by Ana Hoffman 36 comments

My Espresso Reading List: February 1, 2013



138 Flares 138 Flares ×

No, this is not another link round-up to overwhelm you with information.

You now have an information buffer between being overwhelmed with all the trends and simply great posts to keep up with and the ones you actually need to pay attention to to move your business forward.

Traffic Generation Café.

Here is what I paid attention to and implemented in my own business in the past week.

Recap

The past week was a quiet one in online marketing industry.

I like that.

Time to catch our breath and be proactive, rather than react to the latest Google algorithm updates or Facebook changes.

TrafficGenerationCafe.com

How-to…

However, that’s not why I am mentioning this post here.

What I want you to think about is this: how did Mauro D’Andrea, a new blogger you probably never heard of, managed to pull this kind of post together?

How did Mauro coax 101 people who definitely had better things to do than to respond to his email, to actually help him to create such a perfect traffic/link bait?

And how can you apply the same principles in your business.

(Hint: the answer is guest posting - here’s Mauro’s excellent guest post about Slideshare at TGC, and Danny Iny’s Write like Freddy - the course I am going through right now.)

WordPress

  • Should Links Be Opened in New Tabs? (ManageWP.com) - an interesting discussion from Tom Ewer; something I’d love to hear your opinion about. Would you like all these windows to open in the same tab (and potentially loose your original source - my blog) or new tabs (and potentially get overwhelmed by the amount of tabs in front of you).

Facebook

  • AgoraPulse Barometer - great free tool to keep track of how your Facebook performance is stacking up against the average performance of the 3,464 pages included in the Barometer. Your metrics are in black, the Barometer average performance in orange.

I thought I was doing pretty well at Traffic Generation Cafe FB page, but the barometer showed me I’ve got a lot of work to do.

All of my numbers are below average.

How does your FB page stack up?

Bookmarked: Images/Design

Most of us run our business on a tight budget, so these two posts will come in handy when creating all sorts of images - whether for your site or any of your social media profiles.

These two posts are great to bookmark for when you need help/reference.

  • 17 Web-based Sketching and Painting Tools (smallbiztrends.com) - Most business owners need a graphic design tool from time to time. From sketching out a new logo, animation for a slide presentation, or to create caricatures of your crew to increase morale, these tools can help you without the added cost of traditional art software. This post highlights 17 tools to help you draw out your ideas.

Productivity

  • 12 Most Super Handy Chrome Extensions (12most.com) - I already use several of these extensions (Alexa, WiseStamp, Bit.ly), but definitely need to look into others. Every minute counts, right?

Off to get my third cup of coffee (waiting for my husband to make us some banana-ricotta pancakes for breakfast) and implement, implement, implement!

traffic generation cafe


traffic generation cafe comment below

Google+ Comments

{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }

Matt February 9, 2013 at 6:32 am

Hey Ana ! great post. I totally agree that new tab concept is always appealing. and Agorapulse Barometer is awesome, i did not know about that. Thanks for such valuable article.
Keep posting. and best of luck for your facebook page promotion.
Matt

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 9, 2013 at 11:18 am

You are very welcome, Matt; thanks for coming by.

Reply

Anita February 5, 2013 at 9:34 am

Everyone here agrees that tabs should open to a new page, but is that because we all have websites? Anyways, thank you for putting together this list :)

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 6, 2013 at 9:14 am

Good point, Anita, but then again, if my audience is made up of site owners and they want their tabs opened in new windows…

Reply

Senorita February 5, 2013 at 5:26 am

Excellent Post and thanks for sharing. I would like to add few comment about content marketing. . The rise of social media is one reason that content marketing has become more important today. In the past, you may have created a piece of content and put it on your site or in an email newsletter. Now, you have all these social channels to feed.
And I too agree with Brent- about new Tab. “Drives me crazy when I’m reading an article, click on the link to read a resource link later . . . and the article disappears.”

Reply

Greg February 4, 2013 at 9:40 pm

Ana - How do I schedule tweets and let them just send with TA? Have several generated but now confused. You’re the expert… :)

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 5, 2013 at 5:46 am

I don’t use TA for that, Greg - I stick with HootSuite to actually schedule tweets. But if you want to do it in TA, just click on the account and go under Tweets.

Reply

Greg February 5, 2013 at 7:01 pm

Thanks Ana, I’ll prolly end up on HootSuite. Do you have any insight on the best times to follow? I’ve tried late at night (fairly unsuccessfully)

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 6, 2013 at 9:18 am

I used to experiment with times quite a bit and, honestly, it never seemed to make much difference. Most of the times, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason behind it.

I don’t worry about it any longer and just do it when it’s convenient for me.

Reply

Greg February 6, 2013 at 11:43 am

That makes terrific sense :)

Reply

Jamie February 4, 2013 at 5:44 pm

Excellent round up. I’ll be going through it in detail when I get time.

In short… new tabs 100% yes! Though chrome can be annoying the way it creates a second browser window sometimes to hold more tabs.

The bit.ly chrome extension is super handy!

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 4, 2013 at 8:57 pm

That’s one thing I don’t like about Chrome…

Reply

Helene Poulakou February 3, 2013 at 11:35 pm

Definitely, DEFINITELY, open links in new tabs!
I prefer having a dozen new tabs in front of me, than having to go back and forth from the article.
I take a quick look at each one of them, scan/skim the content, and I keep those that I find really interesting for more careful reading.
Otherwise, I have to copy the url, open a new tab myself, paste the url, enter the command, go back to the first tab, hit the back button… No Like!

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 4, 2013 at 8:21 pm

I am the same, Helene; thanks for confirming it for me.

By the way, how’s Squidoo doing for you?

Reply

Helene Poulakou February 4, 2013 at 11:37 pm

I’m not very actively involved with the platform (in fact, I completely abandoned it for a year or so, just letting my pages ‘hang’ there unattended and dropping in rank), BUT

I suddenly came to realize the power of hitting the first page on Google (with the post you see here). And saw a few pennies coming in through it, too.

I must find some more popular topics (Americans and Greeks have sometimes different opinions on what’s interesting), and be less academic, I believe, to make it better over there. But this is me, and we’re talking about you right now…

If handled right, Squidoo has a good potential for bringing traffic to your site, and clickouts are encouraged by the rating system (which will make the page go even higher), so I guess that some solid writing on topics that interest people (more on this below) and strategically placed links will earn you a number of visitors.

Lensmasters (pages on Squidoo are called lenses), esp. new lensmasters, are very, very, very interested in what could bring traffic to their pages and earn them more money (of course!), which means that you could “make a killing” over there.

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 5, 2013 at 6:11 am

Thanks, Helene - I had a feeling Squidoo can be a traffic gold mine IF I take my time to learn how to use it. Of course, who has the time, right? :)

Reply

Helene Poulakou February 5, 2013 at 9:31 am

You can write the posts, include the links that interest you, and outsource the rest of the tasks (hint)

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 6, 2013 at 9:13 am

Why, are you interested? You can email me at meetanahoffman at gmail.

Reply

Kristy February 3, 2013 at 6:05 pm

Interesting tips! I didn’t know that there is a web application for measuring the barometer of my business page that can track down how well I am doing on Facebook.

Reply

Kashif February 3, 2013 at 10:49 am

Great list. Bookmarking for future reference.

And, links should open in new tabs so that users can come back to original page once they’re done with click jumping.

Reply

Property Marbella February 3, 2013 at 1:39 am

Hi Ana,
As usual you with several good ideas and suggestions to be better, unfortunately I only have time to work 2 hours a day with my web page, it includes writing articles. Maybe I will try to write some articles and try to get them with my colleagues’ blogs, it seems like a good way. to get more traffic.

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 4, 2013 at 7:22 am

I know what you mean, Marbella - I have about 3-4 productive hours per day as well. Trying to figure out how to do more with less time.

Reply

Adam February 2, 2013 at 3:16 pm

Ana, a great round up here - glad I checked this because I missed a few of these.

Especially impressed with Mauro’s post and how he managed to pull together such a post. I’m stacked out with reading for a while now, so best get started.

Thanks!

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 3, 2013 at 11:14 am

Always my pleasure, Adam; glad I could keep you busy!

Reply

Lisa February 2, 2013 at 12:19 pm

I wondered how Mauro did that too - he must have spent a lot of time on that one post. Makes me wonder, spend more time on 1 post vs. several a week? Would readers read that length of a post each time? You got me thinking on this one Ana. I did read that post 2x already since I first saw it.
All my Facebook pages are down on engagements except for one that I did a promoted post on. More work to do!
Love the sizing cheat sheet Ana. Thanks.

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 3, 2013 at 11:07 am

Interesting point, Lisa.

Let’s look at it this way: what’s the ultimate purpose of any piece of content we create? To generate traffic and to create more income possibilities.

If we take (a lot) more time to create one piece of content that becomes a traffic and link bait vs creating 4 pieces of content that won’t do half as much… I think the answer is pretty self-evident.

I’ve been thinking of doing some promoted posts as well.

Reply

Lisa February 3, 2013 at 11:16 am

I guess my only question Ana would be then - does the length really make a difference? Killer content could be short too if it was valuable to the readers, right? Of course that means it must have substance and show value.
I’ve seen some of Seth Godin’s posts and they are short, sweet and to the point. Maybe that comes after being well established :)

Reply

Mauro D'Andrea February 4, 2013 at 3:49 am

Hi Lisa, I agree with Ana: the ultimate purpose of any piece of content is to generate traffic and get backlinks.
Most of the time you need something big to do that, especially when few people know you.

(hint: there are many other reasons why I did that post)

You can also read Neil Patel’s answer on my post: he says that posts with over 2000 words rank better (on his blog there is the detailed explaination: http://www.quicksprout.com/2012/12/20/the-science-behind-long-copy-how-more-content-increases-rankings-and-conversions/).

Of course, the length isn’t everything, but you’ll agree with me that long valuable posts are better than short valuable posts.

About Seth…well, he’s Seth Godin. He’s an established expert with many thousands of followers therefore he could even write a one sentence post and it will be shared all around the web :)

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 4, 2013 at 8:26 pm

Thanks for the link, Mauro; curious to check it out.

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 4, 2013 at 9:17 am

No, I agree, Lisa.

If you really look at my Ultimate Blueprint to More Profitable Website Traffic, all it is is a bunch of bullet points. It’s still lengthy, but it had to be; however, its substance is not in its length.

I’d love to see you experiment with the length vs substance on your blog.

Reply

Brent Carnduff February 2, 2013 at 12:17 pm

Definitely open links in a NEW TAB!!! Drives me crazy when I’m reading an article, click on the link to read a resource link later . . . and the article disappears. I also have a bad habit of opening links to read later, or bookmark a lot of articles. Having them open in the same window is a real pain in the . . . you get the picture - I’d vote for NEW TAB : )

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 3, 2013 at 10:57 am

That’s the way I am as well, Brent.

Of course, then I end up with a bunch of open tabs and in the end don’t find the time to read any of them… :)

Thanks for coming by!

Reply

Mauro D'Andrea February 2, 2013 at 9:53 am

Ana, thank you very much for including my post!

It’s totally true: guest posting helped me A LOT. And as I said elsewhere, before I took Danny’s guest posting course I couldn’t get one single guest post accepted. After that I’ve published guest posts on many big blogs and I’ve met many wonderful people.
It’s a really helpful course.

Thanks again for mentioning my post.

Reply

Ana Hoffman February 3, 2013 at 10:55 am

I am going through it right now, Mauro; it’s never too late to learn how to do something the right way!

Thanks for putting so much hard work into it; great to see it paying off.

Reply

Chris Dyson February 6, 2013 at 8:26 am

Mauro,

Thanks again for including me in your awesome article - I’m also currently taking Danny’s guest post course, enjoying it a lot

Reply

Mauro D'Andrea February 6, 2013 at 9:54 am

My pleasure Chris!

It’s a good choice: Danny’s course is really helpful.

Reply

Leave a Comment

traffic generation cafe comment below

Commenting Policy STOP & READ: I appreciate and read all comments, even though I don't always have the time to respond to each one. Your comments are extremely important to me, so keep them coming. Please, do not use just keywords in "Name" field; you MUST leave a real name, if you want to see your comment approved. Thinking of dropping your link spam? Save the effort: your comment will NEVER show up on this blog.


Previous post:

Next post: