Donnerstag, 28. Januar 2016

11 Excuses That Serious Bloggers Don’t Make

11 Excuses That Serious Bloggers Don’t Make

You have decided you want to spend more time on your blog.

You’ve been thinking about this for quite some time, discussing it with friends and maybe even your cat.

But you haven’t started yet.

There’s a long list of things that are holding you back. You don’t have time, money, ideas, confidence or anything else you think you need in order to blog professionally. Maybe you’re tired, busy or stressed. So you tell your cat, “Maybe once I’m feeling perfect, with an abundance of wonderful blog ideas, I’ll start on my blog. I need a guaranteed audience, anyway.” 

It’s time for you to face it.

Even professional bloggers, making money hand over fist, have to struggle through obstacles. Very seldom do professionals blog under perfect conditions. There will always be something in the way – no support, little confidence, poor health or very little time.

But guess what?

Nearly every blogger on the internet faces the exact same problems.

These things holding you back from blogging begin to look very much like excuses when you realize that professionals often have the same problems you do, don’t they?

Below are some of the most common reasons used to excuse yourself from becoming a blogger.

If you previously believed any of them to be true, you will probably have changed your mind by the time you’re done reading this…

1. People aren’t going to like my opinions

Blogging is often an extremely personal business. Especially when you’re writing about topics such as home décor, fashion and health, you can feel like you are posting your personal feelings out on the internet for everyone to see.

Even non-personal topics can expose your personal feel and touch.

While you may consider yourself to be alone in feeling hesitant to reveal your personal opinion, this is a common feeling among bloggers.

Even your favorite hero of the blog world feels nervous every time he or she hits the “Publish” button. If you are hanging back from blogging because you are afraid no one will like your blog, just try writing a post and publishing it.

If no one at all likes your post (which is extremely unlikely), you will have lost nothing. However, if people do like your writing, they’ll let you know (and come back for more!).

If you’re starting to feel discouraged from negative reviews, always remember that a negative response is actually positive.

It means your writing is powerful.

It means that your writing has the ability to make your readers react.

2. I have nothing new to contribute

“There is nothing new under the sun, is there? So why bother blogging? Everyone’s already said everything there is to say.”

This is a common feeling among first-time bloggers.

But it is not true.

Everyone has their own personal voice and the unique way to describe something, for example, might be what sets you apart from the competition.

No one has had exactly the same experiences that you have, no one has read the books and articles you have and no one has had exactly the same experiences. Genuinely original ideas very seldom come to even the top dogs of the blogging world.

What sets these bloggers apart is the unique lens through which they view the world, their personality and their writing style.

3. Everybody’s already writing about this topic

Let’s say you want to write a blog on dance music.

To get ideas flowing, you do a Google search and discover to your horror that countless other people have had the same idea and actually beat you to writing the blog. And some these people have been blogging on dance music for years.

So why would anyone want to read your blog?

Look at it this way: There are lots of blogs on this topic because there are lots of people who want to read about dance music. They want new and better information on the topic, so you should feel encouraged by the presence of numerous blogs on the same topic you want to write about.

“If there aren’t popular blogs in the niche you’re interested in, find a new one!”

So don’t be scared to write about a topic many other bloggers are already writing about.

There are countless ways you can cover any given topic, and your personal spin will add a unique edge to your articles.

Alternatively you could collaborate with some other people and use the 6-3-5 method to come up with over 100  new ideas in just 30 minutes.

108 solutions for ideas for serious bloggers

4. I’m far too busy for blogging

You are on your feet, running from place to place from midnight to midnight (it feels like) and it doesn’t look like you have time to work on a blog post every day, or week, or how ever often you’d like to blog.

You tell yourself you just don’t have time… but guess what?

Unless they’re getting an actual salary for the work, professional bloggers don’t have unlimited time for working on their blogs either.

They are often just as busy (in fact most likely busier) than the average person.

So how can you find the time?

Probably, you take your smartphone everywhere you go.

Take advantage of the little blocks of time you have while you’re waiting in traffic, in line at the grocery store or while you’re waiting to pick your kids up from school and work on your blog.

You might feel a little silly, and people may think you’re obsessive, but that’s okay.

At least you’re getting your blog post written.

Another way to make time for your blog is to set up a non-negotiable date with yourself at a quiet coffee shop once a week and work on your blog post at that time.  A handy online tool to keep you on track to making time for writing is 750 Words, which helps you build a streak of daily writing and rewards you as your streak grows.

750 words - tool for serious bloggers

If you try to wait until time to blog pops up, you will be waiting forever.

So create the time and blog away.

5. I don’t know where to start

So you make a list of everything that needs to be done for your blog and immediately go into a state of brain freeze.

What should you do first – brainstorm blog post ideas, create a social media presence, work on the blog design or any one of the other 101 things on your to-do list?

The best way to start is to write up a list of everything that needs to be accomplished and select tasks based on how you are currently feeling at the moment.

Perhaps you’re feeling artistically creative, but are dead sick of writing. When you’re in this mood, you should focus on designing your blog.

If your creative writing juices are flowing, perhaps you should work on brainstorming ideas. Try to match your current mood and disposition to an appropriate task on your list.

It really doesn’t matter what order you decide to accomplish your tasks.

Getting the work accomplished is what’s important.

So create a list of things to be accomplished and get to work.

6. I can’t blog right now – It’s not a good time

Perhaps your cat is sick and you want to wait to start blogging until she feels better.

Or perhaps you feel your bank account balance is chronically low and are hesitant to commit your limited resources to blogging.

Every time you contemplate beginning your blog, you say to yourself, “No, it’s not a good time right now. As soon as I have problems A, B and C under control, I’ll start blogging.”

The sad truth is, the moment you have A, B and C under control brand-new problems will pop up out of nowhere and smile at you.

There is very seldom a perfect place in your – or any blogger’s – life where you can blog to your heart’s content with no problems whatsoever.

If you try to wait until your blogging conditions are perfect, you will be waiting forever. If times are hard for you, you can take baby steps towards your blogging goals every day – maybe coming up with one blog post idea per day, if that’s all you can do.

Record your tiny steps dutifully, and when life calms down again, you’ll have jumpstarted your blog.

7. I’m too tired

Coming home after the nine-to-five job, you have to make dinner, clean up, put the kids to bed and do whatever preparations you need towards getting out to work the next day.

After accomplishing that, you’re too exhausted to do anything except curl up on the sofa with a cup of joe and watch The Walking Dead.

You tell yourself that you are simply too tired to work on your blog.

This excuse just doesn’t pass muster.

Nothing gives a person more energy than working towards a goal you care about. If you’re feeling wiped out at the end of the day, just sitting down and working on the blog can get your creativity working and get you excited and energized.

One of my students recently had an idea for an e-book. The excitement and energy she got from the idea enabled her to work on it from late in the evening until 2am. She accomplished the 180-page project, as well as the marketing plan, in just three weeks.

So if you’re feeling exhausted and unmotivated, make yourself open up the laptop and try working for 15 minutes.

Usually, you’ll find that after ten minutes, you’ve almost magically found the brain power and energy to keep on working for a long time.

8. I shall fail

Of course, you don’t want to fail, be rejected or ignored.

But this isn’t a good reason to not work on your blog.

Dog photo with fail for serious bloggers

Yes, you tell yourself that no blog posts means there’s no way you can look up your traffic on Google Analytics and panic as you realize nobody cares. But not writing is a failure in a class of its own.

Besides, if you start on the blog, at least there is a chance people will be interested, right?

The authors of all the blogs in your inbox all took a risk when they released their first blog post.

If you try blogging, there’s a 50% chance you will succeed and a 50% chance you will fail. If you don’t even try, there’s a 100% chance that you will fail.

9. If my blog succeeds, my friends will hate me

Maybe you’re worried that, if your blog becomes popular, you’ll lose friends, who will envy your success and refuse to socialize with you anymore.

To be honest, you are better off without friends if they become envious over your success.

True friends will rejoice with you in your achievements. Don’t waste time worrying over whether fake friends will ostracize you. Just get writing.

10. I have to study more

You are virtually – no pun intended – inundated with books, webinars, tips and blogs on how to start a blog.

The next one may have the perfect compilation of data you need to get your blog off the ground. So you keep learning about WordPress, learning about Social Media, learning about SEO and never getting anywhere.

This is a common excuse, because there is no exact way of knowing when you’ve studied enough to stop learning and start blogging.

The fastest way to determine whether you’ve studied enough or not is to get your blog up and running and start posting. Your readers’ response -or the lack thereof – will inform you where exactly you are when it comes to know-how.

Don’t feel bad if your first posts are terrible – before you know it, they will become lost in time’s shifting sands.

11. I don’t have any good ideas

This is one of the most common excuses in the blogging world.

Wondering how to generate one idea after the other on the same topic for days, weeks and months can be so daunting that you want to quit before you even begin.

One great way to come up with new ideas is to be prepared for “inspired” moments. There are usual times where you are suddenly buried in a deluge of great ideas all at once – while going to sleep, driving or showering.

Try to be prepared for these moments by carrying a notepad or your smartphone with you at these times. But don’t take your smartphone in the shower unless it has a waterproof case!

If you are still stuck you can check out my list of 47 content ideas for bloggers.

Awesome content ideas infographic for serious bloggers

Conclusion

If these or any other excuses are preventing you from blogging, remember that even successful bloggers face little demons like these.

Even the most successful bloggers aren’t immune to hesitation or doubt – they’ve simply learned to push through and take action.

And you can, too.

Guest Author: Jamie Spencer is a blogging coach and helps bloggers to start their first blog at setupablogtoday.com . Follow Jamie on Twitter @setupablogtoday.


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Mittwoch, 27. Januar 2016

5 Growth Hacks to Help You Grow Your Blog Business

5 Growth Hacks to Help You Grow Your Blog Business

One of the most misleading perspectives of a dinosaur’s history is the one that effectively proves that this creature was unintelligible and inhumane and therefore faced a grave threat to its existence and continuance, ever since the pre-Jurassic period. This distinction demolishes the creature’s uniqueness and cognitive abilities and overlooks, in its entirety, all rescinding factors that suggest evidence to the contrary.”

Confusing, isn’t it? It is nearly impossible to understand the above paragraph without reading it at least twice. Some might still not understand it. And this is one of the biggest reasons why many blogging businesses fail to take-off.

Blogging is an art. However, you do not need to be like Picasso to create a compelling blog post, nor do you need to be an art-fan to appreciate it. Some of the most SEO-revolutionizing blog posts are written in simple and easy-to-read language with little-to-no technicalities.

If you’re a small business wondering how to grow your blog business to boost your SEO rankings and get more clients, here are 5 growth hacks to help you grow your business blog:

1. Sharing case studies

What is the best way to improve your blog quality? Robbie Richards considers the mix of right keywords and case studies as the “ultimate guide to limitless organic traffic and potential business leads.”

Nowadays, most readers and first time buyers are looking for product reviews before making their final buying decision. They have particular keywords in mind, when using a Google Search. If you want to make your blog posts relevant, reliable and action-oriented, then case studies are what you need.

This means juicing up your blogs with the right keywords. UAV Coach, a small business that offers educational resources for aspiring aerial videographers, used this tactic. To build up its reputation, the organization searched for high-density keywords and created relevant blogs.

Google search for drone - growth hacks for bloggers

2. Don’t take competitors lightly

Competitor resources are powerful. Think of them as an alternative route to a congested road. As a blogger, you need to keep a check on your competitors business if you want to stay ahead of the game and leave clients begging for more.

Brian Dean reiterates that, “Testimonials and Competitor Keyword Analysis are two of the most important resources you need to make your blog business grow.” In 2014, Shane and Jocelyn Sam made a little over $140,000. They were not selling any products!

They were two online marketers who spent an adequate amount of time reading testimonials of competitors and understanding the specific keywords such competitors used. This allowed them to create compelling blog posts that helped skyrocket their earnings.

Competitor research - growth hacks for bloggers

3. Connect with your audience

Imagine you’re planning to launch a new range of high-calorie chocolate pastries and your blog posts are published in an online fitness journal. Similarly, think about a new range of baby care products being marketed to singles. Neither strategies work.

Your blogs are only good if your readers can relate to them. Unless you’ve identified your target audience, you’ll end up running around in circles and praying for a miracle! Blog Guru Jon Morrow remarks, “Being a popular blogger isn’t about being a teacher, it’s about being a performer.”

As a stalwart inspirational blogger, Jon Morrow first identifies his audience and evaluates their needs. He then relies on anecdotes to create blog posts that compel his audience to take the desired action.

Here’s an example of his work:

Jon Morrow example - growth hacks for bloggers

4. Hosting irresistible contests across Facebook

Let’s admit it. There’s a lot more to Facebook than memes, cat videos, keyboard warriors, and selfies! The popular social network makes Zuckerberg a rich man through promotions, contests, and advertising – something that guarantees a slice of the pie for your blogging business too.

“You can easily generate leads without spinning out 2000 word articles every week. The simplest approach is to rely on Facebook for the job. Hosting an irresistible contest on Facebook gets you more viewers and readers than any other source,” remarks Jon Loomer.

Dinesh D’Souza is a public figure and author. Sometime back, he decided to launch a Facebook contest. The winner of the contest was to get a free eBook, written by the author. The very idea of a giveaway was one of the most powerful reasons why his Facebook page had more than 4,500 views and over 2,200 registered with his mailing list.

The conversion rate swelled to 50%. The contest also grew his fan base and following exponentially. Here’s a small snippet of what happened:

Facebook contest - growth hacks for bloggers

5. Never underestimate emails

Some marketing moguls opine that emails are a waste of time. In today’s world, people barely have time to read an email and most of them are likely to skim through the content. However, one simply cannot deny the power of a short and sweet message.

Short emails can help improve your response rates. We’re not saying that long and overly personalized messages are good or that short and cold emails do the trick. The key is to strike a balance. Here’s an example of a short and powerful email, attached to a blog post, which i sent to a blogger:

Bill email - growth hacks for bloggers

And here’s the response i received:

Email response - growth hacks for bloggers

In a nutshell…

Blogging is an integral part of digital marketing. The industry is relatively new and is booming. Several new entrants are making their way to the top. The creativity pool and talent is global and potentially limitless.

In such a scenario, you cannot leave anything up to chance. Enough has been said on how to write an effective blog. But no attention is paid on how to get your message across? How to connect with your audience? How to add that perfect finishing touch to your blogs?

Case studies, competitor analysis, social media, email, and avid readers are some of the many factors that separate a good blog from a boring one. Think of these as the five stepping stones towards effective blog marketing.

If you have some other Holy Grails to Effective Blogging in mind or want to share your success story, feel free to leave your comment below!

Guest Author: Bill Achola is a digital marketing consultant and a professional blogger specializing in content writing and marketing at Billacholla.com. He works closely with B2B and B2C companies providing the right content that generates social shares, comments, and traffic back to their business blogs.


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Dienstag, 26. Januar 2016

9 Unexpected Ways to Ramp Up Marketing Productivity

9 Unexpected Ways to Ramp Up Marketing Productivity

Fair warning: You may think I’ve lost my mind after reading this, but science backs me up.

Almost every person reading this works too hard. We are connected 24/7. We work during our commutes, at the dinner table, before breakfast and after dinner. And we may be spending more time to get less done.

If you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, it may be time to step back and reassess. Crank up your productivity by working smarter – getting more done in less time.

1. Get more sleep

Seven to eight hours, and don’t skimp. In study after study, sleep deprivation has been found to lower productivity. In Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation, aggregated studies estimated the U.S. cost of lost productivity due to sleep deprivation at $41.1 billion per year. Add in injuries, illness, and on-the-job accidents, and you’re looking at hundreds of billions.

Workers who get a good night’s sleep pay more attention to detail, have better memory, and are better able to make decisions.

Arianna Huffington, Co-founder and Editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, says more sleep is no less than the secret to success.

2. Take breaks

That’s right, to get more done, you should literally work less. DeskTime studied the habits of their users and found that the 10% who are most productive work 52 minutes at a time, and take a 17 minute break. I know, oddly specific.

Set a time and devote yourself to work for those 52 minutes – no distractions. It’s similar to the concept used in The Pomodoro Technique, which advises 25 minute working sprints.

Scientific study backs the concept of beneficial breaks. Researchers at the University of Illinois found that focus starts to drop after 40 minutes of sustained mental effort.

Cornell University found the same results when they studied insurance company workers in 1999. Working on the theory that computer workers tend to be overly focused and ignore breaks. They developed a program to remind workers to take a break and stretch. The fastest typists showed a 40% improvement in accuracy over comparably skilled workers in the control group, who were not reminded to take breaks.

So what’s the most effective kind of break? To boost creativity and energy, take a walk. In just 20 minutes, you can improve memory and cognitive skills.

Study of two brains - marketing productivity

3. Collaborate more

Millenials are on the right track. Unlike older generations, they are the internet generation –  crowdsourcing from birth. Working with a team helps you stay on track and increases your productivity. Interestingly, the productivity boost and other benefits of teamwork apply to collaborative, self-directive teams. Team management has actually been found counter-productive. Teams overburdened by management tend to suppress personal initiative and authoritative action.

Don’t have a team? Me either, I’m a freelancer, and I work (mostly) alone. But every day, I have regular work meetings with an accountability partner, my friend and fellow writer, Cindy Watrous. We start the day by discussing what tasks are on the agenda for the day, then check in at intervals to report progress, brainstorm ideas and talk over career goals. I find that if one of us can’t make check-in for some reason, my productivity suffers.

4. Singletask

We’ve all been so proud of it for so long, it’s strange to think that multitasking might hurt productivity, but that’s exactly what Devora Zack, author of Singletasking: Get More Done – One Thing at a Time, says. And she documents solid neuroscientific evidence to back it up. One brain scan study even reveals that chronic multitaskers lose brain matter over time.

Singletasking is simple and easy to understand. Shut everything else down and do one thing at a time. James Hamblin, MB the health editor of The Atlantic says to have one tab open at a time. I just counted mine. 35.

5. Eat right

Eat the right foods. The food you choose can enhance your creativity, sharpen your focus, and help you avoid distracting health issues. And you might even lose a few pounds, which, let’s be honest, would make most netizens feel better overall. Sujan Patel wrote a list of the 15 foods you should be eating for better productivity.

Eat cherries for marketing productivity

(Source: Life Is A Bowl Full Of Cherries)

6. Schedule your day

Many of us are most alert and productive first thing in the morning, but that’s not the case for everyone. To find your optimal work schedule, keep track of what you”re already doing and figure out when you’re at your most alert. Schedule the most mentally taxing tasks of your day when you’re most focused and awake. Seems like a no-brainer.

Many of us who work online face similar problems as shift workers. Our clients might be anywhere in the world, and that can result in some very strange work hours. It’s not unusual to have bursts of creativity in the morning and again in the evening. And most of us are pretty useless in the middle of the afternoon. Good time for a nap.

7. Use the IoT

There’s no scientific evidence for this one, but it makes sense to put everything on auto. My medicines arrive at my door every three months, my car sends me an email when it needs a service, and now, not only can you order your office supplies online, your office supplies can order their own refills when they run low. How meta is that, when your stuff can order stuff?

IoT for marketing productivity

All kidding aside, we are becoming increasingly automated, and that’s probably a good thing. Once we grow accustomed to interconnected devices, our machines will pick up a lot of slack – by monitoring home safety for better piece of mind, optimizing heating, cooling, and lawn watering to save money and maintain comfort, and by providing us all the info we need to do necessary maintenance on everything… including our own health.

8. Harness the power of Kawaii

Don’t say I didn’t warn you about thinking I’ve lost my mind. Researchers in Japan studied the effect of cuteness (kawaii) on productivity. You read that right, cuteness. Specifically, baby animals. They found that students performed a simple task much better after viewing baby animals than after looking at either adult animals or pictures of food.

Power of Kawaii for marketing productivity

(Source: The Power of Kawaii: Viewing Cute Images Promotes a Careful Behavior and Narrows Attentional Focus)

9. Have better sex

You’re paying attention now, aren’t you? Sex is great. It’s relaxing, life-affirming, and it makes you happy. There’s even evidence that people who have sex at least four times a week make more money.

“These days we’re busier than ever, and many people tell me that they’re too tired to have sex. Yet, most people agree that sex is one of the most relaxing and pleasurable activities in our life. It connects us to our partner and helps us feel more confident and alive. When we have good sexual experiences, we feel more balanced, whole and happy. Making the time for ourselves and our relationship is important to feeling good at our jobs, which makes us more productive and successful!” – Lori Buckley, Psy.D., CST.,  Sinclair Institute

And, let’s not forget that exercise makes you more productive and sex is great exercise. Are you still here? Get busy!

Guest Author: Sherry Gray is a freelance content writer from Key West, FL, currently suffering the burbs of Orlando. She’s a science geek, a business and marketing writer, and an unapologetic fan of all things bacon. Connect with Sherry on Twitter@sherisaid or on Linkedin.


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Montag, 25. Januar 2016

A Step By Step Guide To More Clickable Banner Ads

A Step By Step Guide To More Clickable Banner Ads

Banner ads are one of the most common forms of advertising used in the online world.

As an affordable, effective and measurable medium they enable companies to draw attention to their brand and attract traffic back to a web page.

However, much like any other form of advertising, the success of a banner ad often depends on its design. The reasoning is simple – better design will make you stand out from the crowd, improve your click-through rate and ultimately get you ahead of the game.

Even if you have no design experience there are some cool and free design applications such as Content Creator that have beautiful typography templates that you can pair with photos and create banner ads on your iPhone or iPad in just few minutes.

But you need to know that creating an ad is not just about putting some photos and text together and hoping for the best. As we have examined best practices in banner advertising we are here to share with you what a creative and effective online ad is really all about:

Size matters

Of course there is no one-size-fits-all type of banner ad as the size needs to be adjusted to the requirements of a particular site. But Google AdSense is stating that: “wider ad sizes tend to outperform their taller counterparts”. It is presumed that the position of such ads and the fact that it’s more comfortable to read from left to right are among reasons why these sizes are so popular. For more information about top performing sizes check out the Google Ad guide.

Make it simple

Easier said than done, I agree. Many companies are trying to put too much information into one ad and in the end everything looks busy, confusing and even suspicious.

As a general rule-of-thumb your ad should stand up to the 2 second glance rule, during which it should be clear to the audience who you are and what you are saying. So keep it minimal and clean with no more than 10 words per ad.

Take a look at the example below where powerful background and product color are contrasted with minimal text and a visible call-to-action button. It is simple, functional and to the point.

More clickable banner ads - image

Create an order

If there is no order in the way you arrange your text, viewers will not know where to look first and where to start reading.

Greater size indicates greater importance, so use that logic when arranging your visual elements. Use one size (bigger or bolder) for the main text and another for additional text and the call to action (button).

Keep in mind that the font style, size and the total amount of text should be adapted for smaller mobile screens so do NOT use embellished, shadowed or extremely thin fonts nor the ones that are smaller than 10 pt.

Stick to simple sans serif fonts that are direct, trustworthy and easy to read. When in doubt about font color remember that black or white work best in most ads.

More clickable banner ads - Image 1

Choose relevant images

Complex or abstract images take longer to scan and understand so it’s important to make banner ad images obvious and relevant to the ad.

If you choose to go with high quality product images surround them with a lot of empty space so that the product and the message can come to focus.

More clickable banner ads - Image 2

In case you decide on using photos of people you can try looking for some free people photos at Pexels or Picjumbo, as they have a separate “people category”. But for more close-up photos of human faces you will have to go to budget photo stocks such as Istock or Shutterstock.

Always make sure that a person in the ad matches the persona of your buyer or rely on the power of brand ambassadors and celebrities that embody and promote brand values.

More clickable banner ads - Image 3

Build trust with a logo

If your banner ad doesn’t have a logo viewers will not know who is behind the ad so they will probably never click on it. That is why it’s important to use Content Creator app and place your logo on the top or bottom of the ad, depending on the placement of the copy.

Keep it visually dominant but not as much as the main call to action. If you don’t want to put your logo at least write your brand name or website as a signal to viewers that there is a real landing page behind the ad.

In that case, even if viewers fail to click-through, you will still generate brand awareness with impressions.

More clickable banner ads - Image 4

Rely on your colors

Branding of your ad should be consistent with branding of other marketing materials, not only in terms of images and fonts but also in terms of color. It will significantly improve brand recall and leverage brand identity.

You can choose to have your signature color dominantly present on the image or you can choose to use your color for the call-to-action button only. In the latter case you can make the button stand out even more by adding a (transparent) background or filter to your ad image.

More clickable banner ads - Image 5

Call them to action

Once viewers notice your image and read the message what do you want them to do? Go to your website or e-shop, right?

For that to happen your ad must inform the viewer on what they need to do and what in return they can expect to receive once they click through.

The best place to give such instruction (aka. the call to action or CTA) are buttons, positioned at the end of your message or at the bottom of the ad. When possible use bright colors or prominent sizes for the button so that it can become a focal point of the ad.

The most frequent CTA’s are “click here”, “buy now” or “sign up” but you can expand on that to give more information about the choice that is ahead of them. For example you can write: “Click here to save 25%”, “Watch now for free”, “Redeem now”.

In the end don’t forget to follow through, as the ad is just a small part of a much bigger picture and it must be linked to a landing page that looks and feels like an ad. This means that if your ad promises a 50% mid-year sale your landing page has to deliver on that promise through the same offer, image style, font and color.

More clickable banner ads - Image 6

Where do you stand when it comes to banner ads? Do you use them or pay attention to their design? Are there some other design tips that have proven to be effective for you? Please share them in the comments section below!

Guest Author: Aida Gadzo is a Social Media Strategist at contentcreatorapp.com. She helps small and medium businesses master the “what”, “why” and “how” of producing and delivering engaging digital and social media content that will activate audiences and drive sales.

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post for Content Creator.


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