[Checklist] The 5-Point Business Blog Accelerator

If you want to take your blog from this...

… to this…

… you need to dig in to this article.

I’m about to reveal the 5-Point Business Blog Checklist we use to transform ghost town blogs with no traffic into boom town blogs that generate leads and sales for a real business.

Let’s start with the most critical point in the checklist…

1 – Compelling Lead Magnet(s)

Email is still king folks.

It’s how you’ll bring people back to your content again and again.  But it’s also how you’ll make offers.

There is no difference between a blog subscriber and a lead.  A lead is a blog subscriber and a blog subscriber is a business lead.

And if you want leads, you need a Lead Magnet.  (For a complete understanding ofLead Magnets, read this article.)

This Lead Magnet has generated 36,859 leads/blog subscribers over the last 60 days at the time of this writing…

You’ll want to make this Lead Magnet offer in places like your blog sidebar as we have above.

But the sidebar is NOT where you’ll get the majority of your opt-ins.

Not even close.

Of the 36,859 leads/subscribers we’ve generated from this Lead Magnet only 319 of them opted-in by clicking on that banner in the right sidebar.

And that’s why you must have…

2 – Dedicated Landing Pages

The other 36,540 leads/subscribers that joined our email list to get this Lead Magnetentered our website on this page…

It’s a type of landing page called a “squeeze page.”  We call it that because there are only two things you can do on this page…

• Opt-in to get the Lead Magnet
• Leave

If you do it right, it’s possible to convert 40, 50 even 60% of visitors to a squeeze page into leads/subscribers.

So, how do you do it right?

There are 3 factors that will determine your Lead Magnet opt-in rate and they are (in order of importance)…

• The Offer – If you don’t make a compelling offer, nothing else matters.
• The Copy – Particularly the headline and bullets describing the Lead Magnet offer. (Read more about writing persuasive bullets here)
• The Layout/Design – The look and feel of your landing page is important —- but only if the offer and copy are done right.  No amount of design or layout will save a bad offer or copy.

That’s it.

That’s it.

But I know what you’re thinking.

How in the heck do you get traffic to a “squeeze page?.”

Great question.  It’s time to add…

3 – A Paid Traffic Strategy

At Digital Marketer we don’t worry about traffic.

When we want traffic, we turn it on… like a water faucet.

We like getting clicks from SEO.  And clicks from our Facebook Fans.

But we don’t pin our hopes to organic (free) traffic.  We’d much rather develop a great offer and cut a check for the traffic.  That way we know the traffic is coming.

We know WHEN it is coming.  And WHERE it is going.

It’s reliable.  Consistent.

And we can get data back very quickly this way.  In a day or two we can answer questions like…

How many of the 1,000 visitors we sent to that Lead Magnet squeeze page became leads/subscribers?

We may buy traffic, but we don’t like to pay for leads and subscribers.  So, we liquidate the cost of traffic by making a low-dollar offer to those that opt-in for the Lead Magnet.

We call it a Tripwire offer and you can learn all about the Tripwire offer and more in this article.

But here’s the short story about how we use Tripwire offers to generate leads, blog subscribers AND customers without spending a thin dime.

Let’s look at an example…

We have a Lead Magnet called the 60 Second Blog Plan that is designed to add more bloggers to our email list.

Here’s the Lead Magnet squeeze page for that offer…

 Let’s say we drive 1,000 paid clicks for $.50 a click.  The page converts ~50% of that traffic into leads.

When visitors opt-in, they are made a $10 offer on the “Thank You Page” and ~10% of people buy this low-dollar “Tripwire” offer.

The results?  500 new leads.  50 new buyers.  Zero out of pocket.

It looks like this…

Yep… if you want your blog to make money — you need to treat it like a business.

Create great content and offers and force eyeballs on it with a paid traffic strategy.

As the business owner it is your job to develop great offers and drive the strategy of the business and blog.  As a result you’ll find yourself much less able to spend time creating content.

Instead, you’ll need…

4 – Multiple Authors

Can you create a single author blog that makes money?  Absolutely.

But the big blogs that are really crushing it don’t operate like blogs.

They operate like media companies.  They operate like a true publisher with multiple authors.

Why?  For one, creating content is time intensive and not the best use of the business owner’s time.  Can you still write for your blog?  Sure, just don’t think that your primary role is creating content.  You need to generate leads and sales.

Secondly, with multiple authors you’ll access multiple networks.  When people create content, they share it with their network.   (Learn more about finding people to write for your blog here.)

Think about it… Arianna Huffington is not busy creating the next piece of content for Huffington Post.  Steve Forbes isn’t furiously writing to beat a deadline on Forbes.com.

The business owner needs to be… well… running the business.  Not working in the weeds on the next blog post.

Darren Rowse is the owner of Problogger.net, a multi-author blog about blogging.  But he also owns a dominant blog in the photography space called Digital Photography School or DPS.  This blog, according to Compete.com received 923,575 unique visitors in January of 2015.

DPS is a multi-author blog…

The blogs we create are run like media companies and have multiple authors.

DIYReady.com has a group of experts that are tapped to provide content…

And SurvivalLife.com is the same…

If you want to create a blog that generates sales and leads — get out of WordPress and start running the business side of the media property you are building — not the editorial side.

That said, to run a successful business blog you will need…

5 – A Relentless Dedication to Quality

Why is this listed #5?

Because high quality content is table stakes.  If you want to play the blogging game, you’ll need great content just to sit down at the table.

Here’s why…

By creating a business blog you have become both…

• The publisher – You publish content in the same way that the New York Times, ESPN or Cosmopolitan magazine does.
• The advertiser – You sell products and services around the outside of that published content.

When you publish great content, it creates an audience — just as it does at the New York Times, ESPN or Cosmopolitan.

You make offers (as the advertiser) to that audience.

Bad Content = No Audience = No Ability To Advertise

Simple as that.  The same as a bad television show (content) on ABC, CBS or NBC will attract no audience and thus no advertisers.

If you’re running a blog (or are starting one) ask yourself these questions…

• Do I have compelling Lead Magnet(s)?
• Do I have dedicated landing pages?
• Do I have a paid traffic strategy?
• Do I have multiple authors?
• Do I have a relentless dedication to quality?

Questions?  Comments?  I’d love to talk about it in the comments section.

About Russ Henneberry

Russ Henneberry is the Editorial Director at Digital Marketer. He's worked on digital marketing projects for companies like CrazyEgg, Salesforce.com and Network Solutions. You can connect with Russ on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+.

[Test Results] The "Pixel Process": How Digital Marketer Gets 81% More Leads and 38% More Sales From Paid Traffic

There’s a new sheriff in the traffic world.

It’s called Cost Per Pixel. (You can learn more about this metric here).

CPP is how much it costs YOU to send a user to your site (preferably a piece of content, such as a blog post) in order to pixel them.

But, it’s much more than a new metric.

The idea of pixeling users has changed our ENTIRE traffic strategy at Digital Marketer over the past few months and we’re not just talking about “retargeting”.

Here’s what you’ll see in this case study…

A new traffic strategy
Proof that it works
The 3-step process you can use to set it up (it’s easy!)


As digital marketers, we MUST start building these pixeled audiences (on Facebook, Google, YouTube, etc.) so that we can LEVERAGE them… now and later. These audiences are OWNED MEDIA, they’re assets that are just as important as your email list.


(Pixeled audiences in Facebook Ads Manager – we can run ads to these people at any time!)

But, why does this matter now?

1. Traffic platforms are changing and becoming crowded!

Remember when you could send Facebook traffic straight to a video sales letter (VSL)? Remember when you could send Facebook traffic to a squeeze page with just a headline and an opt in box?

Remember the Google “slap”? As ad platforms mature they become more selective with where they allow advertisers to send traffic.

For example, Facebook wants ads that give the best experience for the end user. Most end users are agitated when they’re sent to a squeeze page from cold traffic (a brand they’ve never interacted with before).

So, over the past year, Facebook has become more strict with what kind of landing pages they allow traffic to go to. They will become more and more strict as time passes!

This is why we’re sending cold traffic to content pieces.

Sending cold traffic to content is HELPFUL to the end user and allowed on almost every traffic platform.

2. Online buying behavior is changing!

We’re seeing that people are opting in for 2, 3, or 4 of our Lead Magnets before buying.

As we flood the online space with more and more commerce, buyers have more choices. They have the desire (and ability) to become familiar with a brand before they buy.

This is another reason sending traffic to content is SO important. It allows YOU to establish yourself as an authority in your market and build trust before you ask someone to give their email address or purchase.

Also, sending traffic to content happens to be pretty cheap!

(Want to know how to create high-converting, low-cost ads with Facebook advertising pixels? Click to grab The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Conversion Pixels)

Let’s walk through the new traffic process…

Step 1 – Traffic is Sent to Content

Send traffic to a content page on your site. The content should resemble a blog post and give readers the BEST information possible. The example below is a Facebook ad to a blog post on Facebook pixels.

Keep in mind, you won’t see a direct return on investment from this ad (until later… just wait :)). You’re running this ad to get visitors to your site in order to pixel them.

What do we know about someone that visits the blog post in the example above?

Answer: We know they are interested in Facebook Advertising.

So, we set up a retargeting audience for this segment of our audience.  (Learn more about this here) For this ad, we’re building an audience of people who are interested in Facebook advertising.

Step 2 – Retarget the Pixeled Audience

Retarget the pixeled audience that you built in step one with a RELEVANT offer (Lead Magnet).

Using the content, you built an audience of people who were interested in a specific topic. Now, you’ll run an ad to that audience offering them something free in return for their email address.

For this example, we ran ads for our Facebook Ad Templates lead magnet. If you’re interested in Facebook advertising, you’d love templates, right?

This is the step in the process where you start generating leads and sales! You’re sending them to a landing page, such as the one above.

Step 3 – Dynamically Retarget

Set up dynamic retargeting throughout the funnel.

With this retargeting, you’re just following up with users based off of which step they fell out of the funnel. You’re reminding them to take the next step. This is FREE money, easy to set up, and runs on autopilot.

For example, if they landed on the squeeze page but didn’t opt in – we’d run an ad like the one below to remind them:

To learn how to set up full funnel retargeting, click here.

That’s it. There are three steps to our new traffic strategy at Digital Marketer. So… what’s actually new about the strategy?

We added content at the top of the funnel. We added content because it allows us to indoctrinate our users and pixel them. We also added content because it’s allowing us to MAKE MORE MONEY.

Yes, I told you there’d be proof :).

Here’s a case study from the Facebook ad templates funnel I’ve been referencing throughout the post.

The NEW Traffic Model:

The Results:

We spent 30-50 cents to send people to our blog post.

We then spent $1.21 for each visitor who went to our landing page and gave us their email address.

That gives us a total Cost Per Lead of $1.51-1.71 for the new traffic model. (I wanted to make sure we were adding in the cost of sending that initial content click).

The OLD Traffic Model:

The Results:

When sending cold traffic directly to a squeeze page, we had a Cost Per Lead of $1.71.

So, why is this important? The cost per lead is the same?

On the Tripwire sales page (we were making a $7 offer) the conversion rate was 38% higher to the pixeled audience than to cold traffic. That’s where the MONEY starts talking!

So, not only are we building pixeled audiences of visitors based off of their specific interests – we are seeing MUCH higher conversion rates throughout our funnel by deploying this new traffic strategy.

Let’s Recap

Even after paying for an extra click to content, the cost-per-lead (CPL) for both methods was $1.71

Pixeled traffic converted 81% higher on the lead capture page

Pixeled traffic converted 38% higher on the Tripwire sales page= $$$

You’re building OWNED Media (e.g. You’re now able to advertise to this pixeled audience any time you want)

You’re indoctrinating visitors and establishing yourself as an authority so that they will BUY!

(Want to know how to create high-converting, low-cost ads with Facebook advertising pixels? Click to grab The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Conversion Pixels)

Ready to put these three easy steps to work? Have a question or want to share your own results? Leave it below!

About Molly Pittman

Molly Pittman is Digital Marketer's Vice President and Traffic Manager. She uses her wide range of business and communication skills to enhance our presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more. She graduated with a degree in Business Administration & Marketing from Transylvania University in Lexington, KY. Molly has a tiny black dog named Larry. Connect with Molly on Facebook