5 Secrets to Writing a Memorable Speech

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There are some very useful guidelines that can serve any speechwriter's needs.

March 30, 2018

7 min read

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I recently received an email from an HR leader at a global computer manufacturer, where I am coaching several executives. She’d been asked to write a speech for the CEO, and she wanted to know if I had any anecdotes to lift the speech into that exalted territory of earth-shattering and unforgettable -- despite a circumstance not unique to her company, namely that the CEO was a bit of a bore.

Morale at the company was low from a recent series of layoffs, declining markets and a squeeze on cash flow. The purpose of the speech was to rally the troops. Did I have a punchy anecdote that would send the speech over the top? she asked.

Related: The 2 Unbreakable Laws of Public Speaking

Unfortunately, I had to say no. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all anecdote that will turn a speech into a crowd-inspiring oration, and I had to tell her honestly that good speech writing is not a magic trick that entails cherry-picking anecdotes on the order of “Let's win one for the Gipper!” There are, however, some very useful guidelines that can serve any speechwriter's needs, whether you're writing a State of the Union address, a data-packed talk for an industry symposium or a eulogy for a respected colleague.

1. Strive for authenticity.

Speeches are an exercise in vulnerability. You are alone up there. As such, you can't just wax hypothetical and hope nobody notices. You need to be honest, to speak with conviction, to be real.

One of my mentors, the late Reid Buckley (younger brother to William F. Buckley), in his text titled Strictly Speaking: Reid Buckley's Indefensible Handbook on Public Speaking, described this quality of authenticity very succinctly. “Argue to the core,” he wrote. By that he meant, speak from the bottom of your heart or from the bottom of your feet, and know where you stand.

At my client’s computer firm, for example, with its layoffs and other struggles, you can bet your salary that there will be more than one cynic in the audience at the CEO’s speech. If it turns out to be a rosy-hued address that papers over the company’s troubles, it will land as inauthentic and unrealistic and as lacking in empathy. However, that doesn’t mean it has to be all gloom and doom. We look to our leaders to lead us into brighter futures, and if there is hope and the potential for a turnaround, say so. And emphatically.

2. Draft your conclusion first.

Figure out your conclusion from the get-go. What are the takeaways you want from your speech? What's the objective you can realistically hope to achieve? Are there any calls to action you need to convey? 

Unlike an essay, a speech is not the time for a long, meandering journey of self-discovery. Know where you're headed and write with a purpose. The question to ask yourself: What do I want people to think, feel or do after I’m done? You can then work backward and figure out the best way to arrange your points. There are plenty of commonsense structures to choose from. Problem/solution is one. Opportunity/leverage is another. Pros and cons is a third. Or you can simply list your points in numerical order.

Related: Be More Persuasive by Answering These 3 Questions

3. Overindulge in research.

Research makes you more confident when you sit down to write and furnishes more angles from which to approach your subject. This enhances creativity. Research makes a blank page far less intimidating and gives you more facts to deploy in your argument. Incidentally, you may learn something along the way. Overdo the research and you will never be sorry.

4. Include a story or two.

My client at the computer company wasn’t wholly mistaken in her request for anecdotes. As I emphasize in my book, The Confident Speaker, a story can be a highly effective communication tool -- after all, it’s a timeless tradition that dates back to the Stone Age. But while storytelling is as natural as breathing to most of us, it’s picking the right story structure than can make the difference between an audience checking their iPhones and one so absorbed in your story that all eyes are fixed on you.

Your story may take the standard five-step approach: exposition, rising drama, climax or turning point, falling drama and, finally, denouement or outcome. But this type of story is not for amateurs and takes time to prepare and tell. If you lack the time or experience for that, you might instead opt for what famed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin calls the two key ingredients for any story to work: intention and obstacle. Somebody wants something, and something is standing in their way of getting it. The inherent drama in such a narrative is something we all relate to. Or you can structure your story according to such popular themes as “David vs. Goliath,” "Phoenix Rising from the Ashes” or “They Said It Couldn’t Be Done.” Whichever story structure you select, make sure it serves your objective and delivers the point you set out to make.

The charm of anecdotes is that they are about people. They put a human face on abstract issues. This characteristic is especially valuable when presenting data, even if no full-fledged anecdotes are being relayed. Always connect your data to people. How do the numbers affect your customers, constituents, shareholders, staff and their families? How do they affect the world at large? Answer those questions and you’ll stand a chance to reach your audience where it matters -- their gut.

5. Interview the speaker-to-be.

Ghost-writing, as my HR client was asked to do for her CEO, is a particularly difficult form for speeches. It calls not just for eloquence, but for eloquence consistent with the manner of someone else. What I advised this executive to do was to sit down with her CEO and delve into his thoughts and assess his goals for the company. Otherwise, personal authenticity would be lacking in the “bit of a bore” CEO’s speech, and even a dull speech that is true to life is better than pumped-up rhetoric that rings hollow.

Related: 7 Powerful Public Speaking Tips From One of the Most-Watched TED Talks Speakers

Among the questions to ponder when interviewing a speaker-to-be: What words do they like using? How do they naturally work the room? How do they make their arguments -- with outlines, with lofty abstractions? Are they pragmatic and direct, or do they wander around before making their point? Some prefer long sentences. Others love the staccato effect.

You should also write using a person’s “natural cadence,” says former White House speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz, who wrote penetrating addresses for the likes of Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and Barack Obama. Her gems include the famous speech by Mrs. Obama that included the line “I wake up every morning in a house built by slaves.” Now that line is exalted, earth-shattering and unforgettable speechwriting!

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How to Use Continuous AB Testing to Increase Conversions

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When was the last time you updated your website?

If you have to stop and think for a minute to answer that question, you may have a problem. Your website needs to be monitored and updated on a regular basis.

However, you don’t want to make changes without any rhyme or reason. That’s why you can use A/B testing as a tool to help guide your website updates.

But before you start A/B testing, you need to understand how it works. It’s not just a one-time thing. Some of you may have tried these tests in the past and seen an improvement. So why did you stop?

For those of you who have never tried A/B testing, it can be difficult to know where to get started. Regardless of your situation and experience with A/B testing, I can help you out.

Continuous A/B testing will make your website more efficient.

I’ll explain how you can use this strategy to improve your business and help you boost your conversion rates.

How A/B testing works

A/B testing isn’t really that difficult of a concept to understand. You start by creating a hypothesis about a certain element and then run a test to see if your theory was right.

To do this, you create two different versions of your website. Then half of your site traffic will get sent to one version, and the other half gets directed to the variation.

Here’s a visual representation to give you a better understanding of what I’m talking about.

Once you set up the test, you wait and see which variation has higher conversion rates. Then you draw conclusions and update your website with the version that converts the most.

What’s tricky about A/B testing is deciding how long to test things and what elements need to be tested.

Honestly, there’s not one right answer to those questions. But I’ll give you some guidance to help you run these tests efficiently.

Test your CTA buttons

When you’re trying to get higher conversions, it’s best to start with the button that gets people to convert.

Obviously, these buttons are different for each company in every industry. It depends on your goal on a specific landing page as well. Some of you may be trying to drive a sale while others may be trying to get site visitors opt-in to their email subscription list.

The key here is just picking one element to start. You don’t want to test two theories at once. Testing multiple hypotheses doesn’t give you conclusive results because you won’t know which variation impacted the results.

That’s why you should be running tests continuously to maximize the efficiency.

Start with something subtle and easy such as the size, color, or placement of your CTA button. For example, you could hypothesize that a larger CTA button will have higher conversions.

You can also test the actual text written on your CTA button. Try testing power words against action words.

Here are some of the power words that convert the most.

Are any of these words currently used in your call-to-action?

Here are some more statistics about the conversion success of words that entice an action.

Based on the numbers in these graphics, you could hypothesize that a call to action that says, “Sign up for free” will have higher conversion rates than one that says, “Download now.”

But there’s only one way to find out. Test it.

After you test one of these and you’re satisfied with the results, move on to another. So if you started with the size of your CTA button, then move on to the color. After that, you can test the text or placement.

Test all of the CTAs this way on each page of your website.

Less than half of websites have a CTA button that can be spotted in less than 3 seconds. So putting so much effort into testing your CTA will definitely give you an edge over your competitors.

Evaluate your headings

After you’re satisfied with your CTA button analysis, move on to other components of your website that stand out the most.

Your headlines and subheadings definitely jump off of the page at visitors, so it makes sense to test those next.

If your headlines aren’t worded properly, visitors may not even read all of the content on the page. So while testing the CTA may seem more important, visitors could miss out on your entire value proposition if the headers don’t keep them engaged.

In addition to conversions, you should be looking at analytics that shows how long each visitor stays on the page for.

If one headline causes the average page viewing time to be significantly longer than the variation, it will definitely increase the chances that the visitors will convert.

Here’s an example of an A/B test on a website’s headline.

As you can see, the two pages are identical, except for the headlines. The variation has different words for the main heading and subhead.

The test yielded conclusive results. Website visitors who saw version A filled out the form at a 27.76% higher rate than the ones who saw version B.

If your tests are only within 5% or so if each other, you may not be able to say that one is definitely better. To find out for sure, you can run an A/A test before your A/B test to see what your standard deviation is between the same version of a web page.

Improve your checkout process

For those of you with an ecommerce website, you need to find ways to minimize shopping cart abandonment.

Using A/B tests on the layout of your checkout process can really help you maximize conversions. You’ll be able to tell which elements are working and which ones can be tossed away.

I’ll give you some ideas of what you can start testing.

Are you accepting coupon codes? If you have an option for visitors to input a coupon code during the checkout process, it could cause them to go searching for a code.

But if these codes aren’t always readily available and they’re just something you use to offer a disgruntled customer, it shouldn’t be a primary element of your checkout process.

Test it out to see what kind of results you get.

You could also test a guest checkout vs. login to checkout conversion rates. I’m assuming you’re offering a secure checkout, so use A/B tests to see if the size and placement of your security badges have an impact on conversions.

Test every element on the page. You’d be surprised at how something small could make a huge difference.

Here’s a great example of something subtle that iHerb used to when A/B testing their checkout process.

Take a look at the left side of the screen. They have a shipping cost calculator. All the customer has to do is input their zip code and they’ll get an estimate on their shipping costs.

But the heavy-duty bag promotion draws lots of attention away from the calculator.

Here’s another version of that same page.

As you can see, the image was removed and the “Calculate” button was placed much closer to the “Proceed to Checkout” CTA.

OK. So technically they changed two elements of this page, which I know I said you shouldn’t do. But this was subtle enough to be effective.

I’m a big advocate for removing clutter from your pages, so I think it was a smart decision to get rid of the image in addition to moving the placement of the calculator.

Find out which images convert

You definitely want to use images to help you improve your website. But it’s just a matter of what images to use and where to place them.

If you’re on the fence about a decision, or you have some images already in place on your website, run A/B tests to see which ones have the highest conversion rates.

For example, you could test an image of a man vs. an image of a woman to see if one yields different results. Or you could test an image of the same model, but with different facial expressions, such as smiling vs. a serious face.

Is it better to have one big image as the background of your website? Or will a white background with the image in the forefront have higher conversions?

The only way to find out for sure is by testing your theory.

You should also consider the size and position of your images in relationship to other elements of your website.

Continuously run these tests to maximize your conversion rates.

For example, let’s say you find out that a photo of a man converts higher than a photo of a woman. Now you’ve got to find the most optimal position of that photo on the page, so your tests will continue.

Test different color schemes

Colors can make a huge impact on how people see your website. That’s because certain colors have a psychological impact on our mind.

We’re programmed to associate certain colors with things. For example, but what color does everyone wear to a funeral? I’m not trying to sound grim, but that’s one of the reasons why we automatically associate the color black with death.

Test colors for every component of your website, such as the color of the text, the menu icons, and CTA buttons.

Here’s an example that tests the colors of the call-to-action on this website.

The pages are identical, including the text. The only thing that’s been changed is the color. Refer back to what I said earlier about our minds automatically associating certain colors with things.

Well, we’re programmed to go on green and stop on red. So a valid hypothesis for this A/B test would be that a green CTA button will have higher conversions than the red one.

Use A/B tests to improve your emails

Everything we’ve discussed so far is based around your website. But that’s not the only platform that you use to get conversions.

A/B testing is not limited to your website. You can also test factors from your email marketing campaigns.

Test things similar to what we’ve already talked about. Focus on your CTA, colors, images, headings, and text.

But with email, you can test other factors as well.

For example, use A/B testing on your email subject lines. The content of your message can be the same, but see if you have a significant difference in open rates and conversions based on the subject.

Test the word count of your marketing emails.

Recent studies suggest that emails between 50 and 125 words have the highest conversion rates.

So think outside of the box when you’re running these A/B tests.

Don’t assume that you’re only allowed to test elements of your website. Email campaigns are another viable option.

Revisit your early tests

A/B tests don’t just last for a day or two.

Typically, you’ll want to run each test for at least a few weeks or so to make sure that you’ve got a large enough sample size to yield conclusive results.

So let’s say you run 4 or 5 different tests on your CTA button. That alone could take 3 months. Then you move on to test your headlines, images, colors, and checkout process.

By the time you get through all of these tests, a year or two could have passed since your initial test.

Well, don’t stop now. Go back and see if your CTA is still as efficient as possible.

Conclusion

A/B testing is one of the best ways to increase your conversion rates.

But you don’t just run one test and call it a day. This process needs to be a continuous part of your marketing strategy. Always strive to make improvements to your website.

Test things like your CTA buttons, headlines, and checkout process.

You can also test visual elements such as your images and color schemes on your pages.

A/B testing isn’t just restricted to your website. You can apply this strategy to your email marketing campaigns as well.

Once you finish testing something, move on to the next element. After you’ve tested everything, start back at the beginning.

What elements of your website are you testing first to improve your conversion rates?

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Apple's CEO Criticizes Mark Zuckerberg! 3 Things to Know Today.

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Stay in the know in 60 seconds.

March 29, 2018

1 min read

1. Apple CEO Tim Cook said Facebook and other companies are beyond regulating themselves, Recode reports. Asked what he would do if he were in charge of Facebook, Cook said "I wouldn’t be in this situation."
2. Elon Musk's Neuralink aims to connect humans to computers, but apparently it will first test its interfaces on animals, or may already be doing so, according to Gizmodo. Not cool Elon. Not cool.
3. And capitalizing on its slogan, "America runs on Dunkin'," Dunkin' Donuts is teaming with Saucony for, you guessed it, running shoes. The limited-edition sneakers for the Boston Marathon can be preordered on saucony.com for $110.

Watch the previous 3 Things to Know video: Steven Spielberg Chews Up Carl's Jr.'s 'Spielburger' Plans. 3 Things to Know Today.

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Are You the 47 Percent?

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The appeal of the Dot Com Lifestyle is that of freedom. I’ve talked about this before, how time freedom and location freedom are the most valuable aspects of making money online. Another big part of it has to do with the sense of ownership that you get when you work for yourself, running your own business.

And with a little sweat on your brow, a healthy dose of stubborn dedication, and a dash of luck on your side, you may achieve a certain level of money freedom too. You don’t have to think twice about spending $3,000 on a couple of office chairs for you and your daughter. The money, in and of itself, becomes far less of a concern. But the only way that you can get to this point is if you have a firm grasp on the money in the first place.

Bad With a Dollar

The stats on this will vary base on who you ask, but the National Endowment for Financial Education estimates that about 70 percent of people who win the lottery (or receive some other large financial windfall) end up broke within a few years of getting the cash.

How does that make any sense?

Well, you have to realize a couple of things here. First, the demographic of people who buy lottery tickets, particularly those who buy them every week or buy them in large quantities, tend to be people who aren’t particularly wealthy. By and large, rich people don’t buy lottery tickets. And while some lottery ticket buyers are financially responsible, certainly, I imagine a sizable proportion are not. That’s why they’re making a fool’s investment as they might think it’s their only hope of striking it rich.

And then you have to realize that if someone is bad with a dollar, they’re going to be that much worse with a million dollars. Or one hundred million dollars. Many lottery winners don’t know what to do with themselves when they have that much cash, so they spend it frivolously. If they were able to rack up thousands of dollars in debt before, imagine how much overspending they’re going to do now.

Living Paycheck to Paycheck

Normally, when we think of people who are living paycheck to paycheck, we imagine people who are stretched beyond their means. Maybe they only work a part time job and they wish they had more hours. Maybe they work a job that doesn’t quite pay enough. Maybe they don’t know how to rein in their expenses.

So, it might surprise you that over three-quarters of full-time workers in the United States are living paycheck to paycheck. With numbers like that, it’s not just people in poverty who are struggling to make ends meet. It’s a lot of middle class families. And indeed, it’s a lot of people who are making more than six figures too.

Maybe they took on a mortgage that is too big. Maybe they took on a car payment that is too big. Maybe they put their kids through too many expensive activities or they take too many fancy vacations. That’s the thing. Looking rich is not the same as being rich. The guy with the big house and a sports car in the driveway could be drowning in mountains of debt. That’s not the Dot Com Lifestyle.

Making Money Is Good, But…

Here’s one last stat to consider, the one that served as the inspiration for the title of today’s blog post. Some 47 percent of Americans surveyed said that they would not be able to sustain an unexpected emergency expense of $400. They don’t have enough of a cushion there to absorb spending an extra $400 on something they didn’t expect.

That’s not very much money at all. This means that if they suddenly need to replace the hot water boiler in their home, if they need to get some new brakes for the car, they won’t be able to afford it without having to sell something or to take out a loan. That’s crazy.

And what this means if you make money online as a dot com entrepreneur, it means these people wouldn’t be able to replace their computer monitor if it suddenly went on the fritz. And if you can’t see what your computer is doing, you certainly can’t make money on the Internet.

It’s not enough simply to make more money online. That’s good, but it’s enough. You need to be smart about what you do after you’ve made that money. You need to know how to invest it, save it, set it aside or put it to good use. In short, you need to be smart with a dollar so when the time comes, fingers crossed, you’ll be smart with a million dollars.

Click Here To Download John Chow’s New eBook, The Ultimate Online Profit Model!

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4 Facebook Experts Share Their Best Tips and Predictions for Facebooks Ads

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Before there was a data problem, Facebook's algorithmic changes had a lot of people freaking out. Here's what you should be doing.

March 29, 2018

10 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Remember before the Cambridge Analytica scandal when brands and publishers were worried about Facebook's News Feed changes? Here's a refresher from Facebook’s official post back in January, “Because space in News Feed is limited, showing more posts from friends and family and updates that spark conversation means we’ll show less public content, including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses.

As we make these updates, Pages may see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease. The impact will vary from Page to Page, driven by factors including the type of content they produce and how people interact with it.”

For many entrepreneurs and small business owners, the good ol' days of free organic reach to Facebook's 1.4 billion daily active users are officially over. But rather than bailing on the platform, experts predict that more businesses and brands will be focusing their efforts on Facebook advertising. In 2017 Facebook generated almost $40 billion in ad revenue, an increase of 49 percent over 2016. Since new reports show that the average price per Facebook ad increased by 43 percent in Q4 of last year, pundits expect that number to soar this year as the Facebook ad landscape is becoming more competitive than ever. And as of today, no one is predicting that the #deletefacebook movement will have any impact.

Related: 7 Strategies to Grow Your Facebook Audience

We spoke with four Facebook experts who shared their thoughts on the key Facebook trends that will dominate the upcoming years. Collectively, these experts have invested over $1 billion to successfully advertise on Facebook, for themselves and on behalf of hundreds of various businesses and brands. Entrepreneurs would be wise to read closely and follow their recommendations to get a competitive edge using Facebook ads in 2018 and beyond.

Facebook expert: Dennis Yu

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CTO of BlitzMetrics Dennis Yu is an internationally recognized lecturer on Facebook marketing and the co-author of “Facebook Nation,” a textbook taught in over 700 colleges and universities. He is the former Head of Analytics of Yahoo! and has worked with brands like the Golden State Warriors, Rosetta Stone, Nike, Adidas, and more.

According to Dennis Yu, focusing on the fundamentals is crucial to surviving the apparent Armageddon that’s happening. It’s pretty hard to ignore this advice coming from an industry leader whose company has managed the investment of over $1 billion dollars of Facebook ad spend across different accounts.

Yu believes that Facebook killed organic reach for pages long ago and that many self-proclaimed “gurus” are using the recent news to incite fear and get attention. “Ignore those folks! Focus on the fundamentals and you will win! Create good content that really deserves to be ranked, that truly helps the users, and you don't have to worry about the [Facebook] algorithm.” Yu defines the fundamentals of Facebook advertising as being “Awareness, engagement, and conversion.”

Related: (Video) When Is the Best Time to Post on Facebook?

He advocates creating one-minute videos to create awareness and to boost them for a dollar a day to drive engagement. To create engagement, Yu says that brands must tell authentic stories that don't look like advertisements, citing that this is what drives further organic reach and community interaction. He recommends to sequence the one-minute videos to share your story and when done properly, “We've found this to absolutely kill it!”

He further explains how this process leads to conversions and sales, “This shows up as viral reach where you then respond to them in a community format, and you can collect their email addresses and invite them to your website. Do cross-channel marketing and then you're able to drive a sale, either at the store, through your email list, or through people that are more likely to search for you on Google. That's where things are accelerating towards right now.”

Facebook expert: Justin Lofton

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Founder and CEO of Zenfusion and SyncSumo, Justin Lofton has spent nearly 20 years mastering the art of selling online across every industry channel and vertical imaginable. He has also invested more than $10 million in Facebook ads in just the past six years alone.

Justin Lofton is excited to see more folks continuing to move away from traditional media outlets like television. He believes that people are coming onto the Facebook and Instagram platforms to consume more of what they do in their lives, as opposed to plugging into television or getting their news from traditional media channels. He forecasts this will create more opportunities for businesses looking to advertise to their ideal audience at a cost far less than television.

One of his prognostications is for retail. He predicts that more brick-and-mortar stores will continue to close because people simply prefer the convenience of online shopping. He adds, “Retail is completely dying. Customers are comfortable ordering products and services online, so you're going to see that shift of e-commerce really moving more and more into online platforms. Facebook is the best platform to reach those folks.”

Lofton also shares some insights regarding lead generation and predicts more businesses are going to adopt Facebook Lead Ads and use them to replace their traditional website funnels.

When asked about the best Facebook advertising strategy, his advice is to “be creative in your campaigns” and “Use images and videos to leverage some sort of emotional impact in order to get the audience's attention and get them engaged. Video performs better if you can create a video for your advertising, but leveraging some sort of emotional impact helps you get their attention. You get them engaged when you're using emotional imagery and video.”

Related: Not Getting Results With Your Facebook Ads? Here is Everything You Are Doing Wrong.

On the technical aspects of Facebook ads, he recommends advertisers target 2-percent lookalike audiences as a part of their process and test the results. Lookalike Audiences allow you to reach people who are more likely to be interested in your products and services. It lets an advertiser create a custom audience that is similar to people who have done business with you in the past. “I'm really seeing interest-based targeting working really well in getting inventory on the ad platform. It can be cheaper with interest-based targeting as well as 2-percent lookalike audiences,” he adds.

Facebook expert: Wilco De Kreij

Image Credit: Facebook

Founder of UpViral and Connectio Wilco De Kreij is a full-time online marketer and software developer who has successfully invested millions of dollars in Facebook ad spend over the past decade to grow his SaaS platforms.

Wilco De Kreij’s predictions are focused on Facebook’s recent changes. He believes that ads will need to appear to be “native” in order to succeed. In other words, people will have a harder time determining whether a post is actually an advertisement or whether it's just organic content. “Those who are running ads with the direct-response mindset of advertising are going to be left behind. Those who focus on producing valuable content that people consume and then intelligently promote using the advertising platform are the ones who will succeed,” he added.

He then encourages advertisers to not settle for a faceless brand. When running ads to a cold audience -- especially to people who have never heard of you before -- do it from a personalized brand page. Based on a series of tests De Kreij conducted, running ads from a personalized page resulted in a 300 percent increase of ROI compared to running the same ads from a company page.

“It's going to be more native, right? People want more native results. Make sure to give it a go and just run the exact same ads from your brand page versus your personalized Facebook page and see what happens.”

Facebook expert: Keith Krance

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CEO and Founder of Dominate Web Media Keith Krance is the co-author of the top-selling book The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising. His agency has managed over $70 million in total ad spend and is currently managing $2.5 million a month across all their accounts.

Keith Krance predicts that Facebook advertising costs will drastically increase due to the recent Facebook announcement. With the number of advertisers growing exponentially by the day, the competition for News Feed inventory increases. “Advertising costs are starting to go up with Facebook, but they're nowhere near where they're going to be two years from now,” says Krance. “People are complaining because Facebook ad costs have gone up. Just wait for two years ... three years ... and watch what happens.”

He also believes Instagram is the biggest opportunity for entrepreneurs at the present time. He states, “Right now most people are not running Instagram ads properly.” He strongly encourages advertisers to think of each ad as a brand ambassador, as if it was a real person. “Think about your ad and your messaging as somebody that you're hiring as a brand ambassador to start making friends with people.”

He claims most advertisers create ads targeting Facebook, but only include Instagram placements as an afterthought. Krance suggests creating some ads with an Instagram-first focus and testing the results. “If you make an ad that works well with Instagram, it's likely to work well with Facebook too, but the reverse isn’t always true.”

Krance also encourages advertisers to learn how to properly leverage new technologies such as messaging bots and text messaging automation. He believes when technology is thoughtfully combined with personal communication, it can improve your results. However, he cautions, “But you have to keep that personal touch! That's going to be a big opportunity, and I think some mistakes that people will be making is relying too much on automation to execute the entire sales process.”

A tip from Krance in keeping that personal touch is to use Facebook Live and believes most advertisers underestimate the power that it has to create free organic engagement. He claims that if you get a good amount of people on the Facebook Live event quickly and create conversations, then Facebook is going to send it out to even more people. “It's a big snowball effect. What I'll do now, is if I do a Facebook Live, I'll just do a quick broadcast message to my ManyChat subscribers and my email subscribers to let them know we're live. It’s a great way to create engagement and personal connection.”

Related video: How to Create Great Video to Exponentially Increase Your Sales

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LinkedIn Prospecting: How to Find and Connect With Future Customers : Social Media Examiner

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Do you want more clients?

Wondering if LinkedIn can help you acquire more business?

To explore how to use LinkedIn to find leads and turn them into customers, I interview John Nemo.

More About This Show

The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It’s designed to help busy marketers, business owners, and creators discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode, I interview LinkedIn marketing expert John Nemo. Author of LinkedIn Riches: How to Use LinkedIn for Business, Sales and Marketing, John is also host of Nemo Radio podcast, which is focused on online marketing and lead generation. He has worked to rewrite LinkedIn profiles for well-known individuals such as John Lee Dumas, Ray Edwards, and Chris Brogan.

John shares which LinkedIn and third-party tools he uses to identify and manage his prospects.

You’ll discover how John develops LinkedIn connections into pre-qualified leads and clients.

LinkedIn Prospecting: How to Find and Connect With Future Customers featuring insights from John Nemo on the Social Media Marketing Podcast.

Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below.

Listen Now

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Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:

LinkedIn Marketing

John’s Story

Back when John had a day job in marketing, he was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and wanted to start his own marketing agency. However, leaving a safe day job was hard when he was the sole breadwinner for his wife and three boys younger than age 10. In late 2012, with one client and enough money for 30 days, John decided to make the leap into starting his own business.

To find more clients, John had a plan to use LinkedIn for prospecting. Until John started his business, he (like a lot of people) viewed LinkedIn only as a place for job-seekers and recruiters. Your profile was a résumé. But after he began viewing LinkedIn as a way to find clients, his perspective on the platform changed.

Motivated by the need to feed his children, John stayed busy on LinkedIn bringing in clients for his marketing agency. Within 90 days, John had replaced his six-figure salary, generated revenue, and had a bunch of clients in the door. He had to start hiring staff and kept growing his business, continuing to use LinkedIn to get new clients.

After a few years, the marketing agency felt too much like John’s old job. He was managing staff and doing payroll instead of creating stuff. From there, John pivoted to helping people learn how to find clients on LinkedIn.

In 2014, John published LinkedIn Riches. Then he created an online course (also called LinkedIn Riches). Today, John has a one-man shop, creating online courses and working with a small group of clients and customers. With his more entrepreneurial lifestyle, John can choose the things he wants to do, and LinkedIn has been the engine behind where his business is today.

Listen to the show to hear John share how often he uses LinkedIn now.

Why Prospect on LinkedIn?

If you’re looking for business-to-business (B2B) prospects, LinkedIn is the best place on the planet because it has the market cornered right now. No other B2B network has as many members and as much reach as LinkedIn does.

Currently, LinkedIn has about 550 million members in 200 different countries, and two new members join every second of the day. LinkedIn is a behemoth and one of the most visible websites in the world.

Looking for prospects on LinkedIn is effective because it’s like a search engine for professionals. For all its members, LinkedIn has categorized, analyzed, sorted, tagged, and saved every little bit of data. By leveraging all that data, LinkedIn can help you find your prospects.

For example, within 3 seconds, you can find a list of CEOs in San Diego who work in the health care industry and have a company with more than 10 employees.

If you understand what to say to people, LinkedIn is like the world’s biggest professional coffee shop. You can have one-on-one, real-time engagement with people via the LinkedIn message box, status updates, or articles. Professionals worldwide check in every day. If you’re savvy and pay attention, you can really leverage LinkedIn for marketing.

Listen to the show to hear John discuss other features that make LinkedIn a one-stop shop for professionals.

How to Write a Client-Facing LinkedIn Profile

Most LinkedIn users still treat their profile like a résumé. People write in the third person about what they’ve done, where they worked, and awards they’ve won. However, your ideal prospects and customers don’t care about you. They care about how you can solve their problems.

When John teaches people how to rewrite their LinkedIn profiles, he talks about making the profile client-facing. To start, identify whom you help, which should be your target audience (such as CEOs or entrepreneurs), and what benefit you offer that audience. John offers a template like this: “We help [target audience] achieve [the benefit they get from working with you] by providing [your service].”

For instance, when John explains what he does, he says, “I help business coaches and consultants quickly find more clients online by providing LinkedIn lead-generation training.”

John says you can continue this client-facing profile by saying more about how you help your ideal audience and why your service works. After you talk about how you can help and why, share what others say about you by adding testimonials. At the end, John also recommends adding a call to action, whether that’s signing up for your live event or something else.

When you write a client-facing profile, think about what prospects will see and how they’ll react when you initially contact them on LinkedIn. You focus on the client because, when you first contact a prospect on LinkedIn, that person will wonder who you are and look at your profile. Even if someone searches your name on Google, your LinkedIn profile is often one of the top results.

Say your ideal clients are marketing managers in charge of social media. If the first line of your profile says you help marketing managers in charge of social media do this, this, and this, that person is excited and intrigued because you can solve something they need help with. Your profile helps that person connect the dots.

With LinkedIn, John says the riches are in the niches. He recommends identifying two or three target audiences you really serve well. Identify them by job title and industry type. If you try to be everything to everybody, finding clients on LinkedIn won’t work. Similarly, if prospects don’t like your profile, they may never respond to your inquiry.

John stresses that everything you do on LinkedIn begins with your profile because people will check it. Everyone wants context for a conversation. If your personal invite piques someone’s curiosity enough to look at your profile, your profile needs to convey that you can help that person. Then they’ll accept your invite so you have a way to start a dialog.

Listen to the show to hear John and I discuss what a LinkedIn profile for Social Media Examiner might say.

How to Find Prospects on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has an incredible internal search engine for finding prospects. Whether you’re on the LinkedIn mobile app or the desktop version, start by typing the job title of the person you want to reach in the search box, such as “business coach.” (John notes the search box supports Boolean searches, which means you can add operators like AND or use quotes to make your search more specific.)

On the search results page, filters with checkboxes help you narrow your search results to your exact ideal customer. John might start by filtering his search for business coaches to Minneapolis, where he lives, reducing the list of 80,000 coaches to 800. Another filter can narrow the list to coaches who attended a college like the University of Minnesota.

For even more nuance, you can add more filters to find people in your specific niche. John might filter to find business coaches who specialize in health care clients. All this filtering gives you context for a conversation.

I ask what kind of an account you need to search all of LinkedIn. John says a free account offers limited results and filters. He recommends upgrading to a paid premium account because you’ll get more data and search filters. You also have more access to the people you’re looking for and who look at your profile. Think of a premium account as paying for more access to the search engine.

LinkedIn premium fees range from $25 to $150 per month. The account tiers focus mostly on different fields, such as a job-seeker, HR person, or salesperson. For most marketers, John recommends the sales account, which has two different levels and costs $65 to $100 per month. For John, the data he gets makes the cost worthwhile.

For example, John can contact the 800 business coaches in Minneapolis who went to the University of Minnesota. The context from the search filters gives him an easy way to break the ice. He might reach out with an invite that says, “Hey Joe, I see you’re a business coach here in Minneapolis. By the way, I see you went to the University of Minnesota. Go Gophers!”

Although LinkedIn doesn’t let you send a message to 800 people at once, you can use third-party automation tools. John says using third-party tools is a gray area. LinkedIn says it doesn’t like these tools and doesn’t want people to use them. John’s take is that LinkedIn doesn’t want people scraping data and scamming people.

The tools John uses just save the repetitive work of copying and pasting messages to individual profiles so that he can send those 800 invites over a day or two with a click of a couple of buttons. He likens these tools to an email marketing system where he can insert a name and personal message based on the criteria in his search filters.

John doesn’t use automation when someone replies. Beginning with a reply, you have a personal one-on-one conversation.

John says the automation tools he likes change, but right now he likes Meet Leonard (which offers tons of different plans and pricing), LinMailPro, and Linked Helper. Most of these tools work via a Google Chrome browser add-on that you purchase and connect to LinkedIn.

Sometimes, John has seen LinkedIn say, especially to free users, “Hey wait a minute. Are you trying to automate? Don’t do that.” LinkedIn tends to leave paid users alone.

In the past 4 or 5 years, John has used third-party tools and never had trouble because he acts like a human being. He doesn’t try to send 8 messages one day and 8,000 the next day. He doesn’t spam people with sales offers. He doesn’t annoy people. John says to use the tools to save time on repetitive tasks like copying and pasting or opening new windows.

John also says these opinions are his two cents. He’s not an attorney. He’s not here to advocate for or against third-party tools. For John, there are great third-party tools that save time.

Next, I ask about the difference between sending prospects a connection request versus a message. John sends a connection request because LinkedIn makes messaging connections easier than messaging people who aren’t connections. To send direct messages to someone who isn’t a connection, you have to pay with InMail credits. A premium account might get you 10 to 30 credits per month.

However, when you send a prospect a nice, friendly, personal invite, they’ll see your client-facing profile and think, “Wow, this guy could help me. I should connect with him.” After a prospect accepts your invitation to connect, you can exchange unlimited direct messages.

Also, when you send an invite, LinkedIn gives the other person the opportunity to write you back before they accept the connection. People might be curious about your invite, and you can answer their questions. In this way, you also start a dialog with a prospect.

Listen to the show to learn what people have asked John in response to a LinkedIn connection invitation.

How to Compose a Message to Prospects

John emphasizes that the LinkedIn inbox is where you make money and find marketing success on LinkedIn. First, John offers some details about how the LinkedIn inbox works.

LinkedIn has completely revamped the messaging experience. Gone are the cold, professional emails people used to exchange within LinkedIn. Now, with the LinkedIn inbox, or message box, you can message back and forth with anyone who is a first-degree connection like a couple of teens texting.

The messages move in real time. Little green dots next to a person’s profile indicate they’re active right now. You can start messaging someone who is active and chit-chat back and forth. Each person can see when the other person is formulating a response because a speech bubble with dots indicates that person is writing you back.

John goes on to explain what to say in your messages to prospects. Generally speaking, whatever you ask someone has to reflect the trust you’ve earned so far. At this point, all you’ve done is connect with someone. With that level of trust in mind, don’t immediately try to sell something or ask them to sign up for something or get on the phone.

Instead, after a prospect becomes a connection, the first message John sends has four key components. First, he starts by saying, “Hey Mike, so glad we got connected.” Then John asks a question right away. He asks if the connection is interested in topics relevant to his business. He might ask, “Are you interested in how to get more leads with LinkedIn?”

After you ask the question, you need to offer value. For example, you might offer a great free template, webinar, training series, podcast episode, or other helpful content. However, don’t put the link into the message right away.

The third component of your message is asking permission. You don’t assume your new connection wants the link. To ask permission, you say, “Just reply with the word YES, and I’ll send it over.” (Writing YES in all caps isn’t necessary but makes the desired response stand out more.)

With this approach, people on a mobile device can easily send a thumbs-up or a smart reply that says “yes.” (LinkedIn smart replies try to guess how you might respond to a message.)

Fourth, John always ends the message without pressure. You can say, “If you’re not interested, no worries at all. Have a great day!”

After you send the first message with these four components, you wait. If the person replies YES, then John copies and pastes from a follow-up script. John might reply, “Awesome! Here’s a free link to the webinar. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts.”

Another important point about the offer is that you move leads off LinkedIn, which is rented land, and onto your own email list or website. Like Facebook has done, LinkedIn could change everything tomorrow.

Listen to the show to hear John read a full example of his initial message to a new LinkedIn connection.

Message Tracking and Management

To manage the workflow for messaging prospects on LinkedIn, John uses Meet Leonard, which has a built-in CRM (customer relationship management) tool. John has 18,000 LinkedIn connections. He’s organized them all by job title and tagged them. For instance, John has a group of about 3,000 business coaches.

With Meet Leonard, John can send 200 invites a day to business coaches, and it tracks who’s accepted and who hasn’t. Each day, as acceptances come in, he can see that these five people accepted and choose to send a follow-up note. The CRM can also withdraw the invites automatically after 30 days.

After a prospecting invite becomes a more personal one-on-one exchange, you track the messages in your LinkedIn inbox. You can filter your inbox to see only unread messages, and those YES responses stand out because people have given you the one-word response you asked for.

From there, copying and pasting from the script help you manage the workload. For John or his virtual assistant, the copying and pasting take minimal time. John doesn’t mind spending 10 to 30 seconds copying and pasting from his script to point people to his webinar because they’re high-end, high-value prospects now.

John says the response rates to his initial prospecting invites depend on the script. With his Messaging Magic script, about 60-70 people out of 500 respond YES within a few minutes. John also has a script called Days to Come, and responses to that one tend to have a lag period. Maybe someone didn’t check their inbox until the next day. So he’s constantly getting more replies.

The most important thing is John receives at most one or two complaints with his scripts, and when he does receive a complaint, Meet Leonard helps him track that person’s preferences. As an example, if someone says, “This isn’t for me” or “Don’t send this stuff,” John changes their tag to No More Messages because he doesn’t want to annoy people. This approach saves everybody time.

Because John uses search filters to narrow down the people he contacts on the front end, he receives a lot more interested responses than negative ones. In addition to people asking for his link, they might ask about information on his profile or consulting services. Of the 60 or 70 immediate yes responses, about 30 to 50 turn into good conversations that lead to something else.

After John goes through this initial process, he follows up with connections about every 3 to 4 weeks. John tracks follow-ups based on the groups he’s created in his CRM (business coaches, CEOs, etc.). Using Basecamp or Evernote, he records when he messaged a specific group. To illustrate, he’ll note that on March 30, he sent the CEOs a specific script.

With this organization in place, John can quickly see when 3 to 4 weeks have passed and it’s time to follow up with the group. John recommends following up about every 3 weeks because one or two LinkedIn messages per month is hardly overkill, especially if those messages are helpful, conversational, friendly, low-pressure, and don’t spam people with links.

Your follow-up doesn’t always have to be content. Instead, John might ask a question from his list of one-question surveys. For example, he’ll say, “If you have a second, I would love your answer to this. What LinkedIn topic would you like to know more about?” These questions are like a free survey on LinkedIn to 500 people, and the responses help John find useful content for his next email.

Overall, part of John’s messaging process is automated, but some of the work is one on one. It’s also important to move leads to an email list, webinar, podcast, or another offering where people can consume your content on their own time. Then they can contact you later when they’re ready to buy. For John, these purchases might be online training or other services like speaking or consulting.

Listen to the show to hear how pre-qualifying people helps John manage LinkedIn messages.

Discovery of the Week

InShot is a cool mobile video editor for iOS or Android. With this app, you can almost carry a movie studio in your pocket.

InShot allows you to add music, effects, voiceovers, emojis, and text. You can also adjust the video speed, and control where elements you add appear on the video timeline. This app will work perfectly for any videos you create for Instagram, Facebook Stories, Facebook news feed, and so on.

The app can work with vertical, landscape, and square video formats. It can even transform one format into another.

Unlike some mobile video apps, you don’t have to record video within the InShot app. You can import video, and even merge separate videos from your camera roll and arrange them in a specific order.

Although InShot offers a lot of features for an app, it’s still pretty easy to use. However, you might prefer to use it on a device with a bigger screen, like an iPad or tablet.

The InShot app is free, but with in-app purchases, you can add effects, filters, stickers, and stamps. On average, these items cost about $1 to $2.

Thanks to Ray Edwards for mentioning InShot on his show, which prompted us to take a look at the app.

Listen to the show to learn more and let us know how InShot works for you.

Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:

What do you think? What are your thoughts on LinkedIn prospecting? Please share your comments below.

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Job-Hopping Is on the Rise -- But That Doesn't Have to Be a Bad Thing

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Too many of your millennials jumping ship? Learn to tap into their skills while you still have them.

March 29, 2018

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

For years, employers have been fighting against job-hopping, and looking for ways to retain talent for the long haul. Even so, employees continue to jump from one job to the next.

Related: 7 Strategic Ways to Increase Employee Retention While Reducing Costs

In fact, the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that between ages 18 and 28, millennials held an average of 7.2 jobs. In comparison, baby boomers held an average of 11.9 jobs from age 18 to age 50.

In other words, it took millennials a third of the time to go through almost the same number of jobs as their parents' generation. And as these young people age, it’s doubtful they’ll give up their job-hopping ways.

In response, says Aaron Harvey, founding partner and executive creative director of the New York-based digital agency Ready Set Rocket, leaders need to switch perspectives. “While you're investing in employees' goals, you must also accept that you are further building their capabilities and credentials,” Harvey told me by email. “This increases the likelihood that they may entertain a title jump to a competitor.”

In short, instead of trying so hard to retain job-hoppers, find ways to make the most of their time with your organization.

Get the new guy (or gal) up to speed quickly.

If an employee is going to be with an organization for only a few years, he or she needs to hit the ground running as soon as possible. This means that a company should have the best and most effective onboarding process.

Related: Breathe in, Breathe out. Then, Improve Your Talent Retention by Thinking: Air Quality

Job-hoppers typically have a wide range of work experience and skills. So chances are, there are some aspects of your training they already know. Instead of making all new hires go through a complete onboarding course, focus on the gaps in their knowledge.

Koreen Pagano, product management director for Santa Barbara, Calif.-based integrated learning platform D2L, suggests having a curated training system. “Collect content in a central library, ensuring staff can access that library and other educational tools on any device,” she said. “Then, track progress so you can personalize and make better decisions about training and development.”

Conduct skills tests that allow new employees to opt out of certain parts of the onboarding process. For instance, if an individual already has experience with a software program the company uses, there’s no point in wasting time on retraining.

Create a "lily pad."

The phrase “job-hopping” naturally makes us think of frogs. That is why Minneapolis-based eco-smart irrigation company Conserva Irrigation developed a “lily pad” approach for its job-hoppers.

Many of the organization’s employees are seasonal or transient. Instead of trying to fight that trend, the company’s founder, Russ Jundt, found a different way of engaging his team. “We needed to be intentional about creating an environment in which they would want to call home -- a comfortable lily pad,” he said in an email.

The company focuses on employees’ career plans and looks for ways to help them make their next move. It also also offers custom development opportunities -- even if that increases the chance that the employee eventually leaves for another company.

Jundt doesn’t see a waste of resources here, but rather a way to earn employees’ dedication. They might not be with the company for long, but they'll produce better work while they're there.

Take a similar approach by discussing employees’ goals with them as soon as possible. Let them know what tracks for development are available. But also discuss any outside learning opportunities they can participate in while working at the organization.

Let employees create "ripples."

Some employees are job-hoppers simply because of their skill level. For instance, in the tech industry, great coders are in high demand and may be poached at any moment. This is why Joe McCann, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based tech company NodeSource, focuses on empowering employees to create "ripples."

The way McCann explains this phenomenon is that should an employee find a better way to perform a task, that process should be documented and shared. If the employee has a particular skill, he or she should be encouraged to teach co-workers.

“When that person leaves, it hurts for a bit, but by then the other members of the team possess enough of those skills that we come back stronger,” McCann said by email.

From the moment an employee starts working for your organization, track what makes him or her special. Then look for opportunities to have that expertise positively impact everyone else. For example, if one employee has more experience with a new software, make him or her the go-to person for any questions. Just be sure to let that employee know how that knowledge and effort is helping the team.

Tap into that prize employee's ideas.

Employees who have worked at multiple companies in a short span of time have likely seen a range of ideas and processes. They know what’s working for other organizations and what has led them down the road to failure.

“Capitalize on employees who are job-hoppers by using their new ideas,” Idalia Dillard, director of HR and operations at Orlando-based public relations firm Uproar PR, told me. “Because they’ve worked at a variety of companies, they may bring fresh ideas and perspectives your company hasn’t thought of before.”

Regularly ask job-hoppers for their suggestions. But also be sure to collect feedback during exit interviews. Instead of focusing on why someone is leaving (SPOILER ALERT: It’s because he or she is a job-hopper), ask what this person noticed about the organization.

Related: 4 Ways Employee Incentives Can Drive Engagement and Retention

How do certain things differ from other companies? Which processes or resources are outdated? Having this information will help you as a leader make future informed, positive changes.

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How to Target Featured Snippet Opportunities - Whiteboard Friday

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Once you've identified where the opportunity to nab a featured snippet lies, how do you go about targeting it? Part One of our "Featured Snippet Opportunities" series focused on how to discover places where you may be able to win a snippet, but today we're focusing on how to actually make changes that'll help you do that. Give a warm, Mozzy welcome to Britney as she shares pro tips and examples of how we've been able to snag our own snippets using her methodology.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Today, we are going over targeting featured snippets, Part 2 of our featured snippets series. Super excited to dive into this.

What's a featured snippet?

For those of you that need a little brush-up, what's a featured snippet? Let's say you do a search for something like, "Are pigs smarter than dogs?" You're going to see an answer box that says, "Pigs outperform three-year old human children on cognitive tests and are smarter than any domestic animal. Animal experts consider them more trainable than cats or dogs." How cool is that? But you'll likely see these answer boxes for all sorts of things. So something to sort of keep an eye on. How do you become a part of that featured snippet box? How do you target those opportunities?

Last time, we talked about finding keywords that you rank on page one for that also have a featured snippet. There are a couple ways to do that. We talk about it in the first video. Something I do want to mention, in doing some of that the last couple weeks, is that Ahrefs actually has some of the capabilities to do that all for you. I had no idea that was possible. Really cool, go check them out. If you don't have Ahrefs and maybe you have Moz or SEMrush, don't worry, you can do the same sort of thing with a Vlookup.

So I know this looks a little crazy for those of you that aren't familiar. Super easy. It basically allows you to combine two sets of data to show you where some of those opportunities are. So happy to link to some of those resources down below or make a follow-up video on how to do just that.

I. Identify

All right. So step one is identifying these opportunities. You want to find the keywords that you're on page one for that also have this answer box. You want to weigh the competitive search volume against qualified traffic. Initially, you might want to just go after search volume. I highly suggest you sort of reconsider and evaluate where might the qualified traffic come from and start to go after those.

II. Understand

From there, you really just want to understand the intent, more so even beyond this table that I have suggested for you. To be totally honest, I'm doing all of this with you. It's been a struggle, and it's been fun, but sometimes this isn't very helpful. Sometimes it is. But a lot of times I'm not even looking at some of this stuff when I'm comparing the current featured snippet page and the page that we currently rank on page one for. I'll tell you what I mean in a second.

III. Target

So we have an example of how I've been able to already steal one. Hopefully it helps you. How do you target your keywords that have the featured snippet?

• Simplifying and cleaning up your pages does wonders. Google wants to provide a very simple, cohesive, quick answer for searchers and for voice searches. So definitely try to mold the content in a way that's easy to consume.


• Summaries do well. Whether they're at the top of the page or at the bottom, they tend to do very, very well.


• Competitive markup, if you see a current featured snippet that is marked up in a particular way, you can do so to be a little bit more competitive.


• Provide unique info


• Dig deeper, go that extra mile, provide something else. Provide that value.

Examples

What are some examples? So these are just some examples that I personally have been running into and I've been working on cleaning up.

• Roman numerals. I am trying to target a list result, and the page we currently rank on number one for has Roman numerals. Maybe it's a big deal, maybe it's not. I just changed them to numbers to see what's going to happen. I'll keep you posted.


• Fix broken links. But I'm also just going through our page and cleaning it. We have a lot of older content. I'm fixing broken links. I have the check my listings tool. It's a Chrome add-on plugin that I just click and it tells me what's a 404 or what I might need to update.


• Fixing spelling errors or any grammatical errors that may have slipped through editors' eyes. I use Grammarly. I have the free version. It works really well, super easy. I've even found some super old posts that have the double or triple spacing after a period. It drives me crazy, but cleaning some of that stuff up.


• Deleting extra markup. You might see some additional breaks, not necessarily like that ampersand. But you know what I mean in WordPress where it's that weird little thing for that break in the space, you can clean those out. Some extra, empty header markup, feel free to delete those. You're just cleaning and simplifying and improving your page.

One interesting thing that I've come across recently was for the keyword "MozRank." Our page is beautifully written, perfectly optimized. It has all the things in place to be that featured snippet, but it's not. That is when I fell back and I started to rely on some of this data. I saw that the current featured snippet page has all these links.

So I started to look into what are some easy backlinks I might be able to grab for that page. I came across Quora that had a question about MozRank, and I noticed that — this is a side tip — you can suggest edits to Quora now, which is amazing. So I suggested a link to our Moz page, and within the notes I said, "Hello, so and so. I found this great resource on MozRank. It completely confirms your wonderful answer. Thank you so much, Britney."

I don't know if that's going to work. I know it's a nofollow. I hope it can send some qualified traffic. I'll keep you posted on that. But kind of a fun tip to be aware of.

How we nabbed the "find backlinks" featured snippet

All right. How did I nab the featured snippet "find backlinks"? This surprised me, because I hardly changed much at all, and we were able to steal that featured snippet quite easily. We were currently in the fourth position, and this was the old post that was in the fourth position. These are the updates I made that are now in the featured snippet.

Clean up the title

So we go from the title "How to Find Your Competitor's Backlinks Next Level" to "How to Find Backlinks." I'm just simplifying, cleaning it up.

Clean up the H2s

The first H2, "How to Check the Backlinks of a Site." Clean it up, "How to Find Backlinks?" That's it. I don't change step one. These are all in H3s. I leave them in the H3s. I'm just tweaking text a little bit here and there.

Simplify and clarify your explanations/remove redundancies

I changed enter your competitor's domain URL — it felt a little duplicate — to enter your competitor's URL. Let's see. "Export results into CSV," what kind of results? I changed that to "export backlink data into CSV." "Compile CSV results from all competitors," what kind of results? "Compile backlink CSV results from all competitors."

So you can look through this. All I'm doing is simplifying and adding backlinks to clarify some of it, and we were able to nab that.

So hopefully that example helps. I'm going to continue to sort of drudge through a bunch of these with you. I look forward to any of your comments, any of your efforts down below in the comments. Definitely looking forward to Part 3 and to chatting with you all soon.

Thank you so much for joining me on this edition of Whiteboard Friday. I look forward to seeing you all soon. See you.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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Tomorrow's Gig Economy Marketplaces Are Smarter, Larger and More Global

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Here are three trends that will rock the future of the gig economy.

March 29, 2018

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Ten years ago, undoubtedly sparked by the 2008 recession, freelancers began building the foundation of the gig economy, with marketplace upstarts like ours, 99designs, along with Airbnb and Taskrabbit and others introducing new ways to connect buyers with services -- and people with sources of income.

Related: 10 Lucrative Side Gigs for Millennials Looking to Earn Extra Money

Today, many of these peer-to-peer pioneers have expanded globally and evolved. Thanks in part to the technology and social advances -- the launch of Google Maps, smartphones loaded with GPS capabilities, the growth of Facebook and social sharing -- these companies simultaneously embodied and sparked a new way of thinking, behaving and buying.

99designs, too, has evolved based on the ebb and flow of the gig economy and customer needs. The company, which was originally best known as a logo contest site for startups, now has a network of designers around the world and serves customers from 193 countries across 90 categories of design -- from app development to websites to tattoos and book covers. And we've expanded beyond the strict confines of contests to offering new, more direct ways to connect and work with designers on the platform, along with tools designed to help agencies and businesses source creative talent on-demand. Obviously, we're not alone in our journey to adapt and evolve with a society that's increasingly expectant of on-demand services and comfortable with peer-to-peer transactions across geographic and cultural borders.

As I look back at where we've come since those earliest days and ahead at the next 10 years, it's easy to see a few of the key factors I believe will most directly impact the future of the gig economy. The winning marketplace brands in 2028 will be those who successfully account for and leverage the following three movements:

1. Artificial intelligence makes your business smarter.

AI is like having the smartest data scientist working on your business 24/7. While we're still some time from mass AI implementation, those who aren't scared off by data and algorithms are reaping the rewards. A recent Deloitte survey says 83 percent of the most aggressive adopters of AI and cognitive technologies have already achieved either moderate (53 percent) or substantial (30 percent) business benefits. Customers expect automation. AI provides it. If you don't catch on soon, expect your competitors to leapfrog over you.

Related: The Gig Economy Is Reinventing the Enterprise -- Don't Get Left Behind

AI as a service is the real groundbreaking trend that I see pushing it mainstream. The fact that we can just utilize IBM Watson or Google or Amazon's versions via public APIs effectively allows anyone to use this computing power to solve many problems.

Already, AI is successfully driving better connections between sellers and customers on several platforms. For example, professional services marketplace JustAnswer (which connects people with certified professionals like doctors, lawyers and tech support technicians for help) launched an AI chatbot that answers simple questions, helps qualify leads and more effectively connects its customers with one of the site's experts. AI brings greater intelligence and efficiency to the process, resulting in better close rates, a higher percentage of paying customers and a better customer experience.

At 99designs, we already see AI playing an increased role in helping us better identify the ideal match between customer needs and preferences (based on criteria noted on the design brief) and specific designer whose skills, style aesthetic and experience meet those needs. Recently we introduced a "Find a Designer" tool that utilizes this technology and we only see this building from here. In the future, I see us deploying virtual design assistants who work with our human designers to help them define and then extract a customers design brief through intelligent chat bots, extracting and converting files and then deploying and maintaining them wherever they are being used, doing research, collating images, etc.

2. Globalization gets a boost from emerging and established collaboration tools.

Advanced platforms are more effectively pairing companies and talent across the globe, enabling them to compete for bigger business or simply open up new revenue streams. Take Globality. The company uses a B2B matchmaking platform to connect multinational corporations with pre-qualified consultants around the world. The service enables small to medium-sized companies to leverage freelancers and consultants with strategic expertise in certain geographical regions in order to contend for big contracts worldwide.

Related: Side Gigs Are a Thriving Part of the Economy That Economists Probably Aren't Measuring Very Well

You can also expect to see more companies offering services that make it easier to do business across different regions of the world, and this will have a direct impact on marketplace businesses. Companies like Welocalize and Unbabel offer translation and localization services.

Machine learning/AI applications (as mentioned above) enabling real-time translation services will have a huge impact on the globalization of the gig economy. Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon are already providing real-time translation APIs for text and voice. The Google pixel buds with real-time voice translation embedded is a sign of things to come and will open the world up further.

Communication is the key to collaboration, and therefore doing meaningful human-centered work. If we can open the world up, so anyone can effectively communicate with anyone from anywhere, anytime.

3. Companies tap into the needs of the enterprise.

While consumer platforms like Airbnb, Amazon and the like drove the first wave of peer-to-peer marketplaces, companies are adapting their business models to capture new sources of revenue from corporate enterprises.

Related: Top 5 Ways Freelancers Can Stay Competitive in the Gig Economy

Uber for Business promotes its enterprise service as "digital headquarters for all your company's ground transportation." The service offers a way for administrators to manage trip activity, billing and set parameters for employee travel. Similarly, Airbnb caters to enterprise needs by offering safe, Wi-Fi-enabled workspaces for solo travelers or business teams looking for a productive environment off hotel row. On 99designs, we recently launched a "Pro" platform that makes it easy for companies to find and work with topnotch design talent. 

In addition, newer upstarts like Gigster and Paro.io are connecting corporate customers with freelance talent across diverse industries on demand. Companies can look to Gigster's pool of freelancers if they need software developers and engineers,  or to Paro.io if they need vetted financial analysts, CFOs, CPAs and bookkeepers.

Looking toward the horizon, there are few signs the gig economy is slowing down, no matter what the larger political or even financial markets future holds. Those marketplace businesses that have the foresight to harness these trends are likely to be leading the pack for years to come.

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