3 Things That Make Pay Per Text Ads the Best Monetization Strategy for Your Blog

3 Things That Make Pay Per Text Ads

the Best Monetization Strategy for Your Blog

7Search offers a wide range of money making ad opportunities. The best fit for you will depend on the type of website you run. If you run a blog and are a heavy content creator, 7Search’s Pay Per Text ads are far and away the best option to monetize your blog or news site.

1. Pay Per Text ads are in-line

Embed your ads in your articles and content without distracting the reader. Free up valuable, above the fold screen real estate for your content and monetize the words of your choosing. It’s a simple hyperlink that when clicked, will take your users to relevant search results.

2. Super easy to create and implement

Pay Per Text ads are a snap to implement into your site. Simply enter in the URL’s you’re going to display the ads on, choose the category of ads you want displayed and the relevant keywords and phrases.

Once you’ve got that done, we’ll generate the code! Take that code and put it on your site and boom(!), you’re displaying 7Search Pay Per Text ads.

3. Get paid!

Put the 7Search Pay Per Text ads on your site and earn some serious money! Partners (you, the website owner and administrator) will earn 50% of the bid prices each time your users click on a Pay Per Text ad and successfully go to an advertiser’s website. That adds up quick! Be a 7Search.com Advertiser!



 

 

Also check out previous post regarding 7 Search PPC Search Engine !

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Would you like to be able to write a blog post targeting specific keywords and, within a day, be ranked on Google for a popular search term?

This doesn’t happen overnight but it is possible.   One thing that is extremely important is building up the domain authority of your website, which makes it much easier to rank for content.

In this article we outline what domain authority is all about and how an improved domain authority can drive more traffic to your website.

Domain Authority: Increase Your Domain Authority, Increase Your Traffic

What is Domain Authority?

This can mean several things but for the purpose of this article we’re talking about the ‘domain authority’ term which is used by a company called Moz (formerly SEOMoz).

Moz is a company that provides Marketing Analytics/SEO software to help you understand and grow your traffic.  Several years ago they developed a proprietary algorithm that analyzed millions of websites and gave each one a score out of 100.  This was their domain authority.  The higher the domain authority, the more influential the website is.

The calculation is based on 40 different signals.

As you move up the scale it becomes harder and harder to increase your rank.  For example, going from 20 to 30 is much easier than going from 70 to 80.

The calculation is based on 40 different signals they use.

 

What’s the difference between Domain Authority and Page Authority?

As well as domain authority, Moz also calculates page authority, which is a ranking system for the pages on a website.

This is significant because search engines index pages rather than full websites.  To rank well you need to have a good domain authority overall, but the page authority does also come into play.

If you write an article that attracts a lot of links from relevant sources, this will help increase its page authority.

Page authority is not permanent, so over time, if you ignore a page then its authority won’t increase and may even decrease, which can mean you stop ranking for something you ranked for before.

 

How do I check my domain authority?

There are a couple of ways of checking your domain authority.

Opensite Explorer

Moz provides a tool called Opensite Explorer.  Without a subscription to Moz’s products you can check the domain authority of up to 3 websites a day.

When you enter your website address you will see information like the following:



This is a very high rank to achieve!

This shows the domain authority of the overall domain.  The page authority displayed is for the home page.  Generally your page authority for your home page will be higher than your domain authority because most links you get to your website will be to your home page.

The linking root domains shows you the number of unique domains (websites) that link to you.  It’s better to get a spread of links from a range of sites rather than most links coming from a few sites.  If your website is popular a lot of different websites (some with low domain authority and some with high domain authority) will link to you.

If you drill down in the tool it will show you a selection of links that are helping to build your domain authority.  With the free version you are restricted but with the paid version you can see all the links.

Here’s an example of some links displayed to my friend Donna from Socially Sorted:



Here’s an explanation of each section:

1.  This shows the page that links to this website.

2.  This shows the text that was used in the link.  This is known as the anchor text.

3. The page authority of the page with the link is 77.  This is very high, and if it is combined with a high domain authority, that would be very valuable.

4.  The domain authority is 85 which is really high.

The first link displayed is the one from the website with the highest domain/page authority, so typically this is the most valuable link.

You can see the 3rd and 4th links on this list are marked as ‘nofollow’.  When a link is marked as ‘nofollow’, it tells Google not to pass any benefit to this link.    So in theory a ‘nofollow’ link is not of benefit, but it’s highly likely that Google does pass some authority, plus even ‘nofollow links will send site visitors your way.

Moz Toolbar

The Moz Toolbar is a free plugin that you can install on your browser.

When you install it, if you search for anything on Google you will see the domain/page rank for any web page listed in the search results.

This is really useful when you are researching new content to write.  If I do my keyword research using Google Keyword Planner or other tools and I then do a search on Google, I want to see what my competition is like.

If you see that any search results have a much higher domain and page rank than you, it’s less likely you’ll be able to rank for this content.

 



I suggest that you use a browser without the plugin for normal browsing, because it can be distracting and slow down your searches.  When you want to do some SEO research use a separate browser with the plugin installed.

 

How do I increase my domain authority?

Your domain authority will increase or decrease over time depending on 40 different signals.  The exact signals are not shared but if you want to increase your domain authority here are some tips:

Monitor your domain authority over time

If you keep a regular check on it you’ll see it going up or down.  If you see your domain authority going up then you should look at the links you are getting and try to get more of them (e.g. from other similar sites). If it’s going down you’ll need to check to see if you are losing links or getting low quality ones.

If you regularly check your domain authority you’ll begin to understand what works and doesn’t work, and you will be able to make an effort to do more of the things that are the most effective.

Review your competitors

Analyze your competitors and find those that have a high domain authority.  Find out their most powerful links and try to get links from these sites.

Ahref is a very useful tool for analyzing competitor links.

Guest Blogging

Writing high quality posts on sites on high traffic websites that are relevant to your industry is good for your domain rank.  That’s as long as you get a link back to your site!

Matt Cutts (Head of Google web spam) wrote an article recently about the death of guest blogging.  He said there is far too much spam with people writing lots of guest posts for links and they are going to do something about it!

This doesn’t mean that guest posting is a bad strategy.  Writing lots of short meaningless blog posts and placing them on a a wide variety of sites is not going to give you any benefit.

But Google looks for high quality relevant content.  There’s nothing wrong with writing high quality content on a relevant site.  Links is not the only benefit to writing content on highly relevant sites.    This helps build up your brand and this will result in more traffic which will result in more links anyway!

When I write guest posts I only write it on sites that are hugely respected in the industry.  These just happen to have high traffic and a high domain authority also!

Write amazing content

If you write really good content people will link to it naturally, though you will have to work harder for some links by promoting your work. Promoting your content is so important:  you might have the most amazing piece of content but if you don’t tell people then they won’t find it!

We recently created an infographic which was very popular and resulted in over 100 backlinks from different websites.  Some of these links were from websites with really high domain authority.  So think about doing some content that sticks out because that will help you get a lot of links.

Network with relevant people

If you build up a network of influential people in your area of expertise, they will naturally talk about you and your content and this means additional links.

If you put in the work to build relationships it will benefit you over time

 

If you liked this article let us know how you have increased your domain authority or if you have any experience with increasing your domain authority or website traffic

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We all know that Star Wars is full of life lessons. After all, it’s pop culture’s ultimate morality play, with clear-cut instructions for deciding right and wrong, as well as ultra-cool examples of all those roads not taken and detours missed. Unfortunately, many of us are so caught up in cheering for the good guys that we miss the extremely valuable life lessons that Darth Vader and his ilk can teach us.Lord Vader was no slouch when it came to self-promotion. How else do you think he rose to the top of his nefarious profession? During his early years as a fledgling Sith lord, there’s no doubt that Vader’s email marketing skills must have been prodigious. In fact, if you take an even closer look at Star Wars, you can pick up a number of subliminal hints that can help you with your own email marketing strategies. Consider these strategies used by the Great Helmeted One himself.

Darth Vader's Email Marketing Lessons

Reach Out to the Multitudes, but Target Your Audience

Darth Vader wasn’t merely satisfied with running a kingdom or two; galactic domination was his goal, and in business, it should be yours too. Lord Vader’s mistake was that, instead of utilizing the talents of his minions, he only wanted to crush them all under the heel of his black durasteel combat boots. You can avoid the same mistake by targeting your email audience. Use social networking sites to learn about their preferences and cater to these with your email marketing campaign. Speaking of social networking….

Engage Your Audience

Throughout the Star Wars saga, Darth Vader didn’t merely bark orders; he also engaged in challenging dialogues with enemies such as Luke and Obi Wan-Kenobi, provoking them by knowing just which buttons to push to get the optimum reaction. In the same way, you’ll want to engage your email prospects by appealing to their interests, then creating stimulating conversations with them. One way to do this is to post contests, surveys or question-and-answer sessions, either on your website or via your Facebook and Twitter pages. You’ll not only find out about your target audience, but you’ll also get lots of new email addresses for your mailing list.

Believe in Your Product

When Darth Vader tells Imperial Officer Motti, “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” he’s giving utterance to his life’s credo: believe in yourself — and in your message. When you show others that you believe in your product, they’ll get the message right away, without you having to resort to a Darth Vader death grip.

Create Pithy Content, and Keep it Simple

When Darth Vader pronounced those memorable words, “I am your father,” he made cinematic history with one simple sentence. Vader is a man of few words, but those words are always compelling. By being direct and getting to the heart of the matter without a lot of fluff, you can produce email content that’s actually being read, not deleted.

Technology is Your Friend

Lord Vader and his minions used only the newest state-of-the-art technologies, all of which were encapsulated in the Death Star. Except for extenuating circumstances, propelled by the power of the Force, the Death Star would have been a splendid high-tech center of galactic operations for the Empire. In much the same way, you can embrace technology by using analytics to measure your return on investment (ROI) as well as your response activity in your email marketing campaign.

Use Tracking Tools to Measure Performance

Darth Vader implemented a tracking device on the Millennium Falcon so that he and his minions could follow the ship to Yavin IV, the hidden base of the rebels. If it wasn’t for the power of the Force (more about that later), the scheme might have worked. By following Vader’s strategy and implementing tracking tools in your email marketing, you can uncover valuable demographics, such as where your target prospects live and what types of products they like and buy. Likewise, you can also use tracking tools to find out whether or not your emails have been opened, and which links have been clicked and followed.

Dodge Spam Filters

Darth Vader destroyed Alderaan because it was a nuisance to the Empire. In much the same way, spam filters are a nuisance to email marketing; but the good news is there are ways to handle those pesky email rebels. By using a dedicated IP address, as well as email service providers that are specially designed for marketing purposes, you can dodge spam filters as adroitly as Darth Vader sidesteps those light-saber swipes in his final battle with Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Test Your Emails

Darth Vader was a strong believer in testing your methods to make sure they’re going to succeed when it really counts. For example, he wanted to hold Luke in a state of suspended animation, so he tested the process on Hans Solo first by having him frozen in carbonite. Likewise, he did a test-run on the Death Star’s capabilities by completely taking out Alderaan. In much the same way, you can test different variables in your email marketing to see how well they’re working. For example, try experimenting with distinct designs and fonts, as well as various types of topics in the subject line. By measuring the effectiveness of these variables, you’ll be able to come up with the right voice and graphics for your campaign.

Create a Call to Action that Resonates

When Darth Vader carried out a command, he meant business. Try ending your emails with a powerful call to action that’s just as compelling as one of Vader’s commands — without utilizing that nasty death grip, which would certainly send the wrong message.

Have a Sense of Humor

When Darth Vader says “Apology accepted” after choking Captain Needa to death, it’s proof that the old steel-shod rascal does indulge in the odd grisly whimsicality here and there. While there probably won’t be a “Darth Vader Joke Book” on the market anytime soon, you can still take a cue from the Great Helmeted One and infuse your emails with a touch of humor. Look at it this way: the funnier the email, the more chances it will be read instead of deleted.

Ask for Feedback

This is the one thing that Darth Vader never learned to do, and it led to the downfall of the Empire. If they’d only distributed a few customer comment cards in the Mos Eisley Cantina, the Empire might have finally gotten the message that the Emperor wasn’t too popular. By asking for feedback in your emails, you’re opening the door for response and communication from potential customers. Plus, feedback is a great way to find out how to reach your audience in a more meaningful way.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of the Force — Your Audience

Throughout the Star Wars saga, Darth Vader’s biggest mistake is that he continually underestimated the light side of the Force, as well as the powers of its practitioners. Remember the Ewoks? It’s safe to say that when Lord Vader was strategizing his final assault against the rebellion, he never envisioned his troops being overrun and outsmarted by a bunch of fluffy, high-IQ teddy bears picnicking in a redwood forest. Even if a segment of your audience seems unresponsive to your email campaign, don’t give up on them. They may just be waiting for the right moment to spring into action. Instead, use creative ways to engage them, such as dialogues and contests.

Use an Email Management System

Where would Darth Vader be without his storm troopers? More than anything else, Vader believed in bringing out the troops whenever it was necessary — and having a strong support system to cover his back. Vader’s onboarding skills must have been exemplary, or how else could he have put together such a forceful management team? No matter how extensive your email marketing campaign, you’ll benefit from an email management system offering management tools such as list building, graphic designing and auto-delivery. A professional system can also help you create dynamic content rich with links that can be tracked so you can measure your effectiveness. Darth Vader also believed in delegating whenever it was feasible, and an email management system can take some of the grub work off your hands so that you have more time to concentrate on your product or service. Darth Vader was a superb strategist, which is the key quality of a good marketer. By utilizing these same strategies — albeit in a positive, nonviolent way — you can parlay Darth Vader’s own methods into a successful email marketing campaign that will stand head and shoulders (even without the cape and helmet) above the crowd.

Tweetables

1. By implementing tracking tools in your email marketing, you can uncover valuable demographics.
   


2. Try ending your emails with a powerful call to action.
   


3. Engage your email prospects by appealing to their interests.

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Double Your Facebook Likes in just 5 Minutes per Day (Infographic)

How do I get more likes for my Facebook page?

 

This is a common refrain among brands looking to grow their Facebook presence. They know they should be in the space but they’re not sure whether it’s worth devoting the amount of time and energy required to grow their Facebook audience. For them, the potential for return on investment (ROI) is murky at best and not easily quantifiable. (see infographic below)

 

The psychology of social media sharing

A New York Times study found that:

• 49% of social media users share content that allows them to inform others about things they care about and have the potential to change opinions or encourage action.


• 68% of social media users share content so they can give their friends a better sense of who they are and what they care about.


• 84% of social media users share content that allows them to support causes they care about.

The art and science of Facebook marketing can seem mysterious and daunting, and likes in and of themselves are not a magic bullet for increasing sales. But growing an audience of people who are interested in your products and offering them targeted, useful content on a regular basis should lead to improved Facebook Page engagement. Here are a few daily activities that can make a huge difference in the number of fans drawn to your page and how they engage and interact with your content.

 

7 ways to Double your Facebook likes

in just a few minutes a day

 

1. Make Facebook connections

• Connect with Facebook admins who serve a similar demographic and develop a cross-promotion strategy.


• Use Facebook’ native functionality to invite your email subscribers to like your page by providing incentives for them to do so. Facebook also has an email feature that enables you to engage those who don’t respond to your invitation and further entice them to connect.

2. Share content on your Facebook page

• Share original content and compelling photos that are audience-appropriate to improve engagement.


• Post frequently about newsworthy stories that are relevant to your readers.

3. Be active on Facebook

• Comment on other pages where your target audience is already having conversations.


• Share and tag your business page from your personal Facebook account.


• If you host live events, post lots of photos and encourage your fans to tag themselves.


• Offer your fans discounts or specials.

4. Link your Facebook page to Twitter

• Link your Facebook page to your Twitter account so your Facebook posts will be automatically tweeted in 140 characters or less.


• Remember that Twitter is completely different from Facebook and requires a different form of management.

5. Host a Facebook contest

• Facebook contest apps are an inexpensive and easy way to have fun with promoting your products.


• Most apps can be configured to require contestants to like your page before entering the contest.


• The most popular prize categories for Facebook contests are travel, entertainment, music, technology, and fashion gifts.

6. Use Facebook advertising to your best advantage

• Facebook’s targeting feature allows you to choose the demographic you want to reach.


• Sponsored stories enable you to advertise your business’s page to friends of those who already like your page.


• Upload your email subscriber list and include members in your advertising campaigns.


• Split-test your ads because conversion rates can drop by 50% after the first 24 hours.

7. Promote your Facebook page online and offline

• Display a sign in your store window encouraging customers to like your page.


• Add links or info on your Facebook page to your other types of advertising.


• Include your Facebook page address on all promotional materials, including your business cards.


• Use your Facebook page info in all of your marketing materials — brochures, posters, media kits, collateral, and other promotional items.


• Mention your Facebook page to people you meet and encourage them to like it.

These tips should go a long way toward growing your Facebook fan base!

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Whether you’re using it for sharing content, responding to followers, keeping up-to-date with the news or having fun, Twitter is an essential part of most marketers’ social media arsenal. But it gets even better when you manage your Twitter interactions with third-party tools. There are dozens of them, including Hootsuite, ManageFlitter, Untweeps and (my personal favorite) Buffer.

Photo Credit: mkhmarketing

9 Essential Twitter Tools for Social Media Rock Stars

But apart from these tried and tested Twitter standbys, there are also some new (or significantly changed) tools around. Here are nine of the most interesting ones I’ve tried out this year.

1. Triberr

Triberr allows you to create groups of like-minded Twitter users and share your content with the group via your blog’s RSS feed. The idea is that they will also share that content with their followers. Although you can automate the process, it’s better to check in to the site and review the content you plan to share. Triberr is a great tool for social sharing, but also rocks for influence marketing, which is a new direction for the site. For more on Triberr, read our earlier review.

2. Twtrland

Another Twitter tool I’ve really enjoyed using is Twtrland, a tool that works not only with Twitter, but with Facebook and Instagram as well. Using your account details, it creates profiles for each user and is so full of information about follower demographics, key topics, user activity and more that you may never look at your Twitter profile the same way again. And the ability to monitor keywords and to figure out who’s influential in different arenas makes Twtrland invaluable to those using Twitter for business or running a Twitter marketing campaign. If you’re an analytics and stats fiend, then you will really enjoy Twtrland.

3. Commun.it

Need more data on Twitter relationships? Commun.it could be the answer. This Twitter community management tool gives you an overview of your Twitter network, helping you to identify the people who influence you, those who are influential and much more. You can use it to track retweets and reach and get an idea of activity and engagement for your Twitter account.

4. Followerwonk

Followerwonk isn’t exactly a new tool but it became part of the Moz family in 2012 and got a new lease on life and new interface, so it’s probably worth having a look at what it offers. While you have to subscribe to a premium version to enable tracking and sorting of followers, the free version allows you to check the Twitter authority of any user and to see a breakdown of the people they follow by location, gender, language, follower count, Twitter activity and more. It tells you when that person tweets most and when their followers are most active, allowing you to integrate this with Buffer to set a tweeting schedule.

5. Pluggio

Pluggio is a much newer tool to manage Twitter and Facebook. Using a folder navigation system, it allows you to segment information in different ways so you can track users, groups, hashtags and keywords. It incorporates scheduling of social media posts and also allows Buffer-style drip feeding of posts to different networks through the day. It can help you identify people who are posting using various keywords and hashtags so that you can follow them. As if that’s not enough, it can also be used as an RSS reader, allowing you to read content online and immediately post it to your social sites. Add to that analytics and automation tools and it has the potential to be an all-in-one social dashboard. I personally found it a little bit noisy but I can see where it could be useful.

6. Mention

One tool that I have used a lot this year is Mention. It works with both Twitter and Facebook, but has recently integrated Buffer, which gives it a wider social reach. With Mention you can set up alerts for brand mentions or anything else you want to track, and can customize this with terms or sites you want to exclude. Choose the sources you want to track mentions from (web, news, blogs, forums, videos, images, Twitter and Facebook) and you will get alerts both on the web and in your email inbox. On the web, you can say which mentions are irrelevant or block some, so over time it becomes more useful and you can see mentions inline before responding to them in some way. Essentially, Mention is a cross-platform media monitoring service that works very well. While there are limits to what you can track and the analytics you get in the free version, it’s more than enough for most users. Oh, and there’s an app too—for both Android and iPhone.

7. Tweriod

Another interesting Twitter tool is Tweriod, which analyzes your account to identify the best times for you to Tweet. Once you’ve signed in, it takes a couple of hours to generate your report. The report shows the times when your Twitter content will get the most exposure and when most of your followers are online. It also provides hourly graphs and tracks @replies. Like Followerwonk, Tweriod syncs with Buffer to optimize your tweeting schedule.

8. Twitonomy

Twitonomy is a tool that provides free analytics on tweets, retweets, hashtags, mentions, replies and more. Like other tools in this roundup, it provides insights into your followers and the people you follow. It also includes monitoring mentions and tweets, finding people who are not following you, finding people who you’re not following, click tracking, list management and backup of reports. Once you’ve signed in it takes only a short time to generate your initial dashboard, populated with a couple of sample modules that you can use. As a bit of a stats junkie I love the functionality in this tool. And I love the fact that it makes it easy for me to follow what’s happening with multiple lists in a single browser window. This is definitely one that’s worth checking out.

9. Refollow

Another recent addition to the Twitter tool list is Refollow. This tool has a huge number of filters to allow you to segment Twitter users very finely and then take action on what you have found. It’s meant to be a follower growth tool and can also help you to prune your lists, deleting inactive Twitter users, but after the changes in Twitter API limits, this became a paid feature. However, in the free account you can still create new lists from the segments you identify or add and remove people to and from existing lists. You can also block people to make sure that your lists stay permanent. And there are more advanced features in the pro version. Now it’s your turn—which Twitter tools have you found most useful this year?

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