How to Create Ridiculously Compelling Content in 5 Easy Steps

Have you ever wondered what makes for a great blog? What’s the secret? What makes you visit them over and over again?

Let me guess: It’s in the content!

Fun, helpful, striking content always attracts visitors and gets shared. And now you want to create your own blog, a  great one just like all the ones you’ve seen.

It always feels amazing in the beginning. You’re filled with hope starting a new thing.

But wait a minute… Sure you’ve read lots about blogging, but you’ve never actually done it before. And the first time is always the hardest.

I’m not trying to scare you. On the contrary, I’d like to forewarn you about the obstacles that, I myself faced, when I started blogging. There’s no doubt that your individual experience is precious and essential. But if there’s a chance to learn about blogging traps and avoid them, why don’t you take it?

Here’s 5 quick tips I’ve learned from my blogging experience and those blogs I read daily.

1. Focus on your goal and audience

Don’t start writing content until you’ve decided what you’re going to write about. The first thing to define is the focus of your blog: food, sports, fashion, lifestyle, education, business, or anything else you find interesting.

Do you already know who is your ideal reader? Define at the very beginning who might be interested in your blog. Try to be as precise as possible. Write as if you’re writing for only one person.

Write down everything about your ideal reader: age, gender, country, education, spheres of interest, and so on. Based on this, you’ll create blog topics and choose a writing tone.

And one more thing to pay attention to: You can write great content only if you’re interested in it. Find something in the middle between what you’re passionate about and what your target audience will probably like.

2. Organize your work

Here you should define how you’re going to post. And remember, you should keep all your ideas, notes, drafts, and other blog stuff in good order and in one place. Choose an organizer or planner, or store everything you work on in Google Docs.

Create a posting schedule so you are aware when you should start the research for each post and understand how to work blogging into your daily routine. If blogging isn’t the only thing you do, even one post a week will be quite good.

Readers should understand that every Monday, for example, they know they can come to your blog and see a superb post. It should be a habit both for you and your audience.

3. Post different content

Got some fantastic ideas on what to write about on your blog? Great! Include them in your content plan.

If you feel you’re at a loss and nothing worthwhile is in your head, then it’s time for research. Looking through other blogs that you’re fond of brings you fresh ideas and helps to form a range of relevant topics. Also, you can analyze materials on these blogs and see what types of posts have more likes and shares. Just find some examples to look up to.

For the record, do you know what content attracts more visitors?

The first type: humorous and entertaining. Everyone, no matter their age or social status, likes some funny content from time to time. The pace of life is intense and people prefer reading (or better yet, watching) something entertaining.

Second: helpful. Who doesn’t love life hacks? Thanks to them we receive free knowledge and learn how to make life easier. It’s fantastic that somebody else figured out how to spend less time on daily activities and use ordinary things in alternative and creative ways, isn’t it?

Third: story. Well, you must be good at storytelling to create something engaging. Write about your own experience or the experiences of other people. Write something unique and individual, let your readers live the lives of other people. It always works and it’s always exciting. Everyone likes telling stories and listening to them.

And there are also a few criteria for the content you write. It should be varied, catchy, and original. Keep the following in mind:

• Choose different types of posts for your blog (I’ll provide you with types of posts below).
• Besides text posts, visualization is important too. Create more visual content; it’s always attractive, especially if it’s of high quality. Post infographics and illustrations. Even though you’re not a graphic designer, use magic websites such as Canva or infogr.am (also try visually and easelly).
• On the Internet, plagiarism and copying are common, which is something you should always remember. Even if you care about writing original content, somebody else might steal your work. To check and see that nobody has stolen your unique content, use the Unplag plagiarism checker, and keep your eyes open!

Here’s a list of blog post types you can choose from:

• Interviews – Ask influencers or other interesting personalities some questions.
• Tutorials – Explain to your readers how to do something. It can be either text or a video guide.
• News – Tell what happened recently and what’s trending now.
• Research – Present your personal research on a topic and explain what your research shows.
• Presentations – Prepare a slideshow on a topic.
• Lists – Recommend helpful tools, methods, exercises, tips, and so on. Arrange them all as a list. You can also provide your readers with to-do lists.
• Reviews – Review a product or tool, show how it functions, and what advantages and disadvantages it has. Express your own opinion on the product.
• Infographics – Provide your audience with visualized data.
• Memes – Let some funny memes reside on your blog. They always attract people.
• Opinion posts – Share your views on certain issues.
• Case studies – Describe a certain case and what can be learned from it.
• Podcasts – Tell or show something interesting in your podcast and let other people download it.
• Stories – Tell an inspiring story from your personal experience or somebody else’s.
• Fiction – Post a short story or any other piece of writing. It’s a great type of content, of course, if your blog is focused on literature.
• Guest posts – Interact with other bloggers, exchange experiences, and let them publish some great guest posts on your blog.
• Contests – Involve your readers in an absorbing contest and give a prize to the winner.

4. Write, write, write

Before you create a good post, you’ll have to write several drafts. Some of them are going to be bad. Don’t be afraid to write bad drafts. It’s workflow and there’s nothing to worry about. Just work a lot, and write daily (at least note some ideas). Think of what’s going to be in your next post.

A skill that bloggers should master is writing powerful headlines. Firstly, you have to read other blogs, analyze titles, and choose those that personally attract you. Try to figure out what exactly attracts you to these titles. Secondly, read materials on writing strong titles. For example, I enjoyed a headline guide provided by Henneke Duistermaat, an experienced copywriter and marketer.

Also don’t forget that all sources you use for your web content should be credible. It’s rule number one for everyone who writes: fact-check, give proofs, and rely only on trustable sources. For your part, don’t forget to give credit to those authors whose materials you use. Be an honest blogger, not a copycat.

And the last thing here. Thoroughly check everything you write. Don’t publish your post the minute you’ve finished it. Take some time away from it and  then come back again to the draft. Make it as perfect as possible. And here’s what I advise as well: hire a proofreader. It doesn’t matter if you’re a great writer, everyone makes typos and mistakes, and a proofreader is a kind of test reader. Proofreaders take a fresh look at the text and suggest improvements.

5. Interact with your audience

Do you think after you’ve published a post that you’re done? You’re not. The most interesting parts come after publishing. Just tell them what to do: comment, check another blog post, share their experience or suggest solutions to the problem.

If your content is targeted in a proper way and topics you’ve chosen are interesting for your ideal readers, they’ll gladly comment on them. But sometimes even high-quality and original posts have few likes and shares. And no comments. You need to mend this. Provoke discussions, use calls-to-action and interact with your readers in any other possible way you can to get the discussion going.

Bloggers tend to make the following mistake: They receive a huge number of comments, but they answer none. Allow time for monitoring comments and providing your audience with responses. Be ready to receive hater comments. It’s an indispensible part of blogging – there always will be a person who dislikes or disagrees with what other people say. You need to develop a special attitude for such situations and take haters with a grain of salt.

Guest Author: Rose Scott is a literature teacher who believes in the power of words and technologies. Since writing means a lot to her, Rose is interested in grasping the rudiments of blogging. She finds her inspiration on rainy days and pep talks with smart people. Follow her on Twitter: @roserose_sc

Image Sources: Gratisography and Unsplash

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11 Mind-Blowing Copywriting Hacks To Improve Your Website

Every business, regardless of its size, needs killer copy to power it.

From start-ups to global corporations, from customer-facing copy to internal comms, words can dictate the success or failure of any brand in any market.

But in the digital space, where customers and competition are everywhere you look, copy takes on even greater significance.

Do you find creating content a drag?

Are you confused by all the conflicting advice out there?

Got a feeling that your website could be getting better results?

The good news is, you don’t need a background in writing to nail this copywriting lark.

In fact, I have a bunch of easy, highly-actionable copywriting hacks that you can use to improve your website TODAY.

1. The 5-minute SEO copywriting trick

What’s the point in creating a great blog post if no one ever finds it?

I have an incredibly simple way of optimizing every blog post on your site.

It’s really quick to implement and you’ll be able to do it even if you have no previous SEO experience.

This strategy revolves around understanding how Google actually works.

Nowadays, when Google is working out what results to return after a search, it will analyze all of the copy on a web page, not just the URL, the page title or a handful of keywords.

This allows Google to deliver search results that are more accurate and relevant.

Let’s use a specific example.

Suppose you wrote an article on how to write a screenplay. A collection of writing tips, let’s say.

Now let’s pretend that someone somewhere in the world searches for ‘copywriting tips’.

Is your article a good fit?

No.

This might seem obvious, but from Google’s point of view, how do they know whether to show your post in a search result? Writing is writing, isn’t it?

The answer is, their algorithm has to be clever. After all, a term like ‘writing’ could mean copywriting, screenwriting, essay writing… you name it.

So Google actually looks at all of your content before working out if it’s a good match.

That means assessing everything. By looking at all of your content, they can now tell that you’re talking about writing tips of a different kind.

And as it transpires, there’s actually something you can do in order to grab Google’s attention – an easy way of showing Google that your content is a good match for any relevant searches.

Let’s take that previous example again.

You’ve just written an article on how to write for a screenplay.

Firstly, just search for something along those lines, using a sensible keyword:

Then scroll down to the bottom of the page. You’ll see a section that begins:

Searches related to [original search term]

So in this case, it says:

Searches related to how to write a screenplay

See here:

You’re now looking at actual searches that have been made and that are related to your content topic.

They are searches that Google has dealt with before and that they think are similar.

So why not make use of this data?

Why not make life easy for Google?

Weave a few of these phrases into your copy.

That’s it! That’s all there is to it.

Now, when Google uses semantic search to look for context, your article is metaphorically waving its arm in the air.

Now, if someone searches for ‘screenwriting tips’ or various derivatives, you’ll convince Google that little bit more.

It could make all the difference between being on page one or not. Between getting traffic or not. Between making money or not.

2. Spruce up your meta descriptions

Arguably, you should save your best copywriting work for your meta descriptions.

For the uninitiated, that’s the copy that’s assigned to each web page, and which displays in a search result:

Why?

Well, it’s basically the last chance you get to convince someone to click on your link as opposed to that of a competitor.

You see, you’ve put in the hard yards by creating content. You might also have developed an effective SEO strategy too.

But if you stop there, you’re playing a dangerous game.

Because being on page one of a Google search only actually matters when it results in a click.

If your on page one of a search and no one is visiting your website, then you’re basically throwing money down the drain.

However, a neat little description could make all the difference. It could drive traffic to your site and help you generate more customers.

Therefore, head into your CMS and make sure that your meta descriptions have a hook that matters to your target audience.

Don’t forget that search engines tend to only display 150-160 characters.

Write any more than that and your copy will likely be truncated, putting the effectiveness of your business message at risk.

Look how hard this is to read and digest:

Meanwhile, compare that with this one:

It’s much more user-friendly, isn’t it?

And here’s the one we use for the Splash Copywriters website.

Note that I’ve even put a phone number in our meta description so that people can contact us without even needing to click on the link.

3. Get your design and copy working together

The funny thing about copy is that it doesn’t matter how good it is, if the visuals don’t work, the words won’t either.

Great websites have design and copy working in tandem. Often, it’s such a nice user experience that you don’t even notice it.

Copyblogger’s site is a great example:

Look how roomy this article feels.

Here are some golden rules for digital design and copy:

• Don’t be afraid of white space.
• Choose a nice, large, readable font.
• Be careful when wrapping copy around images.
• Never stretch a font.
• Only justify your text to the left.
• Don’t use too many different colours.

And for a quick win, watch out for hanging words. This is where one word of a sentence gets pushed down to a new line.

Note that even Copyblogger isn’t perfect. There’s a hanging word in the image above – the word ‘am’ is completely isolated.

It might seem like nothing, but it looks sloppy, it’s jarring to the eye and really breaks up the rhythm for the reader. When that happens we have a tendency to skip over the word in question.

That could be costly if that last word carries crucial importance – imagine if someone switches off before they truly absorb a price or a particular concept.

If we all scan web pages for words and headings that stand out, it’s important to give all our words the best chance of getting seen.

Here’s another example:

The overall point is this:

We all know that people only read 20% of words on a web page. What’s more, research tells us that’s pretty much a best-case scenario.

Ultimately, the more barriers we put in front of a reader, the less words get read.

4. Save your best stuff for your most valuable pages

Time is short and you’ve got plenty to do. I understand that not every one has the capacity to spend ages fine-tuning their business copy.

As a compromise, just make sure your copy is spot on for your website pages that get the most action.

It’s pretty easy to see the top pages on your website.

Log in to your Google Analytics account and click on ‘Behaviour’ to expand it. It’s one of the options in the menu on the left:

Then expand ‘Site Content’:

Just select ‘All Pages’ to bring up your top 10 most visited web pages:

5. Make your ‘about us’ page about them

Your ‘about us’ page is one of the most important pages on your site. This is because, as the old adage goes, people buy from people.

This web page is your chance to reveal who is behind your brand. You can have the sharpest sales copy, the prettiest logo and the most valuable product in the world, but one thing will always be true:

Your ‘about us’ page can transform your bottom line if you use it correctly.

Here are a few pointers:

• Use words that will connect with people on an emotional level.
• Talk about obstacles that you’ve overcome that will be relevant to your target audience.
• Try and steer clear of empty platitudes. Every company should care about their customers and deliver good service. It should be a given.
• Think about what’s really important. You might be proud if your company is 100 years old, but really it doesn’t matter to most people.
• Unless it’s completely inappropriate in your particular niche, use an informal, chatty style.
• Photos are always good. It’s reassuring to put a face to a name. It shows that you’re not hiding before a keyboard.

6. Use the problem and declaration (PAD) intro

When writing blog posts, many people have trouble getting started. What angle should you take? Are there any rules to follow?

Meanwhile, others get started and structure their posts in a very formulaic way, which doesn’t make for an engaging read.

I’ve found that the most entertaining and popular blogs all have a very clear framework.

It’s a two-part framework that’s very simple, but really effective as far as engagement is concerned.

They usually start by illustrating a problem.

Here’s an example from a recent blog post on the Kissmetrics site:

This approach immediately forms a bond with the reader. The author is saying that that they know there’s a problem.

I really like the use of the word ‘slog’ too, as it conveys a feeling of hardship. It’s nice and subtle, yet the author is inferring that help is on its way.

After stating the problem, then it’s time to make the declaration. This is when you should tell the reader that you’re going to help them.

No details at this stage, but just some reassuring copy, preferably with some teasers thrown in.

The aforementioned post does a decent job:

I’d prefer it if the copy was a little more direct. In other words, spell it out for the reader a little more and say “I’m going to help you”.

But I like the two questions.

“What if there were a shortcut” implies there is one. It piques our interest.

“Wouldn’t you want to know how” has an obvious answer, but it’s a nice narrative style that’s easy to read and, more importantly, keeps us reading.

7. Come to grips with human psychology

Understanding what makes people tick is key to getting great results from your copy.

This is a huge subject area, so I’d really recommend starting off by watching the video below.

In it, speaker Simon Sinek talks about how people don’t “buy the what”. Instead, “they buy the why”.

What that means is, if you can link your product or service to an ethos, you’re more likely to enjoy a profitable business.

8. Keep your URLs short

Most bloggers overlook this, but a great SEO copywriting tip is to ensure that your URLs are nice and tidy.

When it comes to URLs, it’s best to have them short and relevant. If possible, they should also contain a keyword.

So instead of having:

http://ift.tt/1W6urnn

or:

http://ift.tt/21tkNKH

have:

http://ift.tt/1W6urno

The bottom line, once again, is user experience.

Can someone quickly scan your URL and know what your post is about? Then that means it’s going to sit well with Google.

9. Leverage emotion

As humans, we all experience a wide variety of emotions every day, each with a varying degree of intensity.

So I’m not just talking about happiness or sadness, but also:

Confusion

Frustration

Confidence

Satisfaction

And many more.

In fact, we’re always feeling something, aren’t we?

The key to successful marketing is to identify what emotions are important to your target audience.

Create a detailed, accurate profile of your best client.

Who are they? What do they like? What do they dislike? Where do they hang out? What sort of content do they like?

And…

… what do they want?

What is your audience struggling with and how can you help?

Building up a picture of both them and their pain points will help you create more impactful copy – the sort of copy that will convince them to take action.

10. Optimize your blog posts around a commercially valuable keyword

Picking the right keyword to focus on will prevent you from wasting a huge amount of time, effort and money.

There is a big difference between selecting a keyword that generates a lot of searches, and choosing a keyword that will actually help increase your revenue.

Let’s assume you run a digital marketing business.

Consider the term ‘internet marketing’.

Here are the search results:

As you can see, it gets a lot of searches – 1,900 per month, to be precise.

You would think that if you ranked on page one for ‘internet marketing’ then your phone would be ringing off the hook with customers.

But would it really?

Because when you analyze the situation and delve a little deeper, someone searching for ‘internet marketing’ could be looking for free advice.

Contrast that with the results for ‘internet marketing agency’:

Now this term might only get 170 searches every month, but you can be much more confident that a user is interested in engaging with a business that specialises in internet marketing.

11. Always keep a business goal in mind

Don’t forget that if someone visits your website, then it’s normally for a reason.

You can create the best content and generate huge amounts of traffic, but unless those visitors are doing something when they’re on your website then it’s all kind of pointless.

Your copy must take someone on a journey.

For instance, let’s consider blog posts.

As we know, visitors to your website will only read 20% of the copy on a web page.

So therefore, if someone does reach the end of one of your blog posts, you need to have a compelling call-to-action.

You need to benefit from their presence in some way. We’re not talking about revenue here necessarily, but perhaps an email sign-up, a download or some sort of consultation.

Regardless, have some sort of objective. And be precise.

Before writing anything for your website, always ask yourself one question:

What do I want to gain from this?

Now it’s your turn…

In summary, start incorporating some of these 11 copywriting tactics today and you’ll start improving your business.

It’s that simple.

Need more help?

Why not check out the free, comprehensive copywriting checklist attached to my recent blog post.

It contains the 21 copywriting techniques that I use each and every time I create some content.

Guest Author: Matt Press is an experienced copywriter who has written words for some of the UK’s biggest companies, including Sky, Three and Vodafone. He now runs his own content marketing company, Splash Copywriters.

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5 Advanced Conversion Rate Optimization Tips For 2016

You’ve done everything you’ve been told to do, to increase traffic to your website and it’s working.

The only problem is that nothing else seems to be happening – no conversions, no sales, no business growth.

What’s going wrong?

When people come to one of your pages, you want them to do something. This could be…

• Provide an email address to subscribe to a newsletter
• Leave contact information for a sales person
• Download a whitepaper
• Make a purchase

When a visitor takes the desired action on a web page – that is called a conversion. Unfortunately, getting more traffic does not always mean getting more conversions. This is why it may be a good idea to look into conversion rate optimization (CRO).

Conversion rate optimization is the process of optimizing your landing pages to get the highest number of conversions possible. You do this by gathering as much data as you can, researching what is working for other websites, and then applying needed changes to your web pages.

If CRO is a goal for you in 2016, here are some great tips that you can put to use today.

1. Gather and analyze web traffic

Don’t do anything until you know where you stand. To do this, take a very close look at the data you get from Google Analytics or another website analysis tool. This will give you the insights you need into your web traffic, so that you know where to begin.

These analytics will tell you a lot about who is visiting your web pages, when they are doing so, and what devices they are using. It also gives you insight into what they are doing once they get to your website.

Knowing this information is much more important than ever. Multiple device use is on the rise, and you will really need to pin down user behavior and activity in order to target them appropriately and know where you need to do the most work when it comes to optimization.

Once you have your data in place, you can divvy up your pages that get lots of conversions, pages that are failing to convert like they should, and pages that are somewhere in the middle.

Then subdivide each of three categories into pages that draw more mobile traffic and pages that draw more desktop traffic. Once this is done, you can begin pulling ideas from the high performance pages that have heavy mobile traffic and using those on the lower performing pages with heavy mobile traffic.

If you don’t have enough landing pages to compare, knowing whether or not you have more mobile users visiting a page will give you a starting point for your conversion efforts.

You can also use analytics data to find pages where people are bouncing out. If someone visits your website, and then clicks into another page, but then quickly bounces, it is time to do some investigating. Chances are, something about that page is making people drop out.

2. Don’t ignore the smaller conversions

If you are only focusing on the ‘bigger conversions’ in your conversion optimization strategy, you may be guilty of a bit of myopia. Yes, the big conversions, e.g. making a purchase or signing up for a subscription are important. They are after all, what impacts your bottom line. However, if you focus solely on these and ignore the smaller conversions, you may ultimately be cheating yourself out of the big conversions.

Here are a few examples of smaller conversions that you should also make the focus of your CRO strategy:

• Downloading a free trial
• Clicking on a link to view a detailed product description
• Watching a video
• Liking or sharing content
• Requesting further information by email
• Clicking on social media icons to check you out there

If a customer converts in one or two small ways, there is a much greater chance that they will convert in bigger ways.

It may help to think of your website as if it were a brick and mortar store selling high end chocolates. Sure, you will have customers who will simply walk in your door, look around for a few moments, grab what they want, and make a purchase.

However, you will also have many customers who take a slower approach. On their first visit, they may just take a look around. On the next, they may ask a few questions and walk out with a sales flyer. They may come back and ask for a sample. Eventually, if you treat them right, throughout all of those little actions, they will come in and make a purchase.

This is why smaller conversions should not only count, every effort should be made to make the user experience during these small conversions as great as possible.

3. Monitor user behavior on your website

There’s a second type of data that you should be collecting about your customers. This is behavior analysis data, and it gives you information that is a bit different from what you get from analytics software.

Behavior analysis software uses heat maps and other tools to give you some great insights into what customers are doing each time they visit one of your pages.

For example, if you have a page where users are required to scroll through a lot of information, behavior analysis will tell you where they stop scrolling and leave. You can also use the information to determine which information on a page is being read (as indicated by the amount of time spent on that part of a page) and which is being ignored. You can even learn where users are pointing and hovering their mouse pointer. This is a good indication that they are interested in that part of  your web page.

4. Give your visitors a personalized experience

Chances are, you are already tailoring your content to the various customer personas that you have developed.

The next question is, are you also customizing the user experience on your website for each of these personas? If not, why not? If one size fits all doesn’t work for content, why would you think it works for web design?

What many web designers are doing is creating an entry page that allows users to select the experience that works best for them.

For example, let’s say that you sell art supplies for young children. Your website visitors might include parents, preschool and elementary school students, and children themselves. Are you serving any of them well if you give all of them an identical user experience? Probably not!

Why not ask visitors who they are, or what they want? Then, direct them towards the experience that they truly want to have.

5. Don’t ignore trends

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, a website visitor forms an opinion on the look of your website. That doesn’t give you much time to make a good impression.

This means that not only do you need to offer a great user experience and design that works, you have to convince visitors that they will have that great experience almost immediately.

In order to make this happen, you have to keep with the design trends that are most popular with internet users today. Because, whether or not you like a particular trend, popularity is an indication that many people do.

This doesn’t mean that you have to embrace every new thing that becomes popular in web design, but your overall strategy should include the understanding that trends drive expectations. If you consistently fail to meet expectations, you will lose conversions.

Alfred is an example of a website using animation (combined with parallax scrolling) in an attempt to stand out. Click to try.

It is important to remember that many design trends aren’t fads that are all flash and no substance. Many become popular because they work. They result in improved user experience, better optimization, and web pages that simply work better. These trends eventually become design standards.

To begin, simply view your website from the perspective of a visitor. Ask yourself the following questions

• What information is too difficult to find?
• Which functions do I most want users to perform and how easy is it for them to do so?
• Do the visual elements on my page add to or detract from the user experience?
• Have I seen techniques used on other websites that would work on mine?

Once you’ve done that, you can begin to identify changes to be made and trends to apply to your website. Then, you can A/B test those changes and implement the ones that increase conversions.

So, have you got any of your own tips to add to this post?

Guest Author: John Unger is a passionate writer and contributor from Manchester, UK. Currently, he works as an editor at AssignmentMountain. He writes about things that matter and tries to consider the issue from a different angle. His main topics of interest are self-improvement and marketing.

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14 Inspiring Habits of Successful Digital Entrepreneurs

I was sitting at the desk overlooking the beach. It could have been Boracy, Bali or Byron Bay.

The website traffic was looking good and the digital marketing funnel was fine tuned. The next email was scheduled, a tweet was shared and a Facebook update posted.

Welcome to digital business.

Business as we know it is being disrupted and disturbed.

Traditional industries that we knew and maybe loved are heading towards dead and buried. The taxi industry is just one. We also know what happened to Kodak and Blockbuster.

Mobile apps that allow us to connect, book and buy while sipping a coffee are just part of this revolution. Discussing and dreaming about start-ups that become billion dollar unicorns are musings that millennials have while sitting at a wine bar.

This is an exciting time to live but the implications are that we are just at the start of a shift that has a long way to run. This is going to unfold for the next century. Many business and marketing habits don’t quite work like they used to.

Business for humans

The constant movement of the millennials from job to job highlights a mind and culture shift. It’s not about work for work’s sake but creating a life that works for creative humans. Being just a number and cog in the machine doesn’t cut it anymore.

Work that fits with your passions, interest and lifestyle is the next challenge.

Social media has uncovered what a lot of us struggle with but don’t admit. Success envy. Someone’s success is displayed for all to see. We all want to be the next Apple, Uber or that billion dollar “Unicorn”. For most that is not going to happen.

But success isn’t just about the money. Gary Vaynerchuk touched on what a successful entrepreneur is really about. Doing what you love.

This can be done without giving up your day job or taking big risks.

The digital revolution and the social web has made it easier than any other time in history to create, build an audience and grow cash flow.  But it requires re-inventing and adapting to this new eco-system that marches to a different drum.

So what are the practices and habits of a successful digital entrepreneur.

1. Digital entrepreneurs have a flexibility mindset

As we reinvent business and try to change, the foibles of the habitual human become evident.

As John Maynard Keynes said. “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones“. Now keep in mind this was written in the first part of the 1900’s. The pace of change today has accelerated from the era of cars to the generation of rocket ships.

Being trapped in old habits that aren’t working well anymore stops us innovating in a digital age. You need to let go of the past.

A flexibility mindset is essential.

2. Not afraid of failure

School taught us not to stick our hand up in class to answer a question unless we were right. Failure was seen as a negative. But it needs to be seen as a badge of honor. Many successful start-ups have had to change their business models several times.

Different cultures also have different attitudes to this. But being prepared to get it wrong is in the DNA of successful entrepreneurs and creatives.

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

3. Develop digital hustle

“Build it and they will come” is not an option.

Getting your idea out to a noisy world requires hustle. Sales hustle and marketing hustle are part of the mix. But it’s not just about cold calling hustle or big advertising budgets. It’s calls to action across many networks and platforms.

It’s a skill that is sometimes called growth hacking. Growing your business with small budgets but smart and innovative hustle can be done.

4. Build business agility

Having an open mind is one thing but being nimble enough to pivot is another.

Large organisations that have dominated industries for a century have trouble changing direction. Big ships take time to turn. Kodak was not agile.

The successful digital entrepreneur can change that landing page, the product direction….without waiting months for the red tape that strangles many corporations.

5. Understand the importance of digital assets

In the industrial age you were defined by the number and size of your physical assets. More buildings, more land and more stock. In knowledge economies that becomes a burden. It removes flexibility and the ability to change.

Your digital assets are becoming the new treasure trove. Web traffic, email lists and your social networks are part of this mix.

6. Think global

Digital entrepreneurs have a mindset that isn’t restricted by geopolitical borders. They understand that the noise is greater but the niches are larger. Because they are global.

How many cheesemakers live in your town? Not many I would hazard a guess. How many amongst 8 billion people. Let’s think 7 figures.

Small niches yesterday that couldn’t sustain a viable business are now a business opportunity.

Yesterday’s small idea is now today’s big business.

7. Give away their ideas for free

In the past giving away any of your ideas for free was seen as foolish and dangerous.

The risk was perceived as the donation of your “intellectual property” to your competitors. Digital businesses such as Hubspot have proved this myth to be false.

Sharing your ideas builds credibility and trust.

Revealing the idea is one thing but executing it is another. The rude truth is that your ideas are not that new and your competitors already know.

8. Embrace digital marketing

The cold calling that we knew (and loved to hate) is dying out. And not too soon. Impressions were the old metric. Measureable action is the new gold data. The digital and content rich social web has given us other tools and tactics.

But many are trapped in the marketing habits of the past.

Vanity metrics that don’t have any real meaning except that someone maybe saw your brand mentioned.

9. Use the smartest minds

The old model of all your employees being on the payroll and under the same roof has started to disintegrate. Multi-million dollar businesses such as 37 Signals (the creators of the software BaseCamp) and many others have broken that model.

Tools such as Skype, Google Docs and Dropbox have provided the tools for global business. You don’t need your smartest minds to occupy a desk nearby or even your country.

It will also require you to let go of rigid policies that all people need constant supervision. It’s more about a trust economy.

10. Aren’t afraid of co-opetition

Working on your own and being independent is great but there is a problem. It takes time to scale. The social and transparent web reveals your competitors and potential partners. In the past they were hidden and buried.

Business partners that can accelerate your growth are often already dealing with your potential customers. Working with them can transform your revenue.

Co-opetition is the new black of marketing.

11. Adopt new tools

SAAS (Software As A Service) is an acronym that sounds daunting. But it’s just software that sits on a server that gives access to evolving new tools to everyone without sending out those CD’s in a box. Make a change to the code today and it’s available to everyone tomorrow around the world.

The web has given access to cheap and often free software that was sold for $1 million just a decade ago.

The tools have changed.

It’s smart tools that leverage our time and intelligence. Digital marketing automation, segmentation and artificial intelligence. Use them before your competitors do.

12. Patient profit mindset

Big old fashioned corporates have to make a profit fast or else the new start-up division is shut down. Small digital start-ups just need to survive.

Bootstrapping while doing the day job is often done. Low risk with a big upside.

13. Welcome the velocity of change

The pace of change is mind numbing. The modern entrepreneur needs to understand that what works today may not work tomorrow. You need to think of your business as being in constant beta.

See this velocity as an opportunity to leapfrog your competitors.

14. Continuous lifetime learning

The digital world doesn’t tolerate a stagnant brain. A curious mind is essential. That first degree maybe gets you into the game. But then you need to consume knowledge and learn like a drunken sailor at a bar.

The education system as we know it is also in middle of a re-invention because it is close to broken.

We need to re-think education agility.

The industrial education system of the past was great for developing critical thinking and powering research. But it is poor and slow in getting the latest knowledge into courses. Most marketing courses are still stuck in branding 101.

Successful digital entrepreneurs don’t get trapped in ivory towers but leap into the real world. Try stuff, break rules and learn at lightning speed.

That’s where success happens today.

The post 14 Inspiring Habits of Successful Digital Entrepreneurs appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

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