Most of us are pretty familiar with the fact that 'Content is King', however that doesn't mean that if you write and publish thousands of articles online that you'll automatically start boosting leads and sales.

So then, how do you get content to drive traffic and boost your sales? We've talked with Brett who works at Iconic Mind, an IT consulting firm that helps businesses not only with leveraging technology for maximum efficienty, but also helps with the business side of things and helping companies maximize profit. Here are a few strategies that can help you with your content marketing efforts. 


Customize your pitch

Who wouldn't like a product tailored specifically for us? Wouldn't you prefer to buy or sign up for something that's personalized just for you, as opposed to a generic item?


One way a business can do this is to in fact create a unique product or service for each of their customers. However, for most businesses, that isn't really an option. What can be done though is to customize your sales pitch by putting in unique information targeted towards each of your visitors.

Personalize

Speaking of customizing your pitch; personalized notes have been shown to improve response by as much as 39%. So the next time you send off a mass email from that list that you've accumulated, make sure to personalize it with the person's name and any other pertinent information if you want to help improve your click-through-rates.

Easy Navigation

The people visiting your website should be able to easily find what they are looking for, and this begins with an easy to use menu and a clean website interface. The less time people spend clicking through to find what they're looking for, the less frustrated they'll be, and the more sales you'll be able to make.  Since the majority of people are used to reading from top to bottom, left to right, your feature tabs for main landing pages should be in a horizontal navigation with sub menus or categories listed below.

Keyword Research

Do some research using Google Trends and Trends Map to see what topics are trending on Google and Twitter as well as Google's Keyword Research Tool and SEMRush to get an idea of what keywords people who would be interested in your material are searching for. Make a list of keywords that are most relevant out of the list you've come up with. It's also important to think about a user's intent. For example, someone searching for 'consultant' might be looking to get into a career of consulting, looking to hire a consultant, or just want more information on what a consultant is. On the other hand, someone searching for 'hire a consultant' is someone who is most likely looking to hire. In addition, you'll want to think about how competitive the keywords are - the more competitive the keyword, the more difficult it will be to rank your material and be found on the first page of Google.

Reduce Your Options

You'll need to look at your marketing metrics to see which items resonate best among your audience, however fewer options have typically proven to be better in product marketing.  The Paradox of Choice reveals that people who are presented with too many choices become paralyzed by all the options available to them and are unable to make a decision.  In the book that the phenomenon draws its name from, author Barry Schwartz reveals that having too many choices is a problem for us because of indecision and buyer’s remorse.  To put it in basic terms, the more choices available to people, the more they worry about regrets in regards to their decision, before they've even made it, so keep it simple.

Have you tried any of the above methods to help with your content marketing strategy? Have they worked for you? How have you improved the persuasiveness of your content marketing strategy?

If you're a web designer, a blogger, or work in the online marketing sector, it's a pretty good bet that you've already worked with WordPress. Due to the fact that it's a versatile content management system that's easy to setup and super easy to use, WordPress has become a very popular platform. But it's due to this popularity that WordPress hosted sites are becoming more popular for hackers to try and crack. This post is for those work who host WordPress on their own domain, not for those using a WordPress hosted site (ie.  *.wordpress.com).

The majority of you that are in charge of a Wordpress site (excluding those in charge of major brands) will typically need to only worry about low level types of hacking which include the use of tools and scripts to either brute force in (poorly chosen passwords are a big issue here) or to find a vulnerability and take advantage of it like outdated plugins, themes or wordpress software. These types of issues are easy to prevent and yet account for the majority of hacks that people deal with. 

This guide will help with shoring up your invulnerabilities and getting your WP site to be more secure. 

Hosting and server level security

When it comes to WordPress security, you'll want to start at ground zero which means starting with web hosting. While there are many options out there, one of the top options for hosting when it comes to WordPress seems to be WPEngine.com. 

While WPEngine is more costly (starting at $29 per month), the effort they put into security is fantastic (in addition, if you do happened to get hacked, due to their partnership with Sucuri Security, they'll fix your site for free). I've also found that after switching my sites from HostGator to WPEngine, that performance and load time improved greatly, which is great from both an SEO and user perspective.

That said, WPEngine might not be the best solution for everyone, due to pricing or plugin limitation. For example, there are quite a few plugins they don't allow (many for performance issues, not security issues). 


If you decide to use another hosting solution or are hosting WP on your own servers, here are a few things to think about (WP Engine takes care of some of these issues):

• Your server should only be accessible by you and your IT team.
• Never access your server from public WiFi (ahem... Starbucks WiFi) or any other type of unsecure network. If you are on public WiFi, make sure to use a VPN connection or take other security measures.
• Do not use 'Admin' as your user name as this is the default username which makes it much easier for hackers to gain access to your site as they only need to figure out your password.
• Use complex passwords comprised of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols. Make sure you don't use this password anywhere else.
• Make sure that you create a unique database any time you do a new blog installation, and make sure your database table doesn't begin with wp_.
• Run secure, stable versions of your web server and any software on that server.
• Have a server-level firewall.
  
  

There's more to this, but those are the biggies.  Check out the infographic from WPTemplate for a few other invulnerabilities to check.

Now that you've taken care of some of the easier things, the next step is checking your .htaccess file which is a configuration file that will override your server's rules (make sure to edit your .htaccess file AFTER installing WordPress). 

When editing your .htaccess file, it's important to be very careful, otherwise you might cause a 'break', meaning downtime of your website, rules not working the way they're meant to, etc. WordPress auto-creates a section in the .htaccess file. Don't put anything inside of the WordPress section of the .htaccess, as it will be overwritten. 
If you aren't comfortable with code, it may be best to let your developer do this. Here's a resource list to help you get started with editing your .htaccess file to best secure your WP installation.

The next step after sorting everything out is choosing a theme. It's a good idea to purchase or use a theme that comes from a reputable source, as there are many vulnerabilities and backdoors that someone can put into a theme if they choose to do so. The same tip goes for any plugins that you use.

By taking the time to follow some of the tips mentioned above, you'll greatly improve the security of your site, putting you ahead of many other sites, thereby reducing chances that a hacker spends time trying to crack your website.

On June 27, LinkedIn introduced two new features onto your homepage -- ‘Who’s Viewed Your Updates’ and ‘You Recently Visited’. These features are intended to provide you with more personalized insights on your activities and engagement across LinkedIn.

"Our goal was to create a customized experience that would make it easier for you to begin each day armed with the knowledge and insights you need to be productive and successful," LinkedIn's Caroline Gaffney wrote in a blog post.

Who's Viewed Your Updates is pretty much self-explanatory; it gives you the ability to see who has looked at your updates within a 14 day period in addition to how well those updates were received (likes, shares, comments). The cool thing about this is that it goes beyond just your first-degree connections as you'll be able to see details from second- and third-degree networks.

The You Recently Visited feature is also pretty much explanatory; it'll show you profiles and articles you've viewed,  as well as what searches you've performed and what discussion you've participated in.

"This makes it easier to retrace your steps, re-engage in conversations or follow-up with that old colleague you intended to connect with," Gaffney wrote.

These new features that LinkedIn has rolled out is part of their process of revamping their homepage which has started since last year,  including streamlined navigation and the ability to add rich media among other updated features.

Related articles

• LinkedIn Adds New Features: This Week in Social Media (socialmediaexaminer.com)
• How LinkedIn's three newest features can work for you (pcworld.com)
• LinkedIn Gets A Little More Watchful, Now Tells You Who's Viewed Your Updates, And Where You've Been Looking (techcrunch.com)

Landing a managing position at a company can be a fulfilling job, but with it comes a lot of responsibilities that can make the job a difficult one. It's important to find  the right balance of friendliness and authority as a good manager attracts great employees who look to excel at their work, which leads to a boost in company profits.  So how do you strike the balance that'll allow you to be a good manager?

1. Do Your Job 
If you take nothing else from this article, this is the one point to keep in mind. Becoming a manager isn't an excuse to pawn your work onto the employees that you are managing while you take a passive role. Of course, sometimes your job may require that you delegate tasks to others as this is a more strategic way of getting things done, but your staff will respect you for doing what needs to be done and being willing to pitch in like everyone else when it's required for you to do so.

2. See The Positive 
Acknowledge the positives aspects of your employees and the work that they do. Don't be one of those managers who only focuses on the negatives and never on the positives. Positivity breeds positivity. People are motivated and will be willing to go the extra mile if they know they'll be receiving recognition for the work they do. On the other hand, being negative is demoralizing for staff and can cause lackluster performance or employees to defect to other companies.

3. Communication
Make sure that your employees know that if they have any questions or concerns, that you're there willing to listen a you're ready and willing as it's important to keep an open channel of communication allowing you to stay on top of any rising issues so that you can fix them easily and quickly.

• Don't be one of those bosses who accidentally makes a person feel like a bother just because they're bringing up an issue or because they have a question. You should view these chances asan opportunity to show your employee how much you want this organization to be a fulfilling place to work.
• Never minimize or dismiss the concerns of your employees, and always make sure that you've answered their questions completely.
  
  

4. Learn From Mistakes
As the head honcho, part of your job including taking responsibility for other people's actions, so of course the last thing you want is to be responsible for other people's mistakes. However, it's important that people realize that it's okay to make a mistake, as long as they learn from it. If people are too afraid of making mistakes, they'll end up checking with you on every little detail, making them more dependent on you, draining your time, and less effective in the work place.

Since the NSA debacle, people are looking to use alternative search engines that protect users' privacy. Duck Duck Go is one search engine that has seen a huge spike in traffic, hitting a milestone of more than 3 million searches in a single day, after the NSA surveillance revelations. 

As the company’s traffic page shows, the milestone occurred on Monday when Duck Duck Go had 3,095,907 “direct searches,” meaning searches done by human visitors (this search number excludes the millions of searches or hits by bots).

What makes this so amazing is the impact that the NSA news has made for Duck Duck Go and how that's translated to the three million searches. It took them close to 4 years to get to 1 million searches (1445 days to be exact), 483 days to get to 2 million searches, and only 8 days to get to 3 million searches. 

It appears that privacy concerns from the NSA/PRISM issue are spurring some people to seek alternative ways to perform their searches. DuckDuckGo is taking advantages by getting themselves mentioned via various media outlets and sending out press releases. It'll be interesting to see if they can continue to capitalize on these people who are defecting and actually take a significant chunk away from the big three (Google, Bing, Yahoo).