The Best Mapping Plugins For WordPress

A contact page is much more useful with a map. A post about your favorite places for Chinese food is...

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Last Chance to Start a Blog with Us Today

Have you started a blog this year? Every year between Christmas and New Year our enquiries for starting a blog skyrocket. It must be something to do with New Year’s Resolutions and setting new goals. Blogs still seem to be on everyone’s mind, even though they apparently died years ago.

I know it’s only the end of January, but if starting a blog was your New Year’s resolution then what are you waiting for? ProBlogger’s FREE Ultimate Guide to Starting a Blog course closes today, so act now and enrol here.

The first ever International Start a Blog Day on February 7 is fast approaching. We’re closing our course intake temporarily so the ‘Class of January 2018’ can work through the seven steps to launching their blogs in time for this event.

So far, more than 1,000 pre-bloggers have started the course and are on their way to launching a blog. Many have already completed the course, and are getting into their blogging stride. It’s fascinating looking at these new blogs from around the world and across different niches. We’re looking forward to sharing them all with you on February 7.

Want a sneak peak at some new blogs?

To whet your appetite and give you a taste of what’s coming, we’d like to introduce you to a few new bloggers and their blogs right now.

• Michelle is the baker, recipe developer, and food photographer behind https://michellesmacarons.com – simple guides, tips, and easy macaron recipes all in one place.

• Bob’s from South-Western Ontario, Canada and writes on taking a thrifty approach to personal finance on http://thriftymoneyeh.ca/.

• Bee takes a curious, skeptical and humble approach to beauty and life at https://bootsandberry.com

• Jon wants to help you crush the modern, solo lifestyle. On http://thirdwheelliving.com/ he shares tips, strategies, and benefits to living a fulfilling single life.

February 7 is International Start a Blog Day

International Start a Blog Day will celebrate the diversity of new bloggers around the world launching their blogs at the beginning of the year. It will provide a date every year where you can share your new blog, connect new bloggers, and help you get your first blog readers. If you enrol and use our course to begin a blog before February 7, you can participate in the first annual international Start a Blog Day.

International Start a Blog Day will feature:

• A new blog honour roll listed by niche where you can share your blog’s URL
• Live Facebook broadcasts with ProBlogger Darren Rowse
• Spotlight profiles of new blogs and bloggers telling their story
• Scholarship awards for new bloggers to undertake further ProBlogger training
• Ongoing updates and progress reports on the ‘Class of 2018’ ProBlogger students

Here’s What Our Students are Saying

“I wish I had a course like this when thinking about starting my blog. The 15 questions asked in module one and two are so foundational to starting a blog, no course I have seen out there has done a very good job of it. Darren’s is the only one that goes into this detail about it and the foundation that he teaches.” – Darin

“I appreciated the ‘Why Blog?’ module. It made me realize that my ‘why’ is a bit self-centered. I know my strengths and interests but hadn’t thought through how my blog would meet the needs of a community and make an impact. Taking a few days to flush this out. Thank you!” – Jen

“Finished the first lesson, and it really made me think about my ‘why’. I didn’t know to do this with my old blogs, and I think it’s why I never really connected with my readers. Thinking about how I can make a difference is a whole different way of looking at it. And I’m looking forward to being able to help other people as well. Thanks for helping me to crystallize this!” – Darlene

“I just want to say how much I am enjoying the process (I am on Step 2), and how much I am learning about my core beliefs on the ‘why’ of my blog, and its true mission and my purpose. It is evolving from what I originally thought/saw as its role, and I am okay with that. I will tell more when I have it a bit more understood in my own heart and mind, and will be excited to share it. Until then it is great to see so many others along for the journey and sharing. I have my blog ready to start creating and look for it to be up and going no later than next weekend.” – Sheyla

Already Got a Blog?

If you already have a blog, you can still take part in International Start a Blog Day by providing your support and encouragement to the new and emerging bloggers. You may even find inspiration from these fledgling bloggers and their enthusiasm and new angles on your own topic or niche. Interestingly, we’ve also had great feedback from existing bloggers who have participated in the Starting a Blog course, saying the material covers some concepts of blogging they haven’t encountered before, and that it has sharpened their focus.

We’ve also got you covered with our next course coming out in March – “31 Days to Build a Better Blog”. The title may sound familiar – we’ve taken our best-selling book, updated it and beefed it up to help bloggers who are either in their first 30 days of a new blog or really need to breathe new life into an existing blog. If you’re interested, make sure to check out the outline of the course here and sign up to be alerted when it becomes available.

2018 is shaping up to be an exciting year.

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233: Tools We’re Using to Get More Subscribers and Customers in 2018

Tips for Selling Gifts in Your WordPress eCommerce Store

With the new year here and well underway you can finally plan ahead for upcomgin holidays! It is time to...

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How to Create a WordPress Intranet for Collaboration

If you have multiple contributors on your team, you need a way to share internal resources, documents, feedback, and more....

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The Difference Between Pages and Posts (and Making the Most of Each)

Written by ProBlogger Expert Ali Luke

When you think of a blog, you probably think of the posts. You might go to the site to read the latest ones (often on the home page), or they might go straight to your inbox. And if you follow the blogger on social media, you may well see them posting links to their latest posts.

But posts aren’t the only type of content you need to create as a blogger.

Whatever blogging system you use, you’ll have two different ways to publish new content: as blog posts or as blog pages.

Understanding Posts and Pages

On a blog, articles (or news, stories, etc) are published as posts. These appear in reverse chronological order, with the newest posts at the top of the list or (in a grid layout) on the top left of the screen.

Blog posts normally have a timestamp showing when they were published. And readers who have subscribed for updates by RSS or email will get these new posts automatically.

But blog pages are a little different. They are what’s known as “static” content. That doesn’t mean they never change (you can always update a page),. But they won’t be superseded by new pages the way blog posts might.

For instance, you might have blog posts for “2015 roundup”, “2016 roundup” and “2017 roundup” all available in your archives. But would you have multiple pages for “contact details 2015”, “contact details 2016” and so on? Of course not. You’d just update your one Contact page.

Pages are used for content such as:

• Information about you and your blog
• A “start here” list of posts
• Sales information about your products
• Terms and conditions / privacy policy

Key pages are normally linked to in the top navigation.

Pages don’t have a timestamp, and don’t go out to readers through RSS/email. You can allow comments on pages, but most bloggers don’t as it rarely makes sense.

Using Posts and Pages Effectively

To get the most out of your blog, and to make it a great experience for your readers, you’ll want to make good use of the different attributes of posts and pages.

Here are some key ones to think about:

Posts

Categories: Posts must have a category. This helps organise your blog, especially if you use categories as a navigation option or let readers filter your  post archiveby category.

Make sure you set a category for each new post, or it’ll default to “uncategorized”. You can also rename this default category to something that would make sense for many of your posts. For example, if you write about parenting, your default category might be “kids” or “tips”.

Tags: You may want to use tags to help further organize your pages. They can be a good alternative to having loads of categories, and can help readers navigate your site. But don’t just duplicate your categories as tags. Yoast SEO has some good information on how to use categories and tags as effectively as possible for search engines.

Pages

Password protection: While you can password-protect a post, bloggers rarely use this option. Pages are more commonly password-protected, and can be a quick and easy way to provide some of your readers with exclusive content. For instance, my newsletter subscribers have access to a mini-library of ebooks on this password protected page.[a][b][c]

“Parent” pages: A page can be a “parent” to other pages. For example, you could have a general “Products” page, and pages for your three different products under it. When you set up the three product pages, you can select “Products” as their parent page.

Depending on your blogging platform and theme, “Products” may appear in your navigation menu with a drop-down showing the three products pages beneath. (You can also set this up manually, arranging the menu however you like, in Appearance → Menus in WordPress.)

The URLs for the pages will include the parent’s permalink (e.g. www.nameofblog.com/products/firstproduct).

Hopefully this has clarified the difference between posts and pages. If you’ve never created a page for your blog before, why not try one now? Log in to your blog’s dashboard and create a new page (it’ll be a very similar interface to creating a post). An “About” page is a great one to start with, and you can find some tips on crafting a great one here.

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The 15 Best Slider Plugins for WordPress

We’ve all seen a quality slider when shopping online, but what is it that makes sliders appealing? To start with,...

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15 Best SEO WordPress Themes for Digital Marketers and Agencies

With the increase in the number of online businesses, digital marketing along with SEO and social media agencies have also...

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12 Proven Trust Signals on WordPress Websites

Any business is built on trust, and one way to convey this on the web is with trust signals. Unless...

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9 Key Ingredients for Creating the Perfect Sales Page

If you’ve created one of these 7 types of products to sell on your blog, or you’re going to start offering a service to your readers, then you need a sales page.

The sales page is (not surprisingly) a page on your blog that’s all about your product or service. You can link to it in the navigation menu, from an ad on your sidebar, from your social media accounts, and from guest posts.

As an example, here’s the sales page for Digital Photography School’s Photo Magic ebook.

While sales pages don’t need to be complicated, creating your first one can be daunting. You may have seen all sorts of highly designed sales pages on large blogs and thought, “I can’t do anything even remotely like that”.

But all sales pages have similar elements, which you can think of as ‘ingredients’. Those elements are:

1. A clear, compelling headline
2. An image of the product or service
3. An explanation of exactly what’s included
4. A list of benefits the customer will get from the product
5. Testimonials from satisfied customers
6. The price (and the different pricing options, if applicable)
7. A money-back guarantee (if applicable)
8. A buy button
9. No sidebar

Here’s what you need to know about each one.

#1: A Clear, Compelling Headline

Sometimes you can use the name of your product or service as the headline, providing it’s interesting and self-explanatory. But in most cases you should come up with a headline as if you were writing an advertisement.

Here’s an example from Copyblogger’s “Authority” membership.

Their sales page begins with a clear statement: “How to Take the Guesswork Out of Content Marketing”, followed by supporting copy about it being a training and networking community.

Try coming up with several possible headlines, and ask your readers (or fellow bloggers, if you belong to a mastermind group or similar) which one they think works best.

You might also want to look at some of the sales pages of products or services you’ve purchased, to see what they did. Do the headlines grab your attention and draw you in? How do they do it? (And are any of them a bit over the top and potentially off-putting?)

#2: An Image of the Product (or Service)

Even if your product is digital, or your service is something fairly intangible (e.g. email consulting), you need an  image.

Here are some ideas:

• If you have a physical product, use high-quality photos that show it from different angles, or perhaps in different operating modes.
• If you have a digital product, take screenshots of it. If it’s an ebook, you might want to create a ‘3D’ version of the cover to use on your sales page. (A cover designer should be able to do this for you. Alternatively, there are plenty of online and downloadable tools you can use.)
• If you’re providing a service such as consulting, coaching, an in-person workshop, or similar, use a photo of yourself. If you don’t have any professional headshots, ask a friend or family member to take several different shots so you can select the best.
• If showing your face isn’t an option for any reason, think of other ways you might include a relevant image. For instance, if you’re an editor you might have a photo of your hands on the keyboard.

On the 2017 ProBlogger Evolve Conference sales page, we had photos taken at past events plus headshots of all the speakers:

Normally, you’ll want to save your image as a .jpg file so it loads quickly without losing much quality.

#3: An Explanation of Exactly What’s Included

Sometimes it seems obvious what the customer will get when they buy your product. But always spell things out as clearly as possible so there’s no room for doubt or confusion.

For instance, if you sell software you might want to make it clear they’ll receive a password to download it from your website. Otherwise, they might expect the software to arrive as an email attachment or even a physical CD.

With an ecourse, you’ll probably want to include at least the title of every module or part. And with an ebook, you may want to provide a full chapter list. Here’s what we do for our courses over on Digital Photography School. (This example is from the Lightroom Mastery course.)

#4: A List of Benefits the Customer Will Get

When you’ve created a great product or service, it’s easy to get carried away with the “features” – the nuts and bolts of how it works.

But customers don’t buy features – they buy benefits. (Or, as Harvard Professor Theodore Levitt put it, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!”)

Think about what your product (or service) will help your customer achieve. Will they save time, avoid silly mistakes, or overcome fears?

You might want to list a benefit for each feature. For instance, if you offer website setup and design services, some of the features might be:

• You’ll get your own domain name
• Your site will run on WordPress
• Your site will feature responsive design
• You’ll get unlimited email support

But these features may not mean much to someone who’s new to websites. They might not even know exactly what a domain name is, let alone why having their own matters.

Here are those same features, along with their benefits:

• You’ll get your very own domain name: you’ll look professional from the moment someone sees your blog’s address.
• Your site will run on WordPress: this popular website platform lets you easily make changes without touching a word of code.
• Your site will feature responsive design: it can tell when someone’s visiting from a mobile or tablet, and adjust (just for them) accordingly.
• You’ll get unlimited email support: while you’ll be able to update every aspect of your site on your own if you want to, I’ll always be available to help.

You can see how adding simple, clear benefits makes the offer sound much more attractive.

#5: Testimonials from Satisfied Customers

One crucial sales tool is what other people say about your product or service. Readers will (rightly) treat your own claims with a little skepticism – of course you think your product is great. But what do other customers think?

Testimonials are quotes from customers recommending your product. You could think of them as reviews, though they’re invariably focused on the positive. And each testimonial may only talk about one or two aspects of the product.

Of course, before you launch your product you won’t have any customers. To get your first few testimonials, you may want to make advance copies of the product available for free (or very cheap), or offer your services for a nominal fee, or even free. You could ask people  on your blog or social media sites whether they’d be interested in using your product and providing a testimonial.

Here’s how Erin Chase from $5 Dinners incorporates testimonials for her meal plan subscription:

Ideally, you’ll want to use the full name and a headshot of anyone providing a testimonial to prove they really exist. But ask permission before doing it – some people may prefer to be known by their initials alone.

#6: The Price (and Pricing Options)

It probably goes without saying, but at some point you’ll need to let customers know how much your product (or service) costs.

Be clear about the price, and exactly what it covers. If there are several options, you may want to use a pricing table (showing the options side by side) to help customers choose.

Here’s what Thrive Themes does with its Thrive Leads product (affiliate link), so customers can compare the monthly subscription to all of its products with the price of just Thrive Leads:

We have a Thrive Themes Membership for ProBlogger, and now use it to create all of our sales pages. Check out their sales page so you can see what’s possible with their drag-and-drop builder, Thrive Architect.

#7: A Money-Back Guarantee (if Applicable)

Providing it’s reasonable to do so, offering a money-back guarantee can help those customers ‘on the fence’ decide to buy. This is particularly true for digital products such as ebooks or ecourses. If they buy it and realise it’s not what they wanted, they can get a refund.

With services you might offer a trial period, or a short free consulting session, to help customers make up their mind.

Most bloggers find that very few customers ever ask for a refund, but giving people the option results in more sales. A standard money-back guarantee period is 30 days, but you might offer a longer period if your product is quite involved (e.g. a 60-day refund period on a six-month ecourse).

Here’s an example from a recent Digital Photography School deal. And you can check out the full sales page we built with with Thrive Architect (affiliate link)

#8: A “Buy” Button

This seems so obvious that you’re probably wondering why I’m including it. But if you’re creating your first sales page, you may not have given it much thought.

To sell your product or service, you’ll need a “buy” button. It might read:

• Buy now
• Add to cart
• Sign up
• Join now

or whatever makes sense for your product.

You can easily create a button using PayPal. If you want to style the button yourself, you can create any image and use the PayPal button link. (PayPal currently calls it the “Email payment code”. It’s just a URL you can send by email, use in a sales page, etc.)

If you want to automatically deliver a digital product when someone makes a purchase, you’ll need to use a third-party website or tool such as Easy Digital Downloads (affiliate link), which is what we use at ProBlogger and Digital Photography School.

Experienced bloggers sometimes split-test different button text, and even different button colours. But the most important thing is to make sure:

• it’s clearly visible and easy to find (you may want to include several buttons on the page
• it works.

#9: No Sidebar

This final ingredient is one you’ll remove from your sales page, rather than add. If you look at  the examples I’ve linked to in this post, you’ll see that while they all look very different in terms of design and layout, they all have one thing in common.

They don’t have a blog sidebar. And there are no interesting links and widgets to distract the customer from making a purchase.

Many bloggers use special software to create sales pages without sidebars (and even without the navigation bar or other standard elements on their blog). But you may be able to do it with your current WordPress theme.

When you’re editing a page, go to “Page Attributes” and look for an option called “blank page”, “no sidebars”, “full width” or similar:

Simply select the appropriate option and update your page: the sidebar should disappear.

I hope I’ve made the process of building a sales page a little less daunting. By gathering these ingredients one by one you can put your page together a bit at a time, rather than trying to write the whole thing at once.

Best of luck with your sales page, and your first product or service. I hope it’s the first of many for you.

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