The Science of Creating Highly Shareable Infographics [Infographic]

September 30, 2015 at 06:00PM

Cool topic? Check. Compelling research? Check. Accurate data? Check, check.

When you're sitting down create an infographic, it's never a good idea to just jump in, translate all that research into bite-sized pieces one after the other, and hope people like it. Infographics don't just randomly become popular -- there's a science to it.

So, what's the secret? Thanks to the folks at Siege Media, we have a much better idea. Using BuzzSumo, they analyzed the 1,000 most-shared infographics in the past year to weed out the common characteristics of the most popular ones.

Their analysis covered color scheme, word count, length (in pixels), and other cool findings -- like the social networks on which infographics about certain topics perform best. They found that infographics on the topic of health performed best on Facebook and Pinterest, while infographics about social media and business performed best on Twitter and LinkedIn.

To learn more about the science of the most popular infographics, check out the infographic below from Siege Media. You can refer to these results to create a data-driven strategy for your own infographics. (For even more inspiration, check out this list of the best infographics of the year.)

http://bit.ly/1FEvVym

Why Blog? The Benefits of Blogging for Business and Marketing

September 30, 2015 at 02:00PM

I had a co-worker email me the other day asking for a blog post about the benefits of business blogging.

"It's for a friend," she said.

Sure it was.

I told her I'd shoot over one of our up-to-date blog posts about why businesses should blog and ... I couldn't find one. Whoops. Quite the meta mistake.

So I'm doing it now. If you're trying to explain one of the core tenets of inbound -- business blogging -- to your boss, a coworker, your mom at Thanksgiving, whomever, then send them this post. I hope it helps.

For even more reasons why you should blog for business and marketing -- and how to get started -- download our free ebook here.

The Benefits of Business Blogs for Marketing

First, if you don't know what a business blog is, this post, "What Is Business Blogging? [FAQs]" should get you up-to-date.

On the same page? Cool. Let's move on to why you should use blogging as a marketing tactic.

1) It helps drive traffic to your website.

Raise your hand if you want more website visitors. Yeah, me too.

Now think about the ways people find your website:

• They could type your name right in to their browser, but that's an audience you already have. They know who you are, you're on their radar, and that doesn't help you get more traffic on top of what you're already getting.
• You could pay for traffic by buying an email list (don't you dare!), blasting them, and hoping some people open and click through on the emails. But that's expensive and, you know, illegal.
• You could pay for traffic by placing tons of paid ads, which isn't illegal, but still quite expensive. And the second you run out of money, your traffic stops coming, too.

So, how can you drive any traffic? In short: blogging, social media, and search engines. Here's how it works.

Think about how many pages there are on your website. Probably not a ton, right? And think about how often you update those pages. Probably not that often, right? (How often can you really update your About Us page, you know?)

Well, blogging helps solve both of those problems.

Every time you write a blog post, it's one more indexed page on your website, which means it's one more opportunity for you to show up in search engines and drive traffic to your website in organic search. We'll get into more of the benefits of blogging on your SEO a bit later, but it's also one more cue to Google and other search engines that your website is active and they should be checking in frequently to see what new content to surface.

Blogging also helps you get discovered via social media. Every time you write a blog post, you're creating content that people can share on social networks -- Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest -- which helps expose your business to a new audience that may not know you yet.

Blog content also helps keep your social media presence going -- instead of asking your social media manager to come up with brand new original content for social media (or creating that content yourself), your blog can serve as that repository of content. You're strengthening your social reach with blog content and driving new website visitors to your blog via your social channels. Quite a symbiotic relationship, if I do say so myself.

So, the first benefit of blogging? It helps drive new traffic to your website and works closely with search engines and social media to do that.

2) It helps convert that traffic into leads.

Now that you have traffic coming to your website through your blog, you have an opportunity to convert that traffic into leads.

Just like every blog post you write is another indexed page, each post is a new opportunity to generate new leads. The way this works is really simple: Just add a lead-generating call-to-action to every blog post.

Often, these calls-to-action lead to things like free ebooks, free whitepapers, free fact sheets, free webinars, free trials ... basically, any content asset for which someone would be willing to exchange their information. To be super clear for anyone unfamiliar with how traffic-to-lead conversions work, it's as simple as this:

• Visitor comes to website
• Visitor sees call-to-action for a free offer
• Visitor clicks call-to-action and gets to a landing page, which contains a form for them to fill in with their information
• Visitor fills out form, submits information, and receives the free offer

If you scroll down in this blog post, you'll see a call-to-action button. In fact, 99.9% of the blog posts we publish have call-to-action buttons ... and yours should, too. That is how you turn that traffic coming to your blog into leads for your sales team.

Note: Not every reader of your blog will become a lead. That's okay. No one converts 100% of the people who read their blog into leads. Just get blogging, put calls-to-action on every blog post, set a visitor-to-lead conversion rate benchmark for yourself, and strive to improve that each month.

3) It helps establish authority.

The best business blogs answer common questions their leads and customers have. If you're consistently creating content that's helpful for your target customer, it'll help establish you as an authority in their eyes. This is a particularly handy tool for Sales and Service professionals.

Can you imagine the impact of sending an educational blog post you wrote to clear things up for a confused customer? Or how many more deals a salesperson could close if their leads discovered blog content written by their salesperson?

"Establishing authority" is a fluffy metric -- certainly not as concrete as traffic and leads, but it's pretty powerful stuff. And if you need to tie the impact of blogging to a less fluffy metric, consider measuring it the same way you measure sales enablement. Because at the end of the day, that's what many of your blog posts are. Think about the sales enablement opportunities blogging presents:

• If prospects find answers to their common questions via blog posts written by people at your company, they're much more likely to come into the sales process trusting what you have to say because you've helped them in the past -- even before they were interested in purchasing anything from you.
• Prospects that have been reading your blog posts will typically enter the sales process more educated on your place in the market, your industry, and what you have to offer. That makes for a far more productive sales conversation than one held between two relative strangers.
• Salespeople who encounter specific questions that require in-depth explanation or a documented answer can pull from an archive of blog posts. Not only do these blog posts help move the sales process along more swiftly than if a sales rep had to create the assets from scratch, but the salesperson is further positioned as a helpful resource to their prospect.

4) It drives long-term results.

You know what would be cool? If any of the following things helped you drive site traffic and generate new leads:

• Trip to Hawaii
• Going to the gym
• Sleeping

Good news, though! That's what blogging does -- largely through search engines. Here's what I mean:

Let's say you sit down for an hour and write and publish a blog post today. Let's say that blog post gets you 100 views and 10 leads. You get another 50 views and 5 leads tomorrow as a few more people find it on social media and some of your subscribers get caught up on their email and RSS. But after a couple days, most of the fanfare from that post dies down and you've netted 150 views and 15 leads.

It's not done.

That blog post is now ranking in search engines. That means for days, weeks, months, and years to come, you can continue to get traffic and leads from that blog post. So while it may feel like day one or bust, in reality, blogging acts more like this:

So while you're hitting your snooze alarm, surfing in Hawaii, and pumping iron, you're also driving traffic and leads. The effort you put in yesterday can turn into hundreds of thousands of views and leads in the future.

In fact, about 70% of the traffic each month on this very blog comes from posts that weren't published in the current month. They come from old posts. Same goes for the leads generated in a current month -- about 90% of the leads we generate every month come from blog posts that were published in previous months. Sometimes years ago.

We call these types of blog posts "compounding" posts. Not every blog post will fit into this category, but the more evergreen blog posts you write, the more likely it is that you'll land on one of those compounding blog posts. In our own research, we've found that about 1 in every 10 blog posts end up being compounding blog posts.

To me (and hopefully to you), this demonstrates the scalability of business blogging. While you might not see immediate results, over time, you'll be able to count on a predictable amount of traffic and leads for your business without any additional resource investment -- the work to generate that traffic and those leads is already done.

If you'd like to learn more about the long-term impact of blogging and how to reap even more benefits from the blog posts that are ranking in organic search for your business, check out this blog post, "The Blogging Tactic No One Is Talking About: Optimizing the Past". 

Secondary Benefits of Business Blogging

There are other reasons businesses might want to blog, but I think they're smaller and stray from the core benefits of blogging.

For instance, I love to use our blog to test out big campaigns on the cheap -- before we invest a lot of money and time into their creation. I also love to use our blog to help understand our persona better. And while this shouldn't be their primary use, blogs also become great outlets through with marketers can communicate other PR-type important information -- things like product releases or event information. It's certainly easier to get attention for more company-focused initiatives if you've built up your own audience on your own property, as opposed to pitching your story to journalists and hoping one of them bites.

These are all great side effects or uses of a business blog, but they're secondary benefits to me.

If you're looking to start a business blog or get more investment for one you've already started, the reasons above are a great place to start arguing your case.

Are you already well underway when it comes to business blogging? Just starting out? Share your thoughts on business blogging below and what you're looking to get out of it.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in November 2013 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

 

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How to Have an Ecommerce Store With Zero Inventory

September 30, 2015 at 01:00PM

Whether you want to start an ecommerce endeavor or just expand the products you offer, keeping up with inventory is a definite concern. Whether you need the space or the manpower to keep all your products within reach and accounted for at all times, the fact remains that this particular concern could shut you down before you even get started. Unless you discover the beauty of dropshipping.

What Is Dropshipping?

When you outsource your shipping responsibilities to the manufacturer of your ecommerce goods, that’s drop shipping. In other words, you sell the products on your site, the manufacturer fulfills those orders and ships to the customer, and everyone wins.

Seems like starting an ecommerce company with zero inventory would be easy, if that’s all there is to it, right? Well, not so fast. You do need to make sure you’re working with manufacturers and wholesalers that won’t take advantage of you or your customers. The last thing you need is a bad reputation before you even begin. These steps to choosing a dropshipper will help you avoid negative press.

Interview the Manufacturer

If you want to cut out a middleman, then going straight to the manufacturer is your best bet. Just be sure to ask them all the right questions before putting your business into motion. Check prices, sure, but also make sure they’re willing to dropship for you. If not, ask them for recommendations for similar manufacturers who’ll take that additional step.

If they do dropship, ask their process. Make sure your brand is protected by verifying their standards for quality. Will fragile products arrive safely? Will the manufacturer include packaging details and use mailing labels you provide? Most importantly, will they keep you in the loop and verify that all products have been shipped? You need to have information you can share with your customers, so don’t choose a dropshipper that can’t keep you up to date.

Test the Process

Once you’ve chosen potential dropshippers, place some test orders with them. Note the time it takes to ship from each provider, the overall quality of the packaging, and the state of the products within. If your customers open a box to find items haphazardly tossed inside, they won’t think much of your brand. The manufacturer won’t even come to their minds.

Also, make sure your brand is clearly displayed on the labels you provided. If the dropshipping company refuses to use your branding or doesn’t alert you when new materials are needed, then you’ll have to search somewhere else.

Pressure the Customer Support Staff

We don’t necessarily think you should hassle anyone, but it is important to make sure the customer support staff will act in your best interests. If a customer calls to make a complaint and your dropshipping partner is less than impressive, that will reflect on your brand.

Be sure you touch on all aspects of service, including the quality of the products, the time needed to ship your items, and what must happen for returns and refunds. If the customer service isn’t up to your standards, ask the manufacturer if you can share some helpful tips. As a last resort, ask for recommendations for companies that provide stellar customer service.

Watch Your Reviews for Feedback

If you choose a dropshipping company, set it, and forget it, then you could end up with some serious issues down the line. When you trust anyone to run any part of your business, you should follow up frequently to make sure the job is done to your exact specifications. Now, you can’t follow the manufacturer around and micro-manage, but you can keep an eye on those reviews.

If you see any hint of mistakes or wrongdoing on the part of your dropshipping partner, take immediate action. Whether that action is to sever ties or just to calm an irate customer, the most important thing is simply that you’re on top of the problem. Remember that a majority of customers will stop doing business with you if they experience poor customer service. You get one chance to make a good first impression, and if you’re lucky, one second chance to fix a mistake. Don’t let your dropshipping partner blow it for you.

If you can keep these tips in mind, you could run a whole ecommerce business without ever once packing a box or printing a label. You could offer a huge variety of products without ever having any within reach. It’s not easy, but when done correctly, dropshipping can be pretty lucrative. If you're considering it, make sure to check out the pros and cons of dropshipping. Good luck!

http://bit.ly/1OFVr8T

The Best & Worst Subway Map Designs From Around the World

September 29, 2015 at 06:00PM

If you were to design a subway map, what would you design for: geographical precision or visual clarity? Is it better for a map to accurately represent the geography at street level, or for it to be abstract and easy-to-understand?

In 1972, Massimo Vignelli chose the latter -- visual clarity -- when he designed a map of the New York City subway system. To Vignelli, the only way to make the crazy twists and turns of the city's subway lines comprehendible to the public would be to, well ... straighten them out.

So he redesigned the map so that all the lines ran either vertically or horizontally. He also made Central Park -- normally a rectangle -- into a square. That's Vignelli's map on the left:

Image Credit: 99designs

The New Yorker called it "a nearly canonical piece of abstract graphic design." But many people focused on the "abstract" part of that description, and it didn't sit will with them. While Vignelli's map was easier for people to navigate, it wasn't an accurate portrayal of the geography. In 1979, it was replaced with a more geographically accurate map -- the one on the right.

Was that the right decision? In 2013, a team of MIT researchers used the Boston subway map to study how the human visual system collects information. They found that "a map need not stay geographically faithful to be visually useful. In certain real-world applications, this understanding might be critical; designing in-car navigation maps that take peripheral vision into account could potentially save lives."

There are dozens of subway systems around the world, illustrated both by maps that are confusing but geographically sound, and maps that are abstract but more soothing to the eye. Let's take a look at some of the world's subway map designs and see how they differ in complexity, abstraction, and style -- and what makes some designs better than others.

The Best Subway Maps in the World

1) London, England

London's subway map is reminiscent of Vignelli's for New York City: It abstracts the city into lines that are only vertical, horizontal, or at 45-degree angles. London's subway system is extremely complex, and while this map may be difficult to read at a small size and employs a complicated color code, it provides a coherent overview.

Image Credit: mapa-metro.com

Compare the subway map above with geographically correct subway routes below:

Image Credit: ArcGIS 

2) Berlin, Germany

Like London, Berlin uses a geographically distorted visualization of its subway system as the main map for travelers. MIT researchers found that subway lines taking sharper turns are easier to follow, and major transfers are crisper as a result. 

Image Credit: mapa-metro.com

Compare the layout of Berlin's subway map above with the geographically correct layout below:

Image Credit: 99designs

3) Lisbon, Portugal

Because Lisbon's subway lines are simple and the stops are spread out, the geographically accurate route map actually works fine here. While a more angular map might pass the blink test more readily, this map gives travelers an idea of where exactly in the city they're going.

Image Credit: Lisbon Travel and Holiday Guide

4) Washington, D.C., U.S.A

Washington, D.C.'s subway map uses horizontal, vertical, and 45-degree lines to illustrate its subway map. By including waterways, greenways and parks, and even the most popular monuments right on the subway map -- which are also illustrated in the angular, abstract style -- travelers get more context for each stops' location. This is especially helpful for those who aren't familiar with the city or are visiting some of the most popular locations.

Image Credit: Crazz Images

Compare the above map to a geographically accurate version to get an idea of how the former improves readability:

Image Credit: Charles Buntjer

5) Melbourne, Australia

The map of Melbourne's subway system below is still just a draft, but it's one that The Age reports will likely replace the current map in the next year or two. First, take a look at the draft:

Image Credit: The Age

And compare it to the current map, which will likely disappear soon:

Image Credit: The Age

The subway map upgrade isn't a drastic change in style. As you can see, both the draft of the new map and the current map both employ the geographically distorted style of Vignelli's NYC map. Instead, the biggest change is in the coloring. While the old map uses only blue and yellow, the draft uses 10 different colors and several patterns to give a better indication of where trains move throughout the city.

6) Moscow, Russia

Moscow's subway map has gone through many iterations since its inception in 1935, becoming more and more abstract as time goes on. The result is what you see below: brightly colored, angular lines set around a circle that immediately catches your eye. It's also great how well the major transfer hubs pop: outlined groupings where two, three, or four lines meet.

Image Credit: Moscow Metro Official Site

The Worst Subway Maps in the World

7) Stuttgart, Germany

While the straight and crisp lines in Stuttgart's subway map make individual stops and transfers easier to navigate, the perspective isn't very easy on the eyes. A bird's eye view of the map would make for an easier-to-understand design.

Image Credit: Planetolog.com

8) Mexico City, Mexico

Thankfully, there are other versions of Mexico City's subway map than the one below -- but this one is still used by the city as one of the official maps. It's chaotic if nothing else -- especially with the road map overlay.

Image Credit: Geo-Mexico

9) Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo's subway system is one of the most complex in the world, so it's no surprise its map is nearly frightening to look at. With so many symbols and colors, it's hard to make sense of where you need to go.

Image Credit: Tokyo Metro

Several designers have taken on the challenge of trying to redesign Tokyo's subway map to make it more comprehendible. Here's one iteration:

Image Credit: The Guardian

What do you think of these subway maps? Which styles do you find easiest to understand? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.

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17 of the Best WordPress Plugins for Marketers

September 29, 2015 at 02:00PM

40,296.

That's the number of plugins on WordPress. With so many available, it's tough to figure out the best ones to use -- especially when you're strapped for time.

Here's the good news: We've done the work for you. Below you'll find 17 fantastic plugins every marketer using WordPress should know about. From writing to SEO to analytics, these plugins will help you arrive at the solutions you're seeking while saving you a ton of time in the process.

17 Essential WordPress Plugins for Marketers

1) Jetpack

Jetpack is an all-in-one WordPress plugin that offers advanced features such as analytics, content tools, mobile themes, and more. Marketers can take advantage of all of Jetpack's features to enhance their website, or pick and choose just what they want to activate based on their unique needs.

2) Just Writing

Just Writing takes WordPress' Distraction-Free Writing Mode (DFWM) to a whole new level. To help bloggers focus on their words without having to constantly drop out of DFWM to implement basic formatting, this plugin introduces important features like spellcheck and paragraph styling. Check it out:

Pre-Just Writing

Post-Just Writing

3) Google XML Sitemaps

Help search engines better index your blog by using this plugin to create an XML sitemap. This plugin makes it easier for search engines like Google and Yahoo to crawl your site structure and seamlessly retrieve information. It will also notify search engines when you create a post about new content.

4) FD Word Statistics

Improve the readability of each post you write with the help of some of the most popular readability analysis methods. FD Word Statistics leverages both the Gunning Fog and the Flesch-Kincaid formulas to score your writing and help you understand what level of education is required to understand your post.

Source: Flagrant Disregard

5) Broken Link Checker

Want to prevent Google from following broken links on your website? Broken Link Checker parses your posts to identify broken links and notify you when they surface. To save you time, the plugin makes it easy for you to edit a broken link from the plugin page, eliminating the need to manually go into each post to make changes.

Source: BloggingPro

6) Proofread Bot

Think people won't notice if you make a typo? Trust us, they will. Proofread Bot is a helpful plugin designed to detect both spelling and grammar mistakes as well as stylistic issues. The tool also keeps you from committing an act of plagiarism by running your content through Bing to detect any red flags.

7) Akismet

Spammy blog comments are annoying. Akismet aims to eliminate these types of comments by automatically reviewing and filtering your comments to detect misleading links and signs of spam. Users can easily keep tabs on which comments are caught and which comments are cleared to maintain control over what's being displayed.

Source: Spider My Web

8) Title Experiments

Your title has the ability to make or break the success of your blog post. Title Experiments makes it easy for you to A/B test one title against another to determine the best fit and help you increase your clickthrough rates.

9) Leadin

Looking to better understand your website visitors? Maybe even convert them into leads? Leadin is a marketing automation and lead tracking plugin that tracks visitors' behavior, making it easier for you to set up a conversion opportunity. When they do convert, Leadin will add them to your contact list and create a contact record with their visitor history.

10) Editorial Calendar

Keep your blog organized with the help of this incredibly useful plugin. Editorial Calendar uses a drop-and-drop functionality to simplify the way you schedule and manage your blog content. Manage posts from multiple authors, quickly edit titles and publishing times, and manage drafts with this all-in-one organization tool.

11) WordPress SEO by Yoast

WordPress SEO by Yoast builds upon WordPress' already powerful SEO capabilities. By forcing you to choose a keyword before you start writing, this plugin ensures that your efforts remain focused on driving the right traffic to your website.

12) W3 Total Cache

Looking to improve the performance of your website? This optimization plugin helps marketers deliver a better experience for its visitors by increasing server performance, reducing download times, providing CDN integration, and more.

13) OptinMonster

Looking to grow you email list? This plugin comes with an easy-to-use form builder to help you create opportunities for your visitors to convert. From popups to slide-ins to sidebar forms, OptinMonster offers a variety of different templates for information collection. The best part? it integrates with a ton of email marketing providers such as MailChimp, HubSpot, AWeber, Infusionsoft, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, and more.

14) Revive Old Post

Formerly known as Tweet Old Post, this plugin helps marketers extend the life of their old posts by automatically sharing them to social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Schedule posts, manage multiple accounts, and leverage visual content using Revive Old Post's easy-to-use functionality.

15) Click to Tweet

Click to Tweet enables marketers to create tweetable moments directly within their blog posts to increase engagement and drive more traffic to the content. All it takes is a single click to add a Click to Tweet box after a noteworthy quote or statistic.

16) SFDC Lead Generation

Using Salesforce and WordPress? This helpful plugin helps connect the two by registering users as a lead in your Salesforce platform. This solution aims to save you both time and effort by simplifying an otherwise manual task.

17) Google Analytics by Yoast

Using an integration with Google Analytics API, this plugin makes it easy for you to track the performance of your blog directly within your WordPress account. With added data for search result pages and error pages, Google Analytics by Yoast is the perfect solution for marketers responsible for extensive reporting.

Did we miss your favorite plugin? Let us know in the comments section below.

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