so they can create the banner according to the YouTube specs.

So What’s New With YouTube’s Layout?

Change is often difficult to swallow, but there are some cool things about the new design most of us will grow to love.

1) Larger Channel Art – Banners are now called “Channel Art” and the image (2120 x 1192) can be designed so it’s responsive to various browsing experiences (TV’s, mobile devices, desktops, tablets, etc.)

Here’s my art from one of my channels…

2) Channel Trailers – Create a short video introducing people to your channel (seen by non-subscribers only).  For the record, these videos are on autoplay only, so keep that volume down when browsing YouTube at work.

Here’s mine…

3) Custom Links Display – The main link to your website is now displayed on your channel art and you can choose from a variety of custom links that will show along with their corresponding favicons  (WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, Zazzle, Flickr, Pinterest, etc.)

You’re allowed to add up to 4 links.

To update the links, just hover over the right side of your channel art and click “Edit Links.”

Unfortunately I’m stuck with two custom links because there’s a bug that doesn’t allow me to update my information.

For whatever reason, YouTube doesn’t seem to like domains that start with numbers right now.  So until that’s fixed, I’m stuck with what I have. 

I’m actually shocked that such an obvious bug has not been addressed by now.  Well, thank goodness I have something there until the problem is resolved.

Ty from Ty’s iPhone Help re-tweeted my issue to @YTCreators, so maybe that’ll get their attention since Ty has such a large YouTube presence.

Wishful thinking?  Perhaps.  But thanks anyway, Ty!

@ytcreators — RT @2createawebsite New @youtube layout is buggy. If your domain starts with a number you cant save/update your Custom Links

— Ty Moss (@tymoss) March 16, 2013

4) Increased Control – Now there is more flexibility with how your playlists and videos are displayed.  Add a new “Section” to feature your uploads, playlists, likes and more.

5) Profile Pic Inside Header -  Your profile pic will float on the left side of your channel art.  This really looks best when the pic matches your channel image (see iJustine’s channel).

What We Lost

1) Backgrounds – Say goodbye to that cool background that blended so nicely into your header.

Hope you didn’t get too attached to it.  Now all channels will have white backgrounds — at least until the next layout update.

Anyone want to bet how long before the next re-design?

2) Image Maps – You can’t create clickable links within your channel banner anymore.  However, your custom links that appear on your channel art I referenced above are clickable.

3) Cleanliness – I think this layout has too much info crammed in, and everything seem to run together.  It’s a bit too jumbled for my taste.  I felt the previous layout was more streamlined and cleaner — largely because we could control colors of the background.

Your Thoughts?

So what do you think of the new layout as a viewer and/or channel owner?

Should YouTube have left well enough alone or do you like the new design?

The answer is simply…

It depends.

People have different business models. Not everyone is a blogger or creates a website on a passion/interest.

For example, your core business may be podcasting, and perhaps that vehicle drives most of your sales. However, you could also have a website with a lot of general, fact-based content that supports your podcast, but is not essential to generating sales.

In this case, outsourcing certain kinds of content may be appropriate.

Personally, I prefer to write the majority of my content — especially on this blog where I often share my personal experiences, experiments, etc. I can tell you now, you won’t see any outsourced content here.

However, since my business has diversified a bit to the offline world, I have discovered instances where outsourcing is necessary for certain kinds of informational content.

For the record, I don’t consider guest posts to be outsourced content. I am talking about having someone else write an article as if it’s coming from you.

Where to Go for Article Writing

There are many places to outsource content: Freelancer, oDesk, Elance, iWriter, etc.

However, I want to talk about Textbroker.com (no affiliation) because you don’t hear as much about this site compared to the others, and I was pleasantly surprised with how fast and efficient the entire process was.

How Textbroker Works

First of all, it only takes a few minutes to setup an account. They are compatible with PayPal, so they use the escrow method where you deposit funds into your account to pay the authors once the work is complete.

After the quick account setup, you’re ready to submit your article request.

Choosing The Order Type

One aspect I like about Textbroker is the selection of order types. So far I’ve only selected the Open Order, which puts your article into the pool for any author to grab.  The order types are explained below…

Choosing The Quality

I also like that you have control over the quality of your articles. There are 5 levels, with 1 being the lowest (cheapest) and 5 being the highest (most expensive per word).

A level 5 article is more than double the cost of a level 4, and since I personally tweak the content to fit my voice, I’ve found that a level 4 is sufficient for my needs.

Just to give you an idea, a level 4 article that contains roughly 750 words is going to run around $16. Obviously there are cheaper services out there, but you often get what you pay for. I’m not necessarily looking for the cheapest solution, especially since I don’t use these services often.

So far, the grammar and spelling in my articles have been perfect. Also, the authors have done a good job of following my directions for how the article should be written, organized, etc.

There’s even an SEO option that allows you to set “required keywords” for your article. I prefer to handle my own SEO and see no reason to use this part of the service — especially with all the changes to SEO in recent months.

Completing The Order

If you’re not happy with the article, you are free to send it back for corrections/revisions. Once you are satisfied, you can rate the work and release the payment to the author.

The Key to Outsourcing

If you’re like me and prefer to write the majority of your content and want to ensure your voice is consistent throughout your site, I think you should use article outsourcing very sparingly.

As I’ve already mentioned, I prefer to tweak the article and add my own personal flare to make the content my own.

If a big part of your success has come from writing in your own tone and voice, you don’t want to tarnish that by going overboard with outsourcing. The key is knowing when to do it and ensure the content flows with the rest of your work.

Having said that, outsourcing a few articles here and there has really been a big time saver for me now that I am continuing to diversify and work on other projects.

What about you? Do you outsource any of your articles? What has your experience been like? What service(s) do you use?

So I wanted to update you on the traffic to my hidden WordPress website I created in 2011 that I have been using to test how much organic traffic I can build without chasing backlinks.

It’s been six months since that post and the traffic has increased by roughly 50,000 page views per month and you can see the comparison screenshots below…

Email subscribers: click here to view the screenshots if you cannot view the images.

August 2012

February 2013

Since the last post in August, I’ve added roughly 20 pages.

For the record, a few people were suspicious/curious about the tool I’m using to track the traffic because they didn’t recognize the above graph.

It’s the WordPress.com Stats Plugin.  I also use Google Analytics, but the WP plugin is just more convenient to check.  So just in case you’re interested, the Google Analytics report looks about the same…

What?!?! No Backlinks???

The last post generated a bit of confusion.  People didn’t understand how I could build so much organic traffic without backlinks.

For the record, I never said this site doesn’t have backlinks.  Of course it does.  However, they were earned naturally.  The point is, I haven’t been chasing or manually building backlinks through guest posting, linking schemes, etc.

I have simply been writing content and targeting long-tail (less competitive) keywords.

I’m Not Alone

So I updated my traffic story on my forum, Website Babble, and it was good to see that other members are experiencing similar results.  Here are two replies from the thread…

From Seanguy75

Lisa this is a very cool post. Thanks for sharing your experience with this! Other than making a squidoo page early on that links to our site and literally only having our website address in one signature on one forum related to our niche, we have done no backlink building at all.

We are ranking #1 for our original keyword that I targeted at the beginning and #3 right now for another larger keyword in the niche. We are getting around 40,000-50,000 page views a month right now and hope to keep increasing this!

I have never done a guest post and have focused mainly on content and SEO. The SEO mainly being on page SEO. I tell my girlfriend who is actually my partner on the website now all the time about the things you recommend and how you do things. Cool post here and very encouraging for us!

It is funny, I was not expecting us to hit the top of our keyword as soon as we did so I have focused most of my efforts and research into content and basically how to get where we are now.

I told my girlfriend, wow I guess it is time for me to start researching and learning all about monetization now! We went from getting 10-40 visitors a day to 500-800 a day within a few weeks and have stayed in the upper amounts ever since. It has just been hitting me that we have enough traffic to really start doing something here now. LOL

Anyhow, most of this was done without any backlink chasing at all. I just never really got around to that. Once it became about content, it just has been about that ever since. Thank you for your ethics, your inspiration, your attentiveness to questions even though you must have a thousand or more a day and for this post!  Can’t wait to hit 100k!

From emvy548

I do have a similar experience as seanguy75.

I have a website in a hard-fought photography related niche. I posted a lot of good content based on my experience as a freelance photographer (one of my hobbies), and also some research done on the web. I did not build any backlinks for this site and let it sit – pretty much forgot about it while I got tied into various other assignments.

A few months later I noticed that my website was ranking in the top 5 results for several two-word keyword phrases with two of them being in the top three. It is a simple site with pure content and no monetization – not even Adsense on this one.

I am planning to add more content and monetize it though, hoping at the same time that its stays afloat at the top!

You can join this conversation on Website Babble here.

The Take-Home

Let me make one thing clear.  Building a business that relies solely on SEO is a dangerous game.  That is not the point of this post.

If you’ve been following me long enough, you know that my business is not SEO dependent.  This is just an experiment.  I just want to show that yes, in 2013 it is still possible to build decent traffic without chasing backlinks.

Of course, a lot of variables have to come into play (niche choice, competition, the quality of the earned backlinks, etc.) however it is still possible.  Too many people today are still targeting competitive/broad keywords and their sites are not focused enough around a central theme.

And I actually think this site would have even more traffic had I done this experiment before Google started favoring brands in late 2010.  With this experiment specifically, it is quite evident how much brands get a lift in the SERPS.

So ranking for long-tail (less competitive) keywords is where the traffic is coming from (just like Carl’s Disney site).

Having said that, I’m not complaining. Getting 150,000 monthly page views (2300 daily uniques) is certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Thanks for the Feedback

I really enjoyed reading all your comments on the last post.  Many of you confirmed that you’ve experienced positive traffic results without chasing backlinks as well.

Keep the encouraging results and comments coming!

I joke, but I’ve read so many complaints about their various products in recent weeks and most of them involve reporting.

From quirks in the Google Webmaster Tools backlink reports to Analytics not reporting, you name it.

Last month I began receiving more “low-AdSense-earnings” Facebook messages and emails than I normally do.

I don’t obsessively check my earnings like I used to, so it had literally been a couple of weeks since I logged in. Now I was curious.

The Case of the Missing Impressions

At the end of January, I decided to check my account.  I expected my earnings to be far above November and December for two reasons…

1. My traffic had increased quite a bit since November and December (the norm around this time of year).
2. After the Holidays are over, advertisers tend to spend more in this niche — which positively impacts my earnings.

After I logged in I was quite surprised to see that even though traffic was way up, my earnings were not.  In fact, my January earnings were on pace to be less than December’s.

So I investigated a little more and noticed that impressions for one of my highest traffic units were not being recorded.

It started around January 18th and as of today, there are still sporadic issues.

What’s interesting is that on one day, one of my units won’t track properly and another is working fine.  But on the next day, the unit that was tracking properly will stop tracking and the other one begins reporting properly again.

Then on January 20th, I noticed a large increase in my earnings for that day.   My click-through-rate was normal, so it was as if they were playing catch-up with earnings that had not been reported previously.

And finally, on February 5th I logged in and saw this message…

It was nice to finally get some kind of acknowledgement that there are issues — even though it was pretty obvious something was not quite right.

Be Patient

If your earnings are low and your traffic, click-through rates and eRPM (revenue per page) are “normal” (obviously normal is relative), there could be issues with the reporting.  However, Google assures that everything is still being recorded.

Meanwhile the Google forums are also on fire with complaints about low earnings in 2013.  Some people are reporting “stuck” impression reports like me and others are noticing lower eRPM (revenue per page earnings), a decrease in click-through rates, etc.

More Delays

Then there’s Google Analytics…

Since last summer I’ve been experiencing intermittent issues with delayed reporting.

Apparently I’m not alone.

Some people claim that their accounts have stopped reporting data altogether.  See the post below…

What about you?  Have you noticed anything strange with any of your Google accounts recently?

And it’s even more inspiring when the person triumphs after nearly quitting due to frustration with the slow rate of success.

If you didn’t get a chance to watch Carl’s Google Hangout last Thursday, you missed a treat.

The video is fairly long, and many of you told me you didn’t have time to watch, so I wanted to summarize some of the lessons you can utilize to help improve your own site.

Who is Carl?

Carl is an air traffic controller by day and Webmaster of DadsGuidetoWDW.com by night, who is looking to retire soon.

With 200,000 visits per month, he is confident that by the end of next year, his site will be earning enough for him to retire comfortably (in addition to his job’s retirement income.)

So what can you learn from Carl?

Plenty.

Below I’ll summarize some of the best nuggets from his interview…

He Uses a Tiered Structure to Help Engage Visitors

Carl’s site is not a blog.  It’s a traditional information website where the content is organized by tiers.

He mentioned that one of his category pages has an incredibly good bounce rate, and he credits it to his site structure.

A bounce is the percentage of people who leave your site after viewing the page they entered on.  Reporting tools like Google Analytics reveal this statistic in your reports.  The lower your bounce rate, the better.

So what the heck does all that mean?

If your site is more informational/educational, it’s often a good idea to arrange at least some of your content using the silo method.  And to illustrate this concept better, I’ve created a diagram in Photoshop…

The menu items are links to your Tier 2 landing pages that contain additional information that support the menu item categories.  And the articles would be your Tier 3 pages that link from the Tier 2 (landing) pages.

If your site is more informational/educational and you don’t want a blog-like content structure (posts sorted by date and category), this an ideal way to organize your content to help guide people through your site and encourage them to read more content.

If you are creating a static site, this is typically the default way of arranging your pages.  (Carl uses Site Build It! so this is what they teach when it comes to building informational sites.)

He studies his stats and noticed people often return to his landing pages to reference the links there.  So not only do these pages yield a lower bounce rate, but they generate repeat visits due to the fact people often reference such pages.

If you use WordPress, you’ll need to tweak a few things to achieve this organization, but it’s very simple to setup.

Link your main navigation to landing pages instead of Categories.  The landing page should provide additional content and links that support the menu links.

To change your menu in WordPress, simply create your own custom menu by going to Appearance >> Menu.  Now link to the Tier 2 landing pages you’ve created to help establish a better content funnel.

The great thing about WordPress is you can make use of both the static and dynamic content organization when appropriate.

Take Home:  Static pages and a logical content structure are useful for helping your visitors find important content that could improve your bounce rate and overall conversions.

This setup may not be ideal for every kind of site, but it certainly makes sense in certain cases — even if that means using the silo structure only on parts of your site.

You Can’t Compare Apples to Oranges

During the live Hangout, someone asked how long before Carl received a certain amount of traffic.

Sensing the person was trying to use his traffic numbers as a benchmark for their own, Carl didn’t hesitate to point out that traffic varies greatly due to the niche, site, etc.

Take Home:  You can’t use someone else’s numbers to estimate your site’s potential success.  Every niche is different and there are just too many different variables involved to compare.

I was glad he pointed that out, because I get that question a lot as well.

Go For The Longtail

Carl knew he could never compete with any of the competitive Disney keywords because Google now heavily favors brands more than ever.  He would need a ton of high quality backlinks to compete on that level.

So he was very smart to go for the longtail keywords that are less competitive.  That’s where the majority of his search engine traffic comes from.

He may not ever rank well for Disney World Hotels (this search phrase is heavily dominated by big brands), but as you can see, he ranks very well for best time to visit Disney World.

Take Home:  Longtail keywords don’t get as many searches, but they are easier to rank for.  And even though you may not get as much traffic, it adds up when you start getting found for numerous longtail phrases.

This is a strategy newbies often miss when starting their sites and trying to build search engine traffic.

Gather Content Inspiration From Your Keyword Referral Reports

Carl discovered he was getting traffic from some keywords related to the Disney crowds.  So he used that information to build more content around those phrases.

I use this strategy all the time.  If you notice you’re getting traffic from a particular keyword you may not have been necessarily targeting, look for opportunities to create more content around that phrase, variations and related keywords.

Take Home:  Studying your keyword referral reports can provide a lot of content inspiration.

Awesome Facebook Engagement

I really like one of Carl’s engagement strategies.

He invites his fans to send him pictures and then uploads them as his Cover photo on a daily basis.

You can check out his page here.  Notice how great his overall interaction is.

Carl also made a solid point about using Facebook to support your site, instead of using it as your main hub.

Many people neglect their sites for social media instead of using it to drive people back to content they truly own.  And some people don’t even have websites.  They rely completely on social media.

Remember, you don’t technically own your Facebook page.  So if you were to ever lose it due to some Facebook violation for example, what would happen to your business?  Would it survive?

Take Home: Take advantage of the accessibility and popularity of social media, but also use it to drive people back to your site and convert sales.

Twitter Isn’t For Everyone

This is not an anti-Twitter tip, but I want to take the opportunity to emphasize something.

A lot of people feel obligated to master Twitter because it’s so popular today.

If you can find a way to utilize it for your business, then go for it because it can be very useful for generating traffic, leads, etc.  But if you aren’t getting anything from it, focus on what works and don’t waste time on something that doesn’t.

In Carl’s case, he found that Facebook yields better results, so that’s where he focuses his social media marketing efforts.

Take Home:  Test, test, re-test and learn to prioritize your time based on what you know works best for your business.

Never Give Up

Carl admitted that his first year (2008) was tough.  By the start of his second year, he was earning roughly $30 per month.

He became quite frustrated, and even put his site up for sale because he felt it should have been making much more by that time.

How many of you can relate to that feeling?

It’s easy to get sidetracked by comparing your site to others, or maybe you assumed the money would come a lot faster.   If you’re finding yourself in that place, Carl’s been there too.

Nevertheless, he decided to keep building in 2009 and it paid off as time went on. January, 2013 was a record month in terms of traffic for his site.

Take Home:  When the going gets tough, keep working hard.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither are successful websites.

Way to go, Carl!  Keep up the great work.