Tricia Meyer

Affiliate Marketer, Blogger, and Consultant

Quick Check to See If Your Site is Mobile Friendly

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Is My Site Mobile Friendly

Everyone is talking this week about Google’s threat to change their algorithms to start penalizing sites that are not mobile friendly. I started getting emails to my Webmaster account several months ago about the need to update my sites. Some sites we were already working on but others we were a long way from touching.

If you want to know if your site is mobile friendly, Google will be happy to tell you. Just go to their Mobile-Friendly Test page and put in your site. You will get the response above “Awesome! This page is mobile-friendly.” if you have done a good job. If you haven’t, you will get the response below that details what your problems are and some ideas of how to fix them.

Not Mobile Friendly

 

Interestingly, you can actually look on a page by page basis rather than just your entire domain. For example, my site Sunshine Rewards was re-designed to be responsive, but we have not paid to upgrade our Vbulletin forum. So our forum shows up as “Not mobile-friendly” when I run the test on it, even though the rest of the site is fine. It will be interesting to see if Google is really going to change on a page by page basis or rather will penalize the entire domain. (We’re working on it!!)

So what if you have a bunch of old blogs and don’t have the time or money to upgrade them all quickly? One suggestion is to install the WP-Touch plugin. It will make your pages instantly mobile-friendly. I installed in across 3 different blogs in less than 10 minutes. It is not a perfect solution, but it does solve the problem for now until I have time to completely upgrade my themes (I’m switching from Thesis to Genesis).

Once you install WP-Touch or upgrade your theme or whatever and have run it through the Google check to make sure that Google thinks it is okay, it’s a good idea to test some interactions as well. There are some really great Chrome Extensions you can use to bring up your site the way that it would behave on various phones and tables. I like both Mobile/RWD Tester and Responsive Web Design Tester. I am sure that there are a lot of other similar ones.

Are your sites all ready for the big algorithm update? What have you done to upgrade them or what (if anything) are you planning on doing? 

Sharing Content on 10 Sites Without Going Crazy (Shareist Review)

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When people ask how many blogs I have, I never remember. It really doesn’t matter to me. Some sites sit untouched 90% of the time and generate a tiny bit of passive income. Some sites gets touched every day, sometimes every other hour. The more important question people ask is how I manage to generate and share so much content across so many different sites. I’m going to show you a little glimpse of how I use Shareist to keep some of it under control.

Curating Content for Posts

When I first learned about Shareist, I basically saw it as a way to curate posts for my Hunger Games fan site. Given how much is written on OTHER sites about Hunger Games, I knew I couldn’t compete and I might as well let that other content work to my advantage. So I only used Shareist to help me keep track of what other sites were writing and periodically pop them all into a “weekly news” compilation post like this.

That was great. I used Google Alerts to tell me what stories to include and the Shareist bookmarklet to compile them. Exported to HMTL and created a quick blog post including links and images. I did that for probably a year.

Using Shareist for Actual Sharing

After attending a webinar with Ashley Coombe, Head of Marketing for Shareist, I decided that I needed to do more with it. First I added some RSS feeds and search terms for Shareist to watch for me to find Hunger Games news. On August 27, I started using Shareist to schedule Tweets and Facebook posts of that content. I set it up so that I would have 2 Tweets a day and 2 Facebook messages.

I combined the content from the RSS feeds with my own blog post links as well as some Hunger Games images and memes that I found using the built-in Bing image search.

You can see from the chart below what my Facebook Post Reach was before and after I started using Shareist on August 27. It’s not even a comparison. Yes, I am putting in more time than I was before, but not more than an hour or so per week. I dropped down from 2 Facebook posts a day to 1 but sometimes throw in an extra if it is a big news day.

So more people are seeing my posts, but are they actually interacting with them? The next chart shows Likes, Comments, and Shares. Before I started using Shareist when I was only posting my own blog posts and not supplementing with other curated content, I had virtually no social activity. Now I can usually count on hundreds per day.

Great…so I have more people reading and interacting with my posts. But am I actually getting anything out of it?

According to Google Analytics, here is what my traffic from social looks like. Although the extent to which I was sharing my own posts in addition to the curated content varied from week to week, you can see that the potential for getting traffic to my own site greatly increased.

Using Shareist In Other Ways

Now that I have gotten the hang of Shareist, I am finding that I am using it in so many more ways. The Performance Marketing Association uses it collaboratively so that everyone on the Board can add content to our social channels and newsletters. I’ve started using it on my Wine Club Group and new Beer Club Reviews sites to add relevant news and memes to our social media.

I’ve also used it to help me create memes for my other sites. Using a simple image search and their text functionality, I made this image that became popular fast on my Helping Moms Connect Facebook page:

I think one of the ways that I am benefiting most is that Shareist encourages consistency. By setting up my calendar with daily “spots” to share things in, I find myself queuing things up in advance so that I have consistent posting on my social media accounts. When I run out of queue, Shareist notifies me that I need to get back in there and add more. And we have all heard that consistency is one of the biggest keys to keeping an engaged audience.

What’s Next with Shareist?

I have a feeling that even though I am using so much of the Shareist functionality already, there is still more that I could be using. I’m not currently using it to generate whole blog posts or newsletters but probably should be. I don’t use any of the built-in product capabilities from Prosperent or Amazon. And Scott is adding more and more to it with every passing week!

Are you using Shareist? Show me some examples of how you are using it. If you aren’t, you should definitely check it out for free and then decide how it might fit into your business.

How Much Should Blogger Affiliates Be Paid Per Post?

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A lot has been argued and written lately about bloggers being paid per blog post when they are also using affiliate links. Greg Hoffman wrote a great post (Affiliate Education for Bloggers) on the heels of ShareASale Think Tank. Roger Snow also wrote about how bloggers should consider affiliate links for long-term revenue as opposed to paid posts (Bloggers CAN Make Money in Affiliate Marketing). Joe Sousa wrote about “What Makes a Motivated Blogger.” Clearly it is a hot topic amongst affiliate managers. But what do AFFILIATES think?

This post is specifically about bloggers who are using affiliate links…not bloggers who are being paid only on a per post basis. That’s a completely different pot.

I don’t generally charge for any of my blog posts because I tend to use affiliate marketing links in them. I don’t expect merchants to pay me for placement on any of my sites with the exception of increased commissions for added exposure or things that take more work than standard reviews (like video reviews).

That said, I do love when merchants offer bonus opportunities either to get you active (or re-active) in a program or if they have specific things that they are trying to get out to the public.

Today I had two very different experience with this.

Merchant 1: Offered me $1 to write a blog post about a particular product that they want promoted. I could also get 50 cents for Tweeting about it. That’s not a typo. ONE DOLLAR.

Merchant 2: Offered me $10 to post about a new deal the merchant was running.

My responses

Merchant 1: I was so completely floored that they would think my time was only worth $1. I tried to politely respond without saying “I’m worth more than your stupid dollar.” But I was actually offended by it. I couldn’t believe that they would think that $1 would in any way motivate it.

Merchant 2: I knew it was a perfect fit for my audience anyway so the $10 was like a little icing on the cake to do something I should have been doing anyway. I wrote the post. And I plan on submitting it to get my $10!

Why did I respond so differently over $9? Neither bonus was going to make or break my day–or even my hour. But one was offensive to me and the other was kind of fun.

Merchants offer these types of bonuses all the time from $1 up to over $100 a post. They may be for initial placement, preferential placement, or promoting something with a known low conversion rate. As long as everyone comes out a little ahead, I don’t see a harm to it. I just don’t think it should be EXPECTED either that 1) blogger affiliates always get paid for posting on top of the affiliate commission, or 2) that blogger affiliates are willing to work for $1.

What do you think? I’ve started a little poll below. What is the lowest amount that is acceptable to even offer an affiliate to write a blog post on top of their commission rate? Weigh in in the comments section as well and be sure to mention if you are 1) a merchant, 2) an affiliate manager, 3) a blogger who doesn’t use affiliate links, or 4) a blogger affiliate. I am anxious to see if it makes a difference.

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Using PicMonkey to Create Halloween Graphics

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A few months ago I wrote about how PicMonkey Solved My Graphics Problems. In that post I talked about my new obsession with PicMonkey. I showed in that post how I could make graphics using the Collage tool mainly. Little did I know just how much I would love the Design Tool!

In the past I have mainly used Fiverr to get quick basic graphics to use for holidays. Or I created them myself in Photoshop and they were passable but clearly not professional. When I saw that PicMonkey had added Halloween specific tools, I decided to give them a chance.

Using the Halloween Design Editor

After I click on the Design Editor, the first thing that I do is set the dimensions for my image. This is under “Basic Edits” (the symbol that looks like a crop tool) and then “Resize.” As I mentioned in my other post, I use 560×292 1120×584 for images that I want to use in blog posts and appear nicely on Facebook or Google+. I also experimented with some standard banner sizes to use in my sidebars. Essentially you can make the images any size you want.

I then went down to the bottom of the Design Editor sidebar and chose the cute little pumpkin and then the theme “Trick or Treat.”

(There are other themes that will create really cool Halloween images as well including Zombies, Witches, Vampires, and Demons).

After you pick the theme, you can choose from Halloween Overlays, Frames, and Text. The Frames look like they are meant to sit on top of other images, but I actually used a Frame as the basis for my contest image below:

Next I tried using some of the labels:

That was really basic but only took 30 seconds. You could make just about any kind of button with it.

This was using the Grim Garlands and Classic Creepies

The one took about I made at the top of this post took about 2 minutes and used some of the Vampire theme (especially the Night Frights Textures). This one is just a quick modification of that image:

All of mine were done without bothering to watch any of their tutorials. I’m sure if I took the time to watch any of their tutorials, I could do even cooler stuff. They even have a whole series of Halloween blog posts to help you get creative.

Some of the themes, overlays, texts, etc. are free and some of them are part of their Royale package. At $4.99 for a month, it is definitely worth the upgrade!

If you are like me and just need simple graphics but need them frequently enough that you need to learn to make them yourself or spend a fortune, I wholeheartedly recommend giving PicMonkey a try. And I look forward to dazzling you with my increased PicMonkey knowledge over time.

PicMonkey Solved My Graphics Problems

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I’m good at research and writing but terrible at graphics. In the “old days” of blogging and affiliate marketing, that didn’t really matter because sites were all about content due mainly to download speeds. That has changed for a few reasons, including download speeds increasing and social media sites relying on the images included in posts. In addition to sites that focus completely on the images (like Pinterest and Instagram), other sites like Facebook and Twitter are increasingly become more graphic-oriented.

What’s a graphic-challenged girl to do?

I’ve tried a lot of different programs and still use a combination of them. I use Adobe Photoshop for some things and Snagit is one of the best software investments I have ever made. But I’m not a pro at either one, and I don’t have the time to spend creating perfect graphics.

On the flip side, I see the graphics that other bloggers are using and know that I have to keep up. Plus, if I don’t have the right graphics in the right dimensions in each post, it isn’t going to show up in the Facebook newsfeed the way that I want it to.

After hearing some other bloggers talking about PicMonkey, I decided to give it a shot. They have a free version and a paid version. After one day of using the free version, I decided to spring for the paid version of $33 for a year. (You can also pay monthly for $4.99 if you want to try it out short-term). The paid version (or “Royale” as they call it) doesn’t have ads and has a lot more effects, overlays, etc. I also just like supporting a company that I am going to be using to make money.

What Does PicMonkey Do?

A lot. So much that I know I am not even touching a small part of what you can do. But the basics are that you can Edit photos (crop, rotate, exposure, resize, sharpen, etc), Touch up (blemishes, airbrush, teeth whiten, etc), Design (banners, infographics, cards, invitations, etc), and Collage.

I spend most of my time using the Edit and Collage Tools. I find the Collage Tool in particular very helpful to create 1120×584 graphics for my posts that look great on both Facebook and Google+. I spend no more than 10 minutes on each one and sometimes as little as 5.

Some Examples

Here are a few of the images that I created using PicMonkey that took me 5-10 minutes each.

The first one was for Sunshine Rewards for a sale on zulily. I quickly grabbed product images from the merchant site and made a collage out of them for purposes of appearing in the Facebook newsfeed.

This next one was from a trip that I took with my kids to the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum. Ripley’s gave us the tickets, so I wanted to be sure to post some great pictures of the fun that we had. This particular collage was done with Pinterest in mind.

This is an example of the Edit Tool used to simply grab a picture and add some text to it. Tommy Hilfiger sponsored the contest for us so I just used the image of the product that they gave me. I like using the “fade” tool on the background of the text to make sure that you can still see the whole image.

This last one is a collage of images that I took of The California Wine Club Pacific Northwest Series. It does triple duty as a nice post image, good for the Facebook newsfeed, and okay for Pinterest. In 5 minutes I was able to pull together the main elements of the wine club into one image plus give it a nice label. I also added our URL to the bottom.

As I said, I am not big on graphics. My goal 95% of the time is not to create graphics that become viral sensations. When you write as many posts as I do in a week, the graphics are just meant to support the posts. At less than 10 minutes each, I think these do the job. When I need something more “official,” I find someone I can pay to do it completely.

Oh! They also have really simple tutorial videos. You can actually check those out before you even sign up to see if they will teach you to do the things that you want to do.

Have you ever tried PicMonkey? Do you use the free version or the paid version? What aspects of it do you like the most?