Keyword Scout Review | The BEST Keyword Research Tool EVERY Niche Marketer NEEDS To Have
I know what you are thinking. The title looks like an over-exaggeration and I’m just trying to make a quick buck off you by saying that the software is great.
If that’s what you are thinking, then please PLEASE, read this review in full. I will be describing what the software really does and will back it up with a video of the software in action!
Here is a screenshot of the software to get you excited:
This piece of software allows you to enter micro, mini and normal niches just by entering 1 word (yes, a single word!) and performing a few clicks.
Watch this video to see it in action:
In the video above, the guy wants to create a site in the “chair” niche. All he did was enter the word “chair” there. He wants to be able to quickly rank the site without having to spend too much time on SEO, so he selects “Micro Niche” followed by “Exact” match. All he has to do next is click on “Scrape Keywords”.
A lot of keywords that fit his criteria show up. He selects some keywords that he may want to target and proceeds by showing how you can uncover more data if you wish to do so (he checks for Allintitle). Then he further filters away the keywords he is not interested in.
And finally he ends the video by getting the software to check if exact match domains are available. He ends up on a pretty sweet .net domain name. Remember, he only started with the word “chair”!
A few words about exact match domains
If you are a new niche marketer, you may not know the importance of an exact match domain. Put simply, an exact match domain makes is way WAY easier for you to rank for a certain keyword phrase. Think about it, how better can you show that your site is about “best shoes for men” if your domain name is “bestshoesformen.com”?
Lightweight | Keyword Scout Review
The first thing that struck me with Keyword Scout is the lack of graphics. For some people it may feel like it’s a negative point, but let me explain why it’s actually a BIG plus. Good looking graphics like other keyword research tools like to implement makes everything look cool and all, but it is very resource intensive. If you are not on a top-notch PC, it’s going to lag A LOT (and may even not run at all). With no graphics, Keyword Scout makes everything so much lighter and smoother.
Built-in Proxy System | Keyword Scout Review
Yes, something even Market Samurai or Traffic Travis doesn’t have: a proxy manager! The tool allows you to fetch AND test free proxies from Google for you not to be blocked or blacklisted. Pretty awesome, right?
Brand Remover | Keyword Scout Review
If you are not comfortable having brand names in your domain (and most of the time, you should be!), Keyword Scout has a solution for you too. With its “Brand Editor”, you can easily instruct it to skip the keywords containing the brand name of your choice.
Multiple Keywords In 1 Search | Keyword Scout Review
This is a BIG plus when compared to Market Samurai. Let’s say you want to build a mini niche site around cameras and video recorders. All you need to do it enter “camera, video recorder” in the software. The rest is the same.
The last feature I’d like to mention is the software’s ability to fetch product keywords from Amazon. That’s really sweet!
What I’ve mentioned in this review is far from everything Keyword Scout can do, but I figured a short review of the features you are most likely to use is better for you.
If you haven’t done so yet, watch the video.
The Revolution Of Facebook Pages: XTAB PAGES | Create Pages Like The Pros
I’m going to summarize this entire review in this very introduction for those who don’t like reading a lot and just want to know if this thing is for them or not. Well, XTAB PAGES is hands down the best solution for creating extremely professional looking and highly functional Facebook pages…easily! If you are into social marketing, you definitely need this tool. If you are not, you will get into it soon enough (everyone is doing it for a reason), and you will eventually be needing XTAB PAGES. In either case, I strongly urge you to read the rest of this article to discover what this amazing piece of software can do for your business.
If you’ve been in the social marketing game, you know how difficult it can be to get a page you truly want due to several limiting factors. For the beginners, here is what I’m talking about.
• Lack of efficient support for the app being used
• Being restricted to a limited number of pages
• The need for a domain and hosting
• Limited to what the “theme” or “template” offers – lack of full customization ability.
• No like-gating in many templates
• Price of the tool being used
• App provider’s brand name stuck on the page theme instead of your own
Now, why are we mentioning all of these in a review? Is it even relevant? Yes. Here is how:
“XTAB PAGES solves each and every one of the bullet points above”
A few words about Like-Gating
I was talking to some of my marketing buddies and 2 of them didn’t know what like-gating was. Since then, I always assume that it’s not a very known term yet, even among advanced marketers, especially if social marketing is not their priority.
So, like-gating is a bit like a squeeze page. But instead of offering a free gift after the visitor submits his email address, they gain access to the free gift by liking your page. The free gift is kept hidden, and will be revealed only after they’ve liked the page.
Back to XTAB PAGES
XTAB PAGES makes is extremely easy to like-gate your Facebook page. Let’s say you want to offer a free report to the people who like your page only. All you need to do it place it under the “Liked Only Page” option. Then you write a nice social sales pitch to convince visitors to hit the “Like” button and place it under the “Not Liked Page” so that it’s viewable to non-fans.
If this feature is unwanted, just file everything under the “Not Liked Page” section.
A quick case-study
I decided to quickly create a “fake” page using XTAB PAGES to see how it feels and see where the line really is with this tool.
Point #1 is that no hosting was needed from my part; X-Tab Apps provides free hosting for the Facebook pages created using their software.
XTAB PAGES offered me various templates to use. I wanted to make the page creation a quick process, so I randomly selected the “Corporate” template. At the next step, I had a smooth and robust page that I could customize the way I wanted it.
Point #2 to be noted is: A professional page can be created quickly and easily.
I knew that the tool supported photos and videos, but I wanted to see for myself how easy it is. It was quite surprising to see that it was as easy as a point and shoot camera. Point here, click that…Done! XTAB PAGES also gave me the option to upload a video, but I just embedded 2 YouTube videos.
Point #3 is: Videos and photos are as easy to include as simple text!
After setting up the page, I realized that even without using any of the templates, I could have easily done a great job. The customization power XTAB PAGES gives you is simply incredible. Heck, you can even customize the Like, Share, Invite & Comment buttons!
Actually, this is perhaps the most important feature of the software. It allows you to use the Like, Invite and Share button wherever you want and even then you can customize these buttons to fit your general theme. The software goes as far as your imagination can.
Point #4: REAL, full customization of EVERYTHING is possible.
We talked about white labeling earlier. Nowhere will you find XTAB APPS or XTAB PAGES, or even just X-TAB…not even in small letters! You can actually brand the app with your own image. It’s going to look like you are its developer (or have your own team that develop your own software!). And yes, page number is entirely up to you. No limitation on XTAB PAGES’ side.
Point #5: Read Point #4 again. It’s truer than ever.
X-TAB’s team was one of the first to lead the Facebook marketing game (and they still are). They constantly keep up with any change Facebook makes and the lead developer says that XTAB PAGES will always be upgraded whenever needed and that every time a new version is released, it will be made available for free to all existing customers.
Concerning the customer support, I can personally say that I received a quick and knowledgeable response each time I had a question (I didn’t really need support; I just had to test their support team…! Sorry Phil, if you are reading that, but hey, I’m giving your software a nice review! :) ).
The bottomline
As already stated in my introduction, I strongly endorse this product. XTAB PAGES is the real deal when it comes to Facebook marketing.
If you are any serious about your business, online or offline, you need this application. Period.
CLICK HERE to watch a VIDEO showing the masterpiece in action NOW!
5 Things You Want To Think About To Jumpstart Your Google+ Business Page
Ever since Google officially launched the much-awaited Google+ Business Pages, thousands of businesses and organizations online have been at the tedious job of building and nurturing their page in an endeavor to stand out or at the very least make the most of the undeniable weight of the Google brand. It has already been established that activity on Google+ has an influence however minor at the moment as far as search engine optimization is concerned and with the large number of users joining Google+ at a rate that can only be referred to as phenomenal, more than ever, it is important for marketers to claim their brand and represent themselves on this new social network. If you’ve created a page for your business on Google+ then don’t kid yourself that this is as far as it goes. You will need to build your leads and in this post, we will teach you how to do just that.
How to kick start your lead generation using Google+
1. Start discussions with your peers and influencers
After you’ve registered your page and populated it with your basic details, it can be an absolutely great idea to set up a schedule of discussions that you’d like to have on issues that relate to your industry or niche or problems that relate to your products and services. You can think of this activity as an editorial calendar for your Google+ page.
One of the great advantages that Google+ has over the other social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter is that it’s easy to have actual conversations and encourage responses. As you get started with your Google+ business page, Circle some people in your field with relevant interests, and invite them to participate in conversations. You can do this by adding their name either to a post or a comment by typing a plus sign (+) followed by their name (e.g. “+Pete Wilson). The user you tag will receive a notification that they were mentioned accompanied by an invitation to respond. Since there’s no real limit to how much text you can include in one entry, it’s a great place to start a discussion and subsequently inviting other people to the conversation. A few marketing uses of this Google+ business strategy are generating feedback from your followers about your content, products, or services, building your relationships with the other industry thought leaders and establishing your company as an industry expert.
2. Include videos and attractive images on your page
When starting discussions or posting comments on your Google+ business page, it can be a brilliant idea to include videos and images to your posts. Unlike the other social networks that only display thumbnails or make you exit the site to access content on another site, Google+ supports users posting rich content onto their stream such as photos and videos that can be prominently displayed on the business page.
This, if you didn’t figure it out yet, offers you as a marketer the opportunity to create and display sharp looking calls-to-action for your followers as well as to share messages visually. Since Google+ allows you to add images of any size as well, don’t settle for small icons or hard-to-see graphics. Instead, do that which you can’t do on the other social media platforms. Upload bright and attractive images that will help pull your viewers in and engage them. It will also encourage your followers to click-through to your website.
3. Add your blog posts to your Google+ page
While there isn’t a method for auto-publishing the blog posts on your website onto Google+ yet, an important reason to be active on this network is to make sure that your posts are being published on your business page getting an opportunity to earn comments, shares, and +1s on the site. These factors, as you probably already know, can all impact the search engine optimization of your site. You see, Google loves to see positive interaction and engagement when it comes to content so evidence that people are enjoying a site and its content is extremely valuable. It’s a great way to expand your network and online visibility while simultaneously subtly promoting the organic search results for your website. You might or might not be aware of this but people who find your blog posts in the organic search results can now see how many +1 votes it has received as well as the names and faces of any friends/connections who have personally given it a vote. This is a tremendous vote of confidence for each article you generate
4. Find inspiration for your email-marketing message
The best content to produce and share with your prospects often comes from asking people what they are looking for. Truth is, unless you ask, you may never know what people need. As such, something you can do to help your case is to use your Google+ page followers as a focus group to determine if there’s any important content you’re missing out on or if they’d like to learn more about a particular topic. Build their requests into your next email send, and make sure you share the web version of your email on Google+ so your followers can see it right away on the network. This is yet another opportunity for people to engage with you and your brand, and they’ll appreciate you even more if you incorporate their feedback and requests into your content production.
5. Promote your offers to generate leads
Don’t forget to share your business offers and landing pages on your Google+ page. While you don’t want to overdo it with self-promotion (obviously nobody likes people who only talk about themselves), you should still tell people about your offers and what value they have. Promoting a new eBook or whitepaper that users can download from your site on a landing page is a great way to turn your Google+ followers into your business leads.
If You Want An Effective Landing Page, You Want To Read This Blogpost
Landing pages are one of the most used assets among online businesses, and this is not a result of some sort of consensus or conspiracy. They are used because they work. If you are using landing pages, then good! But you should ask yourself, are they as effective as they could have been? What if instead of a 9% conversion you could obtain 18%? We don’t offer 1 on 1 coaching, but we put up some general guidelines you can follow if you want to make sure you are getting most things right.
The Headline
While this may seem obvious, people often seem to always use crappy headlines, because their copy on the page is supposedly extremely good. If you are one of those guys, then you have to know something. It doesn’t matter how good your remaining copy is if the people that land on your page immediately bounce off your site because of the crappy headline.
If you are not a great copywriter, then a simple tip for you would be to be just a bit more precise by telling them what it is about. If it’s a video you are offering them in exchange of a signup, you can have “[VIDEO]” before the actual title. Simple, but effective tip. Use it.
It’s not a circus
You don’t want too many navigation options on your landing page. This will distract the visitors from your purpose. Remember, most people surfing online do not have their full focus on your page. Some of them are watching TV, others are chatting o Facebook – you get the point. Providing them with even more distractions isn’t going to help you in any way.
Consider having a subheadline
You should apply this technique especially if your headline is crappy. It’s like a 2nd chance to grab your visitors’ eyeballs again. Maybe you failed to communicate value in your headline? Give your best shot in your subheadline!
And the rest of the page
If you rock at copywriting, some of your subscribers will sign up after reading only your headline! However, if you are like most people, you’ll need a bit more than that.
Don’t waste space here. If you have a story, make sure it’s relevant and easy for your prospects to relate to it. If you want to communicate 10 benefits, 10 bullet points are way better than an articles of a few thousand words to describe them.
The rest of the page should also be coherent with your headline. There’s nothing worse than having a headline promising a slim waistline and having bullet points that show how to build thick muscles. Stay focused!
Be clear and bold about the benefits of them signing up. Make it a no-brainer.
Using e-covers
I would say you NEED them. Everyone is using them these days. Don’t try to be the smart guy and go “against the waves” on this one. Not using cover images doesn’t demonstrate any higher value. If you really want to set yourself apart, then hire one of the best designers to make a great e-cover for you.
If you know how to use Photoshop, I strongly recommend you to have a look at Cover Actions Pro. Google it. It helps you create high resolution e-covers of your choice.
An e-cover gives your prospects the feeling that they are actually getting something. They know they won’t receive anything physically, but they still get the “I’m getting something tangible” feeling.
Your opt-in form
You do know you need that, right? It’s the little box that asks the visitors for their name and email address (and sometimes other details).
You can set up your opt-in form with AWeber, Get Response, iContact etc.
You should be good if you follow guidelines below for the opt-in form:
• Keep it simple and neat
• Do not ask for more information than you need. If you don’t intend on calling them, you don’t need to ask them for their phone number. If you need only their email address, ask just that
You don’t need to go fancy if you don’t know how to. Simple and neat forms perform well.
Personalize the “Submit” button
Don’t leave it as “Submit”. If it’s a download, make it read “Download Now!”. If it’s a video, make it “Watch the video now!”. Or if it’s a free membership, “Take me inside NOW!”.
“Submit” is boring and overused.
Hot, HOT TIP!!
Eager about creating a landing page, but don’t know what to offer? I’ll borrow one of my favorite tricks for you.
Skim the salespages of your competitors and have a look at what they offer; especially their bullet points.
Pick 3 – 10 of their bullet points (mix and match them if you want, it doesn’t matter!) and there you go! You now have your e-book chapters.
No excuse now to create the report and the landing page!
How To Get Your Blog Readers To Dislike You And Stop Reading Your Posts (..or How To Avoid It..)
Whether your goal is to achieve inactivity on your blog or to prevent it, this post will be an interesting read for you. If you want to kill your blog, use it as a how-to. If you want to keep your blog alive, use it as a guide for what you need to avoid.
Okay, so enough blabbering, and let’s get to the meat and potatoes!
Action Step #1: Boring headline
Writing a boring, irrelevant and broad headline is a surefire way of getting potential visitors to completely avoid clicking to read any further. Don’t forget to avoid mentioning any benefit they may be getting from reading your post. “Read this post” or “Cool post” are perfect examples.
Action Step #2: Write highly promotional material
This one is for your existing readers. If you want to get rid of them, simply start making your posts solely about the various products and services you are offering. Only feed your ego by describing how wonderful and ingenious the features of your products are. Who needs valuable content that will genuinely help the readers anyway? “I would like to present to you my awesome the awesome report that I have just written”.
Action Step #3: Do not target
You don’t want your readers to feel as if you are writing for them, do you? You want them off your blog, so feel free to write broad content. If your blog is about women getting lean, don’t hesitate to write about the new “Bulking For Ectomorphs” e-book you are selling. Your readers only need to see posts like these once or more to understand that they are not welcome on your blog.
As a bonus, it will push you further down the SERPS so that your blog is even more difficult to find organically. Read the rest of this entry »
