content marketing

4 Formats Within Content Marketing

Donna Ward
Donna Ward
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Donna Ward
Social Media Manager, Blog Consultant and Trainer at Ask Coach Donna
Social media training and promotion for entrepreneurs, professionals, and business bloggers.
Certified Business Coach, Intuitive Strategist ~ As a Social Media Manager and Coach, I do the work for you and/or train corporations and small businesses how to set up their blog and a Social Media Marketing Plan around their blog/website as their business hub. As a Social Media Marketing Expert, I teach Relationship Marketing and Social Media Mastery, consulting and speaking services for corporate, business owners, and conscious entrepreneurs around the globe!
Donna Ward
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Do you find yourself thinking you know what Content Marketing is for your Internet business?

I have heard it said that content marketing encompasses all marketing formats that involve sharing content that is appealing to your current and prospective clients.

— Your motivation behind the content marketing you send out is to educate your prospective and current clients about your brand and to show you as a thought leader and industry expert.

Makes sense. And, sounds easy, right?

My own business coach reminds me that fresh and quality content is essential for your blog sites’ rankings and for attracting and engaging our target audience. So, you will want to ensure that you are writing high quality, educational content that is both engaging and optimized for the search engines.

Did you know that you may have high bounce rates if:

— Your content is boring, not in line with your business efforts and kept fresh.

Oh, and, I know that you know – It is imperative that a blog continually has new, relevant content in order to keep the search engines as well as your target audience engaged.

(Also Read —  4 Beginners’ Tips to Improve Bounce Rates)

So what is your goal? Read more →

Getting Participation and Comments on Your Blog

Donna Ward
Donna Ward
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Donna Ward
Social Media Manager, Blog Consultant and Trainer at Ask Coach Donna
Social media training and promotion for entrepreneurs, professionals, and business bloggers.
Certified Business Coach, Intuitive Strategist ~ As a Social Media Manager and Coach, I do the work for you and/or train corporations and small businesses how to set up their blog and a Social Media Marketing Plan around their blog/website as their business hub. As a Social Media Marketing Expert, I teach Relationship Marketing and Social Media Mastery, consulting and speaking services for corporate, business owners, and conscious entrepreneurs around the globe!
Donna Ward
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Show the Carrot

Instead of threatening to prevent people from commenting, you may want to consider giving them a positive incentive to comment.

For instance, you could put some lower bound on the number of comments you must receive before you will create another post.
Example: You might say that you will only post after you have received at least 30 comments from readers.

With this said, it is important that you follow the response to this policy over time. Make sure that readers aren’t simply posting “good work” or “nice post,” but instead are actively participating. Otherwise, this system will not work and you may need to switch to something else. Read more →

Load Up with Private Label Rights (PLR) Content

Donna Ward
Donna Ward
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Donna Ward
Social Media Manager, Blog Consultant and Trainer at Ask Coach Donna
Social media training and promotion for entrepreneurs, professionals, and business bloggers.
Certified Business Coach, Intuitive Strategist ~ As a Social Media Manager and Coach, I do the work for you and/or train corporations and small businesses how to set up their blog and a Social Media Marketing Plan around their blog/website as their business hub. As a Social Media Marketing Expert, I teach Relationship Marketing and Social Media Mastery, consulting and speaking services for corporate, business owners, and conscious entrepreneurs around the globe!
Donna Ward
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One of my favorite ways to add quality, topic related content to a blog is with PLR. If you don’t know what PLR is, let me fill you in on this wonderful little thing. As a Business Coach and in my Free Email List Building Mini-Course, I talk about this and help understand the valuable uses for you own particular business.

PLR content is created specifically for those who don’t have the time, skills or desire to create their own content on a consistent basis. You can find articles, blog posts, reports, recipes, marketing materials, and even web design PLR on the Internet. Someone else writes it and sells it. You buy it and have the ability to use as you see fit – for the most part. Most PLR sites do have rules to what you can and can’t do with the PLR once you purchase it, so be sure you review those before buying.

How to Find Ideas to Write About – Creative Content

Donna Ward
Donna Ward
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Donna Ward
Social Media Manager, Blog Consultant and Trainer at Ask Coach Donna
Social media training and promotion for entrepreneurs, professionals, and business bloggers.
Certified Business Coach, Intuitive Strategist ~ As a Social Media Manager and Coach, I do the work for you and/or train corporations and small businesses how to set up their blog and a Social Media Marketing Plan around their blog/website as their business hub. As a Social Media Marketing Expert, I teach Relationship Marketing and Social Media Mastery, consulting and speaking services for corporate, business owners, and conscious entrepreneurs around the globe!
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Starting a blog is easy – keeping a blog interesting and fresh is a whole other matter.

While many marketers have no trouble beginning a niche blog, the sheer number of abandoned blogs around the ‘net speaks to the fact that many marketers don’t know what to do to keep a blog going. According to blogging experts, the key to keeping a blog going is to post frequently. This means that you’re going to need a ever present stream of content coming into your blog.

You may be intimidated by the thought of having to come up with lots of topic ideas. Finding topics for your blog posts are easy if you use the following ideas.

1. News in your niche
Your blog should be timely and there’s no better way to attract attention on your blog than to tap into some ongoing news. No matter what your niche is you can find news stories and breaking information that will help fuel timely blog posts. Sign up for Google Alerts (it’s free) and set up alerts on important words in your niche. This way you’ll be able to see the news in your niche and blog about current topics.

2. Comments section
The comments section in your blog can be a great source of writing inspiration. Let’s say you have a post on your marketing blog about keyword research. Within the comments section, a few people start asking about how to use keywords in articles for article marketing. Voila! You have your next blog post. Look through your comments section to identify topics that you can write about or questions you can answer in the form of a blog post. Read more →

Article Marketing and Your Target Market – Builds Your Contacts

Donna Ward
Donna Ward
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Donna Ward
Social Media Manager, Blog Consultant and Trainer at Ask Coach Donna
Social media training and promotion for entrepreneurs, professionals, and business bloggers.
Certified Business Coach, Intuitive Strategist ~ As a Social Media Manager and Coach, I do the work for you and/or train corporations and small businesses how to set up their blog and a Social Media Marketing Plan around their blog/website as their business hub. As a Social Media Marketing Expert, I teach Relationship Marketing and Social Media Mastery, consulting and speaking services for corporate, business owners, and conscious entrepreneurs around the globe!
Donna Ward
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As you already know, especially is you have signed up for my Building Your Email List Mini-Course
(Sign up at the top right hand corner of my web), people (your Target Market) use different words when they search online. These search terms are called keywords.

Keyword Research tools assist in discovering topics that people are currently searching for that are related to your market product or service. You would use these keywords in the articles you write, each day, that are each 250-500 words, relating to the topics your prospective market is searching for. Provide articles that
answer the readers’ questions in their searches.

Example: “Dog Training” when entered into Google Suggest
tells me that I should write articles about
“Dog Training Secrets” or “Dog Training New Jersey”.

And, of course, we all know that building our list is building our market contacts; rather we are a brick and mortar business, or an online marketer selling our own products and affiliate products.

Key Insight: My Coach, Connie Green, has taught me that the most popular topics, have the most competition within the search engines–meaning, that you will be fighting against hundreds or thousands of competitors to get the attention of the market to your article. This course, by Connie Green, will help you quickly:
To Write Effective Articles Quickly And Easily To Reach An Unlimited Number Of Highly Qualified Prospects Read more →

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Donna Ward
Donna Ward
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Donna Ward
Social Media Manager, Blog Consultant and Trainer at Ask Coach Donna
Social media training and promotion for entrepreneurs, professionals, and business bloggers.
Certified Business Coach, Intuitive Strategist ~ As a Social Media Manager and Coach, I do the work for you and/or train corporations and small businesses how to set up their blog and a Social Media Marketing Plan around their blog/website as their business hub. As a Social Media Marketing Expert, I teach Relationship Marketing and Social Media Mastery, consulting and speaking services for corporate, business owners, and conscious entrepreneurs around the globe!
Donna Ward
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Basically Affiliate Marketing is:

  • All about referral and re-directing traffic to a marketing website.
  • You will receive a % of the purchase when you refer someone to the website and they make a purchase.
  • Your job is to convince your visitors to go to your affiliate’s website and sign up and/or purchase.

In order to receive a referral fee or commission – you find a product that you want to be an affiliate for then they provide you with your own url – this is how they will keep track of your commissions. Ex:   As an affiliate link it may read: http://budurl.com/newwealthchallenge (this is my actual affiliate link for Jeneth Blackert’s New Wealth Launch) and the website maintains all the information for you. Such how many clicked on your link and/or signed up and made a purchase. Usually they will also help out with marketing ideas and email templates. They will not give out the email and name of that person, however. Read more →

How to Get Others to Buy Your Product or Service

Donna Ward
Donna Ward
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Donna Ward
Social Media Manager, Blog Consultant and Trainer at Ask Coach Donna
Social media training and promotion for entrepreneurs, professionals, and business bloggers.
Certified Business Coach, Intuitive Strategist ~ As a Social Media Manager and Coach, I do the work for you and/or train corporations and small businesses how to set up their blog and a Social Media Marketing Plan around their blog/website as their business hub. As a Social Media Marketing Expert, I teach Relationship Marketing and Social Media Mastery, consulting and speaking services for corporate, business owners, and conscious entrepreneurs around the globe!
Donna Ward
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No Sales? Avoid this nightmare by following these tips for getting others to buy your products…

1. Get the Offer in Front of Targeted Audiences

First things first: Get your offer in front of targeted prospects.

Example: If you’re selling a dog training book, don’t email your coaching list and expect to make sales. Instead, get your offer in front of people who are likely to buy (e.g., people who need to train their dogs).

2. Craft a Compelling Sales Letter

Next, you need to create a sales page that persuades your prospects to buy your product. This means your sales letter ought to have an attention-getting headline, an opener that hooks the prospect and engages her emotions, a bulleted list of benefits, proof that your claims are true and a call to action. Search out what others are doing and saying – get your ideas and use your own voice.

3. Give a Bonus

You want to give your prospects a good deal, so that as they read the sales letter they’re thinking, “wow, I can’t believe I get all this for just 50 bucks.” Then you really thrill them by throwing in a valuable, tightly related bonus. This small act turns a “good deal” into a “no brainer.”

Don’t pick and choose the methods you like best. Instead, incorporate all these ideas… and enjoy the results!

Be sure to read: How Do You Get Others to Buy a Product or Service?


Blogging Without Writing

Donna Ward
Donna Ward
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Donna Ward
Social Media Manager, Blog Consultant and Trainer at Ask Coach Donna
Social media training and promotion for entrepreneurs, professionals, and business bloggers.
Certified Business Coach, Intuitive Strategist ~ As a Social Media Manager and Coach, I do the work for you and/or train corporations and small businesses how to set up their blog and a Social Media Marketing Plan around their blog/website as their business hub. As a Social Media Marketing Expert, I teach Relationship Marketing and Social Media Mastery, consulting and speaking services for corporate, business owners, and conscious entrepreneurs around the globe!
Donna Ward
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Newsletters & Emails to Subscribers

What else can you do with them?

Do you have an email list? Are you submitting online articles?


  • When you send emails to your subscribers or send out your regular newsletter, post an article, do you stop at that? Have you heard of re-purposing?

Start posting the updates you send to your subscribers and your newsletters or ezines to your blog as well.

Some of your subscribers may not get a chance to read your emails before they are shuffled down their inbox screen or worse yet, they may have filters that are blocking your emails altogether. This will allow them to still receive the valuable information you have to share AND give you more quality content for your blog.
Read more →

Content, content, content. Content makes the web go round.

Donna Ward
Donna Ward
Follow me
Donna Ward
Social Media Manager, Blog Consultant and Trainer at Ask Coach Donna
Social media training and promotion for entrepreneurs, professionals, and business bloggers.
Certified Business Coach, Intuitive Strategist ~ As a Social Media Manager and Coach, I do the work for you and/or train corporations and small businesses how to set up their blog and a Social Media Marketing Plan around their blog/website as their business hub. As a Social Media Marketing Expert, I teach Relationship Marketing and Social Media Mastery, consulting and speaking services for corporate, business owners, and conscious entrepreneurs around the globe!
Donna Ward
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From the moment you begin researching ways to make money online, you hear WRITING, WRITING, and MORE WRITING, over and over again.

One of the hottest ways to make money online is through the power of blogging and article marketing.

You need great, informative, content.

But, first, you need to know why content so important on the Internet and especially your blog and article marketing.

Why is Content Crucial?

Here are a few strategic reasons…