Author: Reginald Chan

Top 15 Landing Page Design For 2018
Does your landing page design has what it takes to convince your site visitors to take action?

I suggest you to take a look at your Google Analytics now and determine if your landing page designs are doing their job correctly. There are many elements needed to make a great landing page design.

No, good landing page designs don’t make the cut here.

If you are serious in learning more about landing page designs (or finding an important source for your landing pager designer), this article is for you. In this article, you will find not one, not two but top 15 landing page designs for 2018.

Top 15 Landing Page Designs 2018

Important disclaimer: These are my personal favorites and more importantly, these landing pages have the right elements to turn website visitors into paying customers.

1. Wistia

What’s attracts me the most: The background colour which is easy on the eyes and pleasant. Reminds me of making the great first impression.

The first tagline is “Put your business videos to work” and this is very critical especially when you want to be different from YouTube.

Setting up an account is simple — First name, last name, email, password and of course, a little information/survey which is critical for marketing purposes.

What happens if you have doubts?

Scroll down the page and you will discover the well-done FAQ section.

Wistia is definitely one of my top favorite landing page designs for 2018.

2. Unbounce

I cannot imagine Unbounce NOT in this email — yes, it is impossible.

What makes head turns with Unbounce landing page?
- The use of a chat window instead of a classic form (super smart move)
- Super detailed but well packaged information below the ‘form’
Why did Unbounce had a longer-than-usual landing page design? The answer is simple.

More content = Search engines will have more information to crawl and feature on result pages.

Unbounce literally optimize landing pages for SEO and this is something every web designer should take into consideration.

3. Muzzle

When I first came across Muzzle, I was like “hmm” and that went ahead to the “aha” moment.

Visitors on the page are literally greeted with a rapid-fire onslaught of embarassing notification in the upper right of the screen.

Now, this is on purpose!

It attracts me (and probably thousands of website visitors) because this is hilarious and compelling.

4. Bills.com

Welcome to year 2018 where static landing pages are no longer in much demand.

Landing pages don’t need to be boring and that is affecting your conversion rate. Make your landing pages interactive and personalized these pages to resonates with your website visitors.

How? Take a look at this. It all starts with a simple draging option.

Then the second part of the question kicks in which is smart and super interactive.

Once you finished the second question, the last questions magically pops up.

The final (conversion page) landing page design by Bills.com is very basic but it is easily complimented through the first two steps which makes the entire process interactive with its audience.

TAKEAWAY: Landing pages doesn’t need to be static. Intuitive, interactive and fun are critical factors that drive your conversion rates higher than your competitors!

5. Teambit

Teambit landing page focuses on one thing, and one thing only — illustration.

The landing page design consists of a simple, single-field form accompanied with animal characters. Interesting, right?

6. Landbot

Chatbot, chatbot and more chatbots. Oh my.

Unsuspecting website visitors will be greeted by a friendly bot that comes with emojis and GIFs — with the sole intention of getting more information from the website visitors.

Hey, who can resist the fun you can get from chatbots, right?

7. Webprofits

This is pretty much your typical landing page design that you will see in most pages.

Webprofits is smart to make the longest landing page feel short.

The landing page starts with a prominent CTA button to learn more about the product (notice the high contrast colour). By indirectly hiding the form field up front, they help to reduce friction and more importantly, creating the opportunity for the website visitors to learn more about their products.

In between the content, they embedded images to make it more interesting and getting your mind off the ‘long’ landing page concept.

If your landing page designer wants to craft a long landing page, this is definitely one sample to consider!

8. Airbnb

How many times you do you visit Airbnb on desktop? Not many, I supposed.

Airbnb has one of the most promiment landing page designs I have seen, especially in 2018. Clear call-to-action, simple options to customize your search and more importantly, smiling Airbnb hosts make it nearly impossible NOT to reserve a room or place with them.

BONUS: Want to design your own landing page? Try using Thrive Architect today!

9. Conversion Lab

Make no mistake. This website is special. The homepage serves as a landing page for its website visitors.

And believe it or not, this is a very smart move!

Here’s what you’ll see when you first visit the site.

After clicking on the CTA, a new form pops up for the next step.

Why is this a good move?

Two steps landing page design is great because you doesn’t display the form to everyone who reach the page. Instead, the form is only visible for those who take action. In this case, they are more likely to be interested with whatever offer you are offering them.

This is also why promiment WordPress lead generation plugins such as Thrive Leads and OptinMonster has 2-steps landing page designs for you to choose from.

10. Shopify

Keep. It. Simple. Stupid.

The KISS strategy by SHopify is smart, effective and elegant.

The user-oriented headline is just a few words and if you scroll further down, you are greeted with some icons and extra text to make the sense out of them.

All of this makes it easier for you to get the point: Selling online with their tool.

11. Dropbox

I call myself a minimalist and I certainly love landing pages that are not cluttered. They are just messy, don’t you think?

When it comes to simplicity, Dropbox is one of the best in the market. Take a look at Dropbox’s landing page design.

By default, most of us will probably go for the Dropbox Basic due to the cost. So, the solution is simple.

Having a CTA focusing on a higher ticket product and offer free trial!

Now, you tell me — what are the changes that you will ditch a free trial option at no cost to you?

12. Google Drive

Why do you ue Google Drive? File storage, security and collaboration, right?

Now, take a look at their landing page design.

Can you tell me what you notice from the landing page design above?

For me, it is simplicity. Make no mistake, I feel that they can do better with the background image but the tagline has only 7 words.

Seven words, ladies and gentlement.

Right to the point, isn’t it?

The next time your landing page designer is crafting his/her artwork, keep in mind that simplicity matters.

13. Khan Academy

You should have heard about Khan Academy but just like most businesses around the world, it is always challenging when you are trying to cater a wide range of audience.

So, how does Khan Academy does it?

Everything is well placed in this landing page by Khan Academy and more importantly, it help audiences from different backgrounds to convert without hassle!

14. Codeacademy

Are you looking for a landing page design that is simple in both copy and design? If yes, this landing page is definitely going to turn you on!

The form itself is simple and only requires an email address, username, password, and a validation that you’re not a robot to create an account. Or, you can just use your Facebook or Google Plus login, shortening the conversion path even further.

And if you would require additional information, website visitors can scroll down for a video which is embedded below the fold.

15. Lyft

Last but not least, Lyft has one of the best landing page design I have seen in 2018. This page is found when you are trying to be a Lyft driver.

Do you know what makes this landing page so powerful?

Firstly, the tagline automatically resonates to the audience who is considering to become a Lyft driver (and generating passive income).

The Apply Now form is very standard and assuming that you are doubtful of this, you will most probably land in the next column which calculates the estimated earning you can get.

Smart? Yes, go figure and try implement these concepts in your upcoming landing page designs for 2018!

BONUS: Looking for a landing page builder? See Thrive Architect demo right here or read the review!
April 4, 2024
How To Optimize WordPress Site For SEO?
It has been sometime since I’ve talked about SEO for WordPress. But this year, search engine optimization (SEO) will be more than important, that ever. Especially when you want to save up on the marketing budget.

Organic reach or organic SEO will help your website gain more visibility for free. A well-written content can easily drive up thousands of traffic daily instead of spending hundreds of dollars a week just to drive the same amount of traffic in a week!

So, today’s post is all about how do I optimize a WordPress site for SEO? Are you ready to dive in?

How Do I Optimize A WordPress Site For SEO?

According to Brian Dean from Backlinko, there are over two hundred factors that affect the website performance on search engines.

Let’s face this. You are running a WordPress site and probably either a blogger, freelancer or a business owner. Either way, you certainly doesn’t have all the time to run through the 200 factors checklist.

And this leads us to the next part. You want to know exactly what you can do right now to optimize a WordPress site for SEO.

Guess what? That’s what you are going to get. Continue reading below to get started.

Step 1: Choose The Right Keywords For Your Homepage

Do you know that your homepage plays a huge role in SEO? As a matter of fact, any SEO company would tell you that choosing the right keywords is an important SEO strategy.

Your homepage need to be optimize and you can start with the description of your website.

You can find the option to custimize the description of your website on the WordPress setting tab.

Step by step guide: Click on the Settings tab on the left column (on your WordPress dashboard) > General > Find for Tagline

Tips to writing the best website tagline
- Start with your own creative brief
- The English language is your best friend
- Don’t settle for the first great tagline idea you have
- Keep it simple
- Use taglines to connect with your site visitors
- Longer tagline is better (but avoid TOO long)
- Avoid using buzz words
- Some humour are recommended
- Be bold
- Check before using the tagline
- The tagline must represents what you truly believe (and can offer)
Step 2: Choose The Best Keywords For Your Content On The WordPress Site

Wait a minute. Keywords again?

Keywords play an important role in optimizing your WordPress site for SEO. However, how do you do know if the selected keyword is the right one?

I use KWFinder to make the keyword selection easier. Type in the keyword of your choice and hit the search button. For this example, I used “dog training” as a sample.

The level of easiness to rank for a specific keyword is through colour coded; the goal is to find green or yellow keywords. Refer to the image above, easy keywords to rank are “german shepherd training” and “dog school.”

Let’s take a look deeper by clicking on the keyword “german shepherd training.”

This specific keyword has 14,800 searches in a month and on the right, you can see the top search results. The websites ranking on the 3rd, 4th, 8th and 9th are easy to bear because the Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) are below 35. YouTube is an authority site but having YouTube showing up in the top 10 search results shows that this keyword has very low competition level.

Ready to optimize your WordPress site for SEO?

The next step is to find the right keywords that resonate with your content and website visitors.

Imagine you run through the exact steps before publishing any content on your WordPress site.

All your articles will rank highly on search engine and without you spending a dime on Internet marketing (such as paid ads).

Step 3: Optimize The Content Een More To Be SEO Friendly

You may have heard about Yoast SEO and All-In-One-SEO Pack. Both of these are SEO plugins that you can install directly to your WordPress site to optimize it further.

By using WordPress SEO plugins such as Yoast, you can optimize the content for it to rank better on search engines. Here’s what I mean.

If you want to optimize a WordPress site for SEO, make sure you solve all the problems, improvements and considerations recommended by SEO plugins. These are best practises to ensure that your content will rank higher and better than most of your competitors.

Bonus: The Most Complete Yoast SEO Setup (Step by Step Guide)

Step 4: Optimizing Images On Your WordPress Site

Want to optimize your WordPress site for SEO? Start optimizing your images now!

There are some very quick fixes when it comes to optimizing your images for SEO. Those includes:
- Use a relevant image that matches your text
- Pick the right file name for your image.
- Make sure image dimension match the image size as displayed
- Reduce file size for faster loading
For me, the most important thing for optimizing images for SEO is the file name. For example, instead of naming a file, “WordPress,” change it to “How_To_Optimize_WordPress_Site_For_SEO” as the file name.

Step 5: Optimize WordPress Site Using SEO Friendly WordPress Themes

Do you know that not every WordPress theme is SEO friendly?

There are WordPress themes that are badly coded and this can lead to many negative impacts on SEO.

Negative SEO can results in:
- Not ranking well on search engine result pages (SERPS)
- Penalization from Google
- Drop in organic traffic
What makes the a WordPress theme SEO friendly?
- Clean codes
- Free from bloatware and malwares
- Fast loading speed
- Bulletproof security features
Most WordPress premium themes are well-coded simply because they are premium and isn’t free to download.

If you can’t decide which WordPress theme to use to optimize your site for SEO, I highly recommend you to take a look at Thrive Themes (read Thrive Themes review here).

With over 10 SEO friendly themes available in Thrive Themes, there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t be using it to optimize your WordPress site.

BONUS READ: What Are The Best Premium WordPress Themes 2018?

Step 6: Get A Better (WordPress) Hosting Provider

Does your website takes more than 10 seconds to load? If the answer is anywhere near “yes,” this is one of the most important factors for you to start moving to a better web hosting company.

A slow loading website will make not only make you lose your visitors, you will also get penalization by search engines. On average, a WordPress site needs to load anywhere below 1.5 seconds to ensure that you are having the best SEO advantages.

Here are two tools you can use to test your website speed.
Help! My website takes more than 2 seconds to load!

Don’t panic. You can easily move your WordPress site to a better host in just a few clicks. Yes, there is no crazy and messy migration you need to be worried about.

Here are three web hosting services that I highly recommend based on your needs:
- WordPress Hosting by BlueHost (for small WordPress sites)
- Cloudways (for affordability and small to medium sized WordPress sites)
- WPEngine (for businesses running on WordPress and looking for the best performance)
You can request for free migration (yes, you don’t need to pay a dime for it) when you use any of the WordPress hosting companies above … thus, saving you time and money!

Are You Ready To Optimize WordPress Site For SEO?

The process of optimizing WordPress site for SEO should be an ongoing task, regardless if you are running a business or a personal blog.

I hope you find the 6 steps above easy and effective in helping you to optimize WordPress site for SEO. Leave a comment below if you have any questions!

Happy to answer them 🙂
April 4, 2024
Want To Start A Home Based Web Design Business: Read This Post!
Are you looking to build a secondary income stream through web designing business?

With today’s economy getting tough and harder, having secondary income stream is the best way to stay afload and put food on the table.

Today’s post is all about how to start a home based web design business (yes, in the comfort of your own home) and without actually ditching your day job.

The Skills Needed To Start A Home Based Web Design Business

Having the passion is one thing — having the right skills to get the job done is another.

Want to start a home based web design business as a side hustle? Here are some skills you need to be really good at it (and make money from it):
- Some coding skills
- check-circleGood with numbers (money, baby!)
- Bold and dare to show off
- Marketing mindset
- check-circleSales mindset
I know some of you might be turned off when reading this but hear me out. You don’t entirely need coding skills to become a web designer.

Yes, you can become a web designer without coding skills!

And there are specific steps you need to take to beat your competitors. Read this post if you are dead serious in becoming a web designer without coding skills.

Knowing Your Numbers

Profitability.

Credit.

Debit.

Fixed cost.

Clean profit.

Gross profit.

Most web designers I know hate numbers and so do I. However, knowing your numbers is going to help you more than you can imagine.

As a matter of fact, you need to know your commitment monthly to stay afload. And by knowing your numbers, you know exactly how much you can/should/must charge your client.

Dare To Be Bold

If you are new in web designing, you will probably be worried about your design and I get it.

However, if you are bold to speak up and show to the world, you will tend to get more constructive feedbacks. Feedbacks will help you grow further and it goes a long way when it comes to maintaining a home based web design business.

By now, you should understand that web designing services can be a very competitive business. You are not only a graphic artist, but a graphic designer. An artist has no boundaries, but a designer must abide by technological standards like user interface, color theory, typography, grids and layouts. Finding a balance between the two will prove you to be successful.

Marketing Mindset

Here’s a problem with home based business — you are the only employee in the company!

If you want to start a home based web design, you need to have the marketing mindset because your business counts on it.

How should you market your home based web design business?

Facebook marketing for sure and here are some reason why:
- Highly affordable
- Able to reach a wide range of audience
- Easy to setup
- check-circleEveryone uses Facebook (at least once a day)
Sales Mindset

Last but not least, having the right sales mindset is important if you want success in starting a home based web design business.

Remember that you are the only one in the company?

You need to sharpen the sales pitch and close as many clients as possible. You need to be confident and excitedly (etically) brags about every aspect of your work.

Of course, being humble is still an important factor in any business.

I totally understand if sales is not your cup of tea, but if you want to be successful, having the right strategy is critical for your business.

Ready to start a home based web design business?

Start now! It is never too late … even when you do not have coding skills.

MUST READ: How To Earn Money From Web Design As Beginner?
April 4, 2024
How To Earn Money From Web Design As Beginner?
Are you looking for the best resources to start a web design gig?

Are you finding for the right answers to “How to earn money from web design as beginner?”

Maybe and maybe, you have no idea much about coding skills but you still want to start a web design gig.

So, how do you start?

In this article, you will discover how you can earn money with web designing even as a beginner.

How to earn money from web design as a beginner?

There are several important steps that you need to follow by the ‘T’:
- Build a portfolio
- Using the right tools
- Promote your services
- Garner and display testimonials
Step 1: How to build a portfolio as a web designer (even when you are a newbie)

I’ve been a web designer myself (without coding skills – yes, no joke and please don’t hate me for this) J

Getting clients is the hardest step — it gets worst since you are new and doesn’t have any track record to share. I’ve been through that road and it was pretty.

I literally begged others to give me a chance and offered dirt cheap way to do so.

And I was burned down badly. It wasn’t because I did a bad job (for the record, I did an amazing job).

It was because I throw away all my dignity and decided to go on ‘desperate mode.’ That was the single, biggest mistake I did in my web design life.

I came across this strategy by accident and it worked like charm.

Note: It is really cheap and easy to become a freelance web developer. My favorite tool is Divi and you can get Divi discount here.

How to build a portfolio like a professional?

You need to have a website and a landing page. If you are in the web designing industry, you should know what I’m trying to tell you.

You need to be visible to the public. You must be known and allow to be reached on any platform, anytime of the day.

The process of creating a website is easy. What’s next is tough!

You need to have a simple website design that showcase who you are and what’s in for the potential client.

In terms of ratio, you should share 10% of the content on ‘about you’ and the balance 90% about the client. You know, the reasons why they need to even look at your profile.

Note: You need to understand what the clients are looking for and once you get those, portray yourself as a person who can deliver such requirements. Do this and you will close the sale every single time.

BONUS: Use a landing page that converts

Your homepage should be short and powerful. More importantly, it has to have specific call-to-actions (CTA) to move your readers from reading phrase to prospecting.

In other words, the CTA need to be so powerful that it will convince the potential clients to ‘know more.’

You don’t need coding skills when creating landing pages because there are plugins such as Thrive Architect that allows you to build a conversion focused landing page within minutes (not days).

Read my review on Thrive Architect here if you are interested (don’t worry, I guarantee that this will be the best review you have ever read for the year)!

What should the landing page have on it?
- Reasons why you should be considered
- No obligation and free consultation (yes, please don’t charge fee for this … yet)
- A simple lead-in form that allows readers to leave their name, contact number and email address
Note: Remember to collect contact number and email address at the same time. Human are prone to mistakes and you wouldn’t want to lose a potential lead for nothing.

Here’s one great sample of a great landing page

Do you noticed that each call-to-action (CTA) and elements on the page is created for maximum conversion?

Step 2: Using the right tools for web design

How to start web design as a beginner? The trick is by using the right tools.

A web designer often have a wide range of tools at their disposal but if you are a complete beginner (thinking that web designing can earn you money), then you only need a few tools to start.

Those tools are:
- Turnkey and professional themes
- Page builder
- Web hosting
Yes, you only need the above three to get started with web designer as a beginner.

Choosing the right professional themes

This is mission-critical. You need to have a wide range of themes to help you kick-start your web design gig.

Choosing the right themes is important because it will either turn on or turn off your potential clients. So, make sure you are mindful of this.

When it comes to professional themes, I recommend you to start small — this means that while it is always good to have at least 50 custom themes in your toolbox, you can start with a small figure (anywhere between 5 to 10).

These professional themes must be easy to configure and it is almost an important requirement to have a drag and drop feature. You don’t have much coding skill, remember?

Why is it important to choose the right themes?

For starters, it need to be easy to use because you have limited skills as a fresh web designer. More importantly, you don’t need to get your hands dirty with the coding and all those mind bogging stuffs.

Secondly, the licence would need to allow you to use it without limit (unlimited usage). You wouldn’t want to buy a theme each time you get a new client because it is going to eat away your earnings.

What theme should new web designer be using?

For me, the choice is simple — Thrive Themes.

It comes with 10 beautifully designed themes that fit for a wide range of industries as well as all other tools to help you design the best web design at minimum cost.

On top of that, each of these Thrive Themes is highly customizable. This means that you can customize anything and everything in just a few clicks. There are also over 100 pre-made website templates you can import and install to create custom theme for your potential clients.

Recommendation: I would recommend you to get Thrive Membership for unlimited usage of all its themes and plugins. Read more about Thrive Membership using this link.

Step 3: Promote your services (as if there is no tomorrow)

This step is very crucial and important for your success. The process of building a portfolio and using the right tools are just two steps to build a strong base for your new venture in web design. The next critical stage is to promote your services.

Believe it or not, promoting your services is extremely important because you need to generate as much leads a possible — and fast.

So, how do you promote your web design services like a professional (and dignity in tact)?

Crazy and highly effective strategies to promote web design services
- Offer free web design services for the first 10 clients (and in return, they need to provide you with testimonials)
- Use social media advertising such as Facebook Ads to reach out to a specific audience or market segments
- Allow clients to pay you any amount (based on what their thoughts on your level of service)
- check-circleProvide low cost web design services with several upsell services on the side
- check-circleBe active on social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn, while providing value to your audience (to build trust and followed by potential leads)
If you are starting web design as a beginner, it will be very tough for you to build strong trust and generating many leads.

Expect the first few months to be the toughest but rest assured that you need to keep the momentum moving forward.

Step 4: Don’t be afraid to ask for testimonials

Most web designing beginners are worried of asking for testimonials — you shouldn’t!

Displaying testimonials is one of the best strategy to build trust and confidence. Therefore, you should display as much testimonials as possible on your portfolio blog.

According to VWO, testimonials can boost conversions by 34%, so why are you not using them?

I would recommend you to have testimonials to be in these critical places:
- Several testimonials on the homepage
- A separate testimonial page
- Automatic rotation on testimonials to build more trust
In order to achieve such results, I use Thrive Ovation, the only working set-and-forget testimonial plugin for WordPress. This plugin allows you to organize all your testimonials under one roof, and set specific rules on which testimonials to be displayed on specific pages.

You should not be afraid to ask for testimonials if you are constantly delivering awesome web designs to your clients (or in this case, you know that you can do so).

Are you ready to make money from web design as a beginner?

You can start making money from web design as a beginner if you have the right strategies. I certainly hope you find the strategies above useful because they worked like charm for me.

Find this useful? Share this with your friends today and help them make money from web design even as a beginner!
April 4, 2024
Digital Marketing Strategy 2018: Top 8 Strategies To Elevate Your Business
Today is January 18th, 2018 and by now, you should have a digital marketing strategy for 2018 in place.

If you have not, don’t worry. In this article, you will discover the top digital marketing strategy for 2018.

1. Which Device Is The Most Popular?

The first digital trend is to understand the popular devices which are used by your customers.

For most websites and online stores, the usage of mobile devices had surged over the last three years — and the figures show that there is no stopping anytime soon.

As you can see, the usage of mobile devices had increased dramatically.

Here are two important takeaways:
- The usage of mobile devices is evergrowing
- Laptop and desktop usage are dropping gradually
Note: While it is important to focus your marketing on mobile devices, you should still focus some efforts on laptop and desktop as they are still holding a large market share.

2. Social messaging apps will take over communication

According to the latest Ofcom Communications Market Research more than half of the total mobile audience used Facebook Messenger (61%) and half used WhatsApp (50%).

What does this means to you?

People are finding easier means to reach out to one another — and if you want your business to strive in 2018, then make sure you are available on these platforms.

The ultimate goal is simple: It has to be easy for your customers to reach out to you.

If you are not convinced, take a look at Pizza Hut using Messenger to communicate with its customers and IKEA uses social media messaging apps to conduct surveys.

3. Make video marketing your baby in 2018

You shouldn’t be shy in front of the camera, and even if you are.

In 2017, we have seen video marketing went to new heights. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter had given more priority on video when compared to any other media forms.

Thanks to YouTube, video marketing has taken toll not only on YouTube itself, it has moved over to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

See the image below that explains the number of unique audience (in millions) on various platforms.

MUST READ: Instagram For Business (The Secrets Of Marketing On Instagram)

4. Search engine marketing will be more important than ever

With the number of advertisers advertising on a daily basis, stay ahead of the competition will result in more money spend on ads.

Therefore, a good alternative to paid ads is search engine. Make no mistake — search engine marketing will be more important than ever. Search engine marketing is dominant.

There are two ways you can choose to start doing search engine marketing:
- Doing it yourself (takes a little bit of time but extremely cost saving)
- Hiring a search engine agency/consultant to do the job for you
Either way, search engine marketing is definitely one of the most important digital marketing strategies in 2018.

If you are planning to do search engine marketing yourself, you need to have these two tools: SEMrush and KWFinder.

NOTE: SEMrush helps you to monitor the keywords and your competitors and KWFinder allows you to find the most profitable keywords to rank on Google search.

5. Content marketing will be one of the most talked digital marketing strategy (after SEO)

We all know the importance of having good content and in 2018, good content marketing strategy is going to skyrocket your business to new heights.

For me, content marketing is always considered as the ‘engagement’ fuel that powers all digital communications from search to social to email marketing to creating website experiences which convert.

Content marketing is definitely the top digital marketing strategy for 2018 because you need to have content in any forms of marketing.

Important discovery: The trend I’m seeing here is that businesses are getting serious about treating content as a strategic resource, that means developing a customer engagement strategy using different media as shown in the lifecycle diagrams above, and at a practical level, developing content for different audiences using techniques like Personas and Content mapping.

6. Bots will be apart of digital marketing

Article intelligence or bots will make a huge change in digital marketing strategy 2018. Take a look at Facebook bots. They have flooded the market and influencers (and business owners) are going crazy over them!

As technology advances, we longer need to wake up in the middle of the night to answer questions on social media — our bot (when setup correctly) will do it for us efficiently.

7. Analytics and reports are not going anywhere

When it comes to digital marketing strategy, analytical skills and having the right reports are going to make differences in your business.

Through my consultancy business, I’ve seen business owners being more focused on reports they receive and they are getting even more demanding on those.

I totally understand this — we should take our business seriously and the best way is to achieve greatness is through proper information. In this case, reporting and analytics will play huge roles in digital marketing 2018.

What steps should you be taking?
- Request for better and more detailed reports
- Do weekly analytics instead of monthly
- Compare analytical reports (week over week, month or month) to find for trends
- check-circleAim to spot small changes that leads to huge jump in revenue, sales etc.
8. Digital marketing automation will be mission-critical

If you are not using automation for digital marketing, you need to start doing right now!

With automation, you can save more time on digital marketing and focus on things that matter most to your business.

Digital marketing automation allows busy influencers and business owners to run tasks without any worries of mistakes or totally forgetting the tasks.

What are the examples of digital marketing automation?
- Automatic publishing to social media (for new blog posts)
- Automatic and recurring automation on social media posting (try this tool)
- Automation through triggers (imagine IFTTT)
- arrow-circle-rightSet and forget welcome email (ConvertKit offers one of the easiest welcome email setup)
- arrow-circle-rightAutomatic email delivery to subscribers when they abandon card (see Drip in action)
You might be interested with this: MailChimp vs ConvertKit vs Drip – Comparing The Best Email Marketing Automation Software

Digital Marketing Strategies for 2018

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April 4, 2024
How To Start A Blog Under $30
We all dream of being the next Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income but we are not anywhere nearer to that dream. We dream of living on the Internet and working anywhere in the world with just your laptop.

Sadly, not many people live up to those dreams. Even with me.

Let me tell you why and I strongly encourage you to read this. I’m sure it resonates with you perfectly well.

I have a dream — to make money online and quit my day job. I like what I’m doing, but I love making money from the Internet (even more). Little did I know, I started blogging in 2004 and soon, it lifted off. I was making thousands of dollars month in, month out and I was happy.

Soon, I find myself drifting away because I wasn’t blogging anymore. I thought money would flow in that way and I was wrong. Blogging takes time and more importantly, the first step of actually starting a blog (penning down the content).

In 2017, I took action to grow my email list and started blogging back. Yes, I miss those thousands of dollars I earn monthly and I dearly need it for my financial needs.

Then I realized something significant. Starting a blog now is way easier than those days.

You are reading until here, you should be interested to start a blog. Good for you because I’m a true believer that Internet can drive a lot of people (including you and me) to richness — with the right strategy.

In this post, you will discover the exact steps I took to start a blog from scratch and start making money online.

More importantly, I’m going to show you how you can start a blog under $30 investment. Period.

How To Start A Blog Under $30?

Starting a blog is actually very simple. The below are what’s needed to start a blog under $30, and with budget in mind.

What you will need are:
- Domain name
- Web hosting
- WordPress theme
- check-square-oWordPress plugins
- check-square-oEmail marketing software
Step 1: Choosing the right domain name

Do you need the keyword in the domain name?

Do you need it to be a .com or a .net?

How long should a domain name be?

All these questions, I know — I thought of them myself. The truth simple: It doesn’t matter.

In today’s world, getting a domain name is just like an address. It doesn’t matter if you have the prime location in town, you will still receive your mails.

Here are some basic to help you get started on the right foot:
- Easy to remember domain name > Hard to remember domain name
- Shorter domain names are always better
- Having keyword in the domain name is a bonus (but not an absolute need)
- check-circle-oDomain name with .com should be your first priority (and opt for alternatives if it is not available)
- check-circle-oEnsure that the exact domain name is available on Facebook and Twitter
How much does a domain name costs?

A domain name would costs you under $10. In most cases, you can just head over to GoDaddy, create a new account and purchase your first .com domain for only $1.

Ladies and gentlemen, a domain name costs as low as $1. So, what’s stopping you?

Step 2: Purchase a web hosting service

In order to start a blog, you need to have a web hosting service. If a domain name works as your address, a web hosting service will be the electricity to light up your property.

Web hosting doesn’t cost you a bomb. On average, you can get a decent one under $10 a month.

If you want to have complete hassle-free process, you should just purchase web hosting from GoDaddy (choose shared web hosting) and bundle up with your domain name purchase.

Why?

More discounts from GoDaddy, of course!

Are there any other GoDaddy alternatives?

Yes, there are. As a matter of fact, I highly recommend beginners to get SiteGround hosting instead due to several reasons:
- checkGreat performance and zero downtime
- checkExcellent support (the best you can find)
- checkSimple pricing and 1-click installation
BONUS:Top 5 Secrets Of Finding The Best Web Hosting Company

Usually, SiteGround charges $9.95 per month for its web hosting. However, you can get it for only $3.95 per month through this special link (no coupon code required).

Note: Once you have purchased a web hosting service, you will receive step by step instructions from the web hosting company such as SiteGround on ways to install your domain on the server. This whole process wouldn’t take longer than 10 minutes to complete.

Step 3: Choosing a WordPress theme

This is where the tricky part and 99.99% of the bloggers make the same mistake. They opt for free WordPress theme.

Let me repeat. This. Is. A. Mistake.

A WordPress theme is like the pain job of your car or bike. You may have a great engine under the hood but if you are not having the right appearance, the vehicle is not going to turn heads.

MUST READ:Which Are The Best Premium WordPress Themes For 2018?

What should a good WordPress theme has?
- Loads the website under 1.5 seconds
- Easy to customize without coding skills
- Wide variety of demos to import and use immediately
- checkConstant updates and undying support from the developers
- checkAffordable and easy on your wallet
When it comes to choosing the best WordPress theme, I only recommend one — Thrive Themes.

Thrive Themes is powerful because it comes with 9 Thrive products along with the theme. I personally call Thrive Themes my all-in-one marketing toolbox.

When I use Thrive Themes, I am not only able to use beautifully crafted, fast loading and conversion-focused premium WordPress themes, I am able to enjoy unlimited usage of these:
- All Thrive Themes (10 premium WordPress themes)
- Thrive Architect (drag and drop builder plugin)
- Thrive Leads (lead generation plugin)
- check-square-oThrive Ultimatum (scarcity plugin)
- check-square-oThrive Comment (comment plugin)
- check-square-oThrive Ovation (the only functionable testimonial plugin)
- check-square-oThrive Headline Optimizer (set and forget dozens of titles on automation)
- check-square-oThrive Clerver Widget (finally, a plugin that allows you to display specific widgets to your audience)
- check-square-oThrive Quiz Builder (the only quiz builder that helps you generate leads dirrectly from your blog)
Can you guess how much the above cost? $100, $200 or $500 a month?

No, it only costs you $19 per month for Thrive Themes Membership (you can read the full review here).

Again, read the review and decide if Thrive Themes is worth it.

Step 4: Installing essential WordPress plugins

Stop cracking your head on which plugins you should be installing. To start a blog, you only need to install two WordPress plugins from the WordPress repository:
- SEO plugin (Yoast SEO or All-In-One SEO pack)
- Contact form plugin (Contact Form 7)
Do you know why you only need two plugins? Because when you use Thrive Themes, you have everything inbuilt in it. You have everything at your disposal such as lead generation plugin, comment moderation plugin, quiz builder plugin and many more.

If you are just starting a blog, this is the best way to start a blog under $30 investment.

Best WordPress Form Builder?

If you are looking for a good WordPress form builder, you don’t have to look far. WPForms is one of the best and most intuitive form builders in the market. There is no coding skills needed—just drag and drop elements into the form and anyone can build it from scratch!

Step 5: Email marketing software

Another major mistake by many bloggers is that they don’t start collecting emails from their readers.

You should start collecting emails as soon as you start the blog and with tools such as Thrive Leads, it allows you to collect emails faster due to their high conversion tools and it integrates with major email marketing providers.

But wait! Email marketing software is expensive, right?

No, they are affordable and even free for some.

If you are a starting a blog and affiliate marketing is your main business, do not use MailChimp.

I repeat — Affiliate marketers need to avoid MailChimp as much as possible.

While MailChimp is free to use (forever if you have less than 2,000 email subscribers), it serves some major disadvantages for people like — people who makes a living from the Internet.

MUST READ: 3 Disappointing Truth About MailChimp Email Marketing Solutions

If you are not doing affiliate marketing, MailChimp is definitely a great choice when you are just starting a blog.

What is the best MailChimp alternative?

MailChimp is free and the best alternative to MailChimp for bloggers is Drip. Drip offers free account to everyone (use this link to sign up) and it is free for the first 100 email subscribers.

Once you hit the 100 email subscriber mark, you should be able to generate at least $50 a month (easy). By then, you have two choices to make — stick to Drip at $49 per month or ConvertKit at $29 per month.

Personally, ConvertKit will be a better choice when comparing with Drip. You can also read my review here: MailChimp vs ConvertKit vs Drip

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Summary: How to start a blog under $30?

Starting a blog under $30 is doable — more importantly, it is achieveable only when you follow the above steps. As you progress deeper into the blogging world, you can start considering better options such as premium WordPress hosting and other WordPress options.
April 4, 2024