Author: Franz Malten Buemann

How can you treat your projects the same way you treat your investments (SEO) How can you treat your projects the same way that You treat your investments, Specifically how can you put things in place that will work for you while you work on other stuff? It’s no secret that building is hard, but for a builder, marketing is even harder, and eventually twice as important. Since I don’t have a lot of money to spend on my side projects, I use a set of tricks and hacks for marketing which guarantee long-term growth at low or no cost. The key to a successful hack is 2 things: Very low cost (<$0.05 CPC) Very low effort (<3 hours) So what processes can I put in place once, that will gradually give me >10x returns in the future? The answer is SEO, scheduled posts, twitter automation, marketing projects, and understanding my funnel. These are all pretty big topics on their own so I’m splitting them up and just talking about SEO right now. Why SEO I find that many see SEO as a daunting task, and get scared away by either the terminology or the relatively long timelines. I was the same way. What changed? I realized the power of SEO. There is literally no cheaper, better channel to optimize for, and this is true for almost any business. It boils down to the following: If people are literally searching Google for what your business can provide, they are ready to convert, and your business needs to be right there. So I spent 2 weeks hardcore learning about SEO, and the real fundamentals that will get you ranked take less than an hour. Before getting started, SEO is a long game, if you’re a young business, your iteration cycle can be less than a day as you can implement feedback in a few hours, but SEO iteration cycles are on the scale of a month. Here is the SEO chart for the past 12 months of one of my companies, Sendblue https://preview.redd.it/dzlpsnc020t61.png?width=2802&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8fb754119fe102c1bf8b0f8b3d9ab3df7f41b83 It took 6 months to get to a point where high-intentioned users came to the site and clicks from Google consistently came in As you can see, there are points where the general trend of impressions and clicks either spikes or drops (see 7/20/20 – drop and 10/17/20 – spike) These were results from iterations a few days prior, which were made by studying the performance for the previous months. 874 clicks for the past 12 months seems really low for a year though, doesn’t it? Yes. But as I mentioned, SEO is a long game, 90% of those clicks came from the last 6 mo, and 50% of those clicks came from the last 3. It’s an investment that has the ability to grow your business exponentially. These clicks are also 100x more likely to convert than any other channel. >25% of them at least started the free trial. The Fundamentals that will take you less than 1 hour Put a Sitemap.xml on your page Sign up for google search console and register your sitemap with the search console Write a decent title and meta description for your website. (Optional) add Open graph tags, twitter cards etc Put a Sitemap.xml on your page This is a crazy easy step for most businesses, just hop over to https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ and sit back while they crawl your site and generate it for you. Most website creation sites will then let you upload this sitemap or they will generate their own on your behalf anyway. The only caveat here is if you have a very complicated site with routes that change by the day or based on what is available (such as an e-commerce site), for this I would spend 30 minutes researching wildcard paths and sitemap priorities and do it manually. Sign up for the google search console and register your site with it I’d say this is the most important step. Registering your site with Google fast-tracks their crawler to come check out your website. Google’s crawler will otherwise have to happen across your site by finding a link to it elsewhere. This step also lets you track and iterate on your webpage performance. Go to https://search.google.com/search-console/about and hit start now. Go through the onboarding flow for your website. This will require messing with DNS settings a little bit, but nothing crazy. Tell Google where the sitemap for your website is, Google will parse it and then tell you if there’s anything wrong. Fixing all the errors Google gives you is crucial to ranking. Wait. It will take a while before you start seeing Google rank your site, but they will do it (assuming there are people searching for what you’re offering). Write a decent title and meta description for your website. Now comes the fun part. Pick 1 or 2 competitors and head over to ubersuggest.com, enter their domains and see what keywords they are ranking for. This is your time to shine. Either: find a keyword with 100-1000 searches per month with an “easy” ubersuggest ranking difficulty and use that, or: come up with a keyword that they ARE NOT ranking for yet and search ubersuggest for it. If that has an easy ranking difficulty that could be your in into the industry. With the keyword you determined in the previous step, write a title and meta description for your site. Pro tip: Front-load title + description with relevant keywords, use keyword synonyms, and make it generally clear and clickable. Upload these to your site, the Google search here is: “How to set title and meta description in javascript/wordpress/webflow/etc.” (Optional) add Open graph tags, twitter cards etc It’s debatable whether these actually help SEO so these are optional, but any solid business has them as well. This is the stuff that makes your business expand into a card with an image on twitter, in iMessage, and anywhere on the web really. This is beyond the scope of this post but the two google search terms here are: “How to set up Open Graph in WordPress/Webflow/javascript/WhateverPlatformYouUse” “How to set up Twitter Cards in WordPress/Webflow/javascript/WhateverPlatformYouUse” Trailing activities Once you’ve set up the fundamentals, it’s time to wait. I know it sucks, and I know it feels like a waste of time, but trust me. While you work on improving your product, talking to customers, getting product-market-fit, Google is slowly learning about what kind of people are looking for what you can offer. This is where your last task comes in: Once a month, revisit the google search console and see how your site is doing. Going back to Sendblue – google offers a great report view where you can see what people are clicking on. See below: ​ https://preview.redd.it/j7e3xkv720t61.png?width=5678&format=png&auto=webp&s=2d27e3097b966d655da28eb3339ca1c9f92bad51 Your job is to study these keywords, see what people are clicking on, and iterate. Every month when I get back on the search console I look at what people are searching, and if google is ranking me for those things. If Google is ranking me for something (impressions), then I ask: are people clicking on my page? If so, are people staying on the page? If the answer to any of the above questions is no, I play around with the copy high up on the site and in the title/meta description and let it sit for a month (btw, this is where google ads can massively increase your testing rate) (1 mo -> 5 days iteration period) The first 3-6 months of iterations might be complete shots in the dark, but just remember to critically think what people would search for if they were looking for your business, and keep testing until you hit something. Remember: Google’s job is to show people what they are looking for, and they’re pretty d*mn good at it. If you want to hear about how I use scheduled posts, twitter automation, marketing projects, and funnel knowledge to automate my marketing process leave an upvote, I am trying to post like this once every week so I can improve my writing process. I’m excited to hear if I missed anything or if anything was unclear so please leave any feedback below!
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Link building is an invaluable part of SEO. In fact, it’s one of the top factors search engines look at when determining your ranking.
Whether you’re developing a new link-building strategy or revising a current one, it’s important to look at where you currently stand. That’s where a backlink strategy comes into play.

Let’s cover what a backlink analysis looks like and the tools needed to conduct one.
Backlink Analysis
What is backlink analysis?
Backlink analysis is a comprehensive review of a website’s backlinks to analyze the site’s performance and identify issues that could affect its search engine ranking.
Backlink analysis is like the SEO version of going to the doctor for a check-up. You should do it regularly to ensure everything is in order, but you also do it when you notice something is wrong.
Completing this process is one of the best ways to understand your site’s health and understand what factors are contributing to its ranking. Perhaps you’ve noticed a sharp dip in your ranking, or you’re simply not seeing the progress you were expecting.
A backlink analysis will also show you how your website measures up against your competitors. You’ll gain some insight into what strategies your competitors are using and what you could implement in your own process.
Lastly, it’s a chance to identify new growth opportunities that you haven’t yet explored.
1. Choose the sites you want to analyze.
While it’s obvious you’ll be analyzing your own website, you’ll also want to narrow down the competitor sites you want to review.
You may already have a few top of mind, but if you don’t, you’ll want to pick sites that:

Offer similar products or services.
Are currently outranking you for your target keywords.

2. Select an auditing tool.
Although you could conduct a manual backlink audit, it’s likely more efficient to use a backlink tool that already has the key features you’re looking for.
There are several backlink checker tools out there, ranging in price and capabilities. You’ll usually find them as a section within an SEO tool, like Majestic and SEMrush.
Need help finding a backlink analysis tool? Find a few suggestions here.
3. Get a quick overview.
Once you select your auditing tool, it’s time to start the analysis.
Enter your domain name into the search bar and look at the results.

You’ll start with a ton of data. To get a quick idea of how your site is performing, focus on these metrics:

The total number of backlinks: The total number of links pointing to the site. For instance, if website A writes a blog post and hyperlinks to a page on website B, that is a backlink. If this number is very low, it may be the reason why your page isn’t ranking well.

Referring domains: The total number of websites that are pointing to your site. Website A pointing to website B counts as one referring domain. Sorting these domains by authority can tell you how valuable these pages are to your ranking and give you ideas for outreach later on.

Top linked pages: The pages on a website that get the most backlinks. This can indicate the type of content that’s best for link building.

Repeat this step with your competitors to set a benchmark and learn where you fall. Depending on the tool you use, you may be able to compare these metrics on the same page without going back and forth.
4. Analyze the details.
Now it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty details and look at metrics that will answer the “why.”
Begin by looking at your anchor texts, the words used to hyperlink your webpage. This is a great way to identify spammy backlinks that could be hurting your ranking.

If you’re not sure how to know if the referral domain is spammy, see if the anchor text relates to the content on your site. If it looks like the junk section of your email and includes crude language, it’s likely spam.
Once you identify these links, you could reach out to the websites to ask to be removed. It’s a long shot but could work in some instances. Disavowing those links is the more realistic option, which is basically telling Google to ignore those backlinks.
Speaking of spam, you’ll also want to look at your country code top-level domain (ccTLD) distribution. ccTLD refers to the last portion of a URL, which designates the country it originates from.
This is another way to identify websites that could be the source of your negative SEO (i.e. malicious practice meant to negatively impact your ranking).
If your website gets a lot of traffic from Haiti, for instance, it wouldn’t be a red flag to see a lot of .ht backlinks. However, if you start to notice links like .cn or another unfamiliar TLD, you may want to look deeper into this.
Next up: broken or lost links. It’s important to identify your broken and lost links as you miss out on “link juice,” the potential to rank higher from a backlink. In addition, it can make your website harder to crawl.
How do you fix it? There are several ways to do so:

Reach out to the referring domain and ask that it be fixed.
Redirect the broken page to a new webpage on your website.
Redirect the broken page to another page on your website with similar content.

5. See what your competitors are doing.
As you dive deeper into your domain, be sure to compare your findings with your competitors.
For instance, look at the referring domains for the website that’s outranking you. If there’s little overlap between your list and theirs, this could give you direction into which domains to aim for.
It’s also helpful to compare your backlink acquisition rate against your competitors. Are they growing at a much faster pace than you? It could highlight another section worth investigating.

Top Backlink Analysis Tools
1. Google Search Console

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Google Search Console is a free tool to do an initial backlink check. You can see top metrics, like your total links and referring domains.
The downside to this platform is that you cannot compare your site to your competitors. However, it is a good place to start to gain a big-picture view of your site’s performance.
2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is an SEO tool with extensive features to help companies optimize their websites.
The backlinks checker is easily accessible through the “Site Explorer,” and allows you to quickly export the data for further analysis. You can also access the sections on the left sidebar to explore each backlink feature more in-depth.
Ahrefs is a paid tool with pricing starting at $82/month and up to $832/month for agency-level capabilities. You can also take advantage of their free trial for seven days at $7.
3. SEMrush

SEMrush is another top SEO tool with a backlink tracker available to subscribers.
You can easily compare your report to three competitors at a time and use the graphs for a visual understanding of the data.
To get a peek into how it works, SEMrush allows free users to make 10 requests a day. While you will only get a limited view of the feature, you can get an idea of how the dashboard functions.
For full access, you must obtain a subscription. Pricing starts at $99/month and goes up to $449.
4. Moz

Moz is one of the top backlink tools in the market.
The dashboard makes quick downloads easily accessible to focus on key areas of interest.
The “Spam Score” feature provides some insight into which links may be damaging your SEO efforts and how to reduce them. Another standout feature on the site is the “Discovered and Lost” section which shows you the linking domains you’ve gained and lost within a specific date range.
You can use Moz using a free 30-day trial or subscribe to one of their monthly plans, starting at $79.
Backlink analysis is an essential part of your SEO strategy and will require continuous maintenance. However, Once you know what to look for, it should be a painless process.

Initially launched in the 1990s, webinar caché once relied heavily on live events. In 2020 however, we saw the webinar space pivot towards the on-demand space.
Lower cost per acquisition, ease of automation, and building trusted archives of useful content has proven to be an effective means of moving customers through the sales funnel.
While not as flashy as their live counterparts, evergreen webinars have proven to be the tortoise to live webinar’s hare: slow and steady sees the highest ROI.
Read on to find out our favorite evergreen webinar strategies, platforms, and the features that make all the difference.

When businesses first started producing webinars the focus skewed towards live events. Shiny and new, the promise of a live webinar meant capturing highly engaged leads and collaborating with top talent in the industry.
But live webinars are also a ton of work to produce: weeks of coordination, marketing emails, practice sessions, and script revisions, building slide decks… all for an hour of learning, and a few days of follow-ups.
Tons of information was lost every time a webinar ended because there wasn’t a simple way to re-watch it. Until we got savvy and started recording them.
Hosting your recorded webinars is an excellent, low-cost way to create resources for potential or existing customers about how to get set up with your software, walking through common blockers customers face, or demonstrating new tools and integrations.
There are many different content streams you can explore with automated webinars, including:

Training videos: Record your account executive’s run-through of your software and make it work harder by offering it as an on-demand webinar.

Lectures and thought leadership: Get the most out of guest-speaker and C-Suite time by offering a thought-leadership section of on-demand webinars in your archive.

Tutorials: Make it simple to learn how to use and explore new product integrations or updates with quick, evergreen webinar content.

A case study walk through: Make your case studies come to life, and then automate the recording to make your witticisms and insights go the extra mile.

When done well, a library of on-demand webinars can act as an automated sales engine, driving customers through the funnel as they engage with and learn more about your product. It’s a great example of working smarter rather than harder.
Evaluating the Best Evergreen Webinar Software
It’s tempting to outsource your software search to Google. While you might end up with a good product, you may be missing key features that will make your presentations really hum. You may even end up over-investing. The first thing to do? Understand your limits.
A webinar program can be a simple automated recording … or it can be as complicated as producing live television. Understand the complexity of your program by asking yourself the following questions:

How many attendees do I expect per session? Most platforms have tiered pricing tied to how many guests can attend a given webinar. If you’re just starting your webinar program, look for an option that will allow you to scale up but doesn’t demand a huge investment right away.
What resources are available to me? Training and implementation take time. A lot of time. As you’re researching platforms, consider what kind of support is available. Will you be given a dedicated account manager? How robust is the platform’s resource library? Remember: The best software is the software you actually use.
Always take advantage of a free trial … and if you are considering purchasing the product, but need more time, ask for an extension.

The Best Evergreen Webinar Software
On-demand webinars don’t have the same immediate converting power as their live counterparts. Instead, they excel at customer education and establishing brand trust.
Think of your on-demand webinars as a way to educate your existing customer base, and as an ambassador of your company’s willingness to help.
Here are two of the best software for hosting, recording, and delivering evergreen webinars:
1. DEMIO

Demio is a best-of-both-worlds option. While its focus is on producing live webinars, Demio makes it simple to build out your webinar library. We love how Demio:

Offers automated recordings, which make it easy to record and archive live events into an easily searchable content library.
Has a “Stay Registered” feature, which allows participants to sign up once for an ongoing series and captures valuable emails for future marketing efforts.
Boasts an excellent analytics dashboard to give you insight into how your live and on-demand webinars are performing — a great opportunity to let your learnings inform your live and evergreen webinar content.

2. EverWebinar

The OG in evergreen webinar technology, EverWebinar is all about the on-demand life. If you’re looking to set it and … well, not forget it, but not be beholden either, this is the software for you.

EverWebinar allows users to schedule their webinars to play at set intervals throughout the day, week, or month. This has the double benefit of mimicking the live experience (which does tend to get higher engagement). It also lets your marketing team run tests as to what time of day is best for your audience.
A list of unique features makes it easy to drive home the “live” illusion and cut back on the stress of managing a big roster of scheduled webinars. Options like “Block dates,” which stop your webinars from playing on specific days, or “Block nighttime viewing,” which keeps your analytics from being skewed by background streaming. “Time-zone auto-detection” makes it easy to globalize your offering with the click of a button.
A bonus for super-users: if you’re looking for a platform to help you organize your collection of recorded webinars, EverWebinar and WebinarJam are designed to function together. *Insert handshake emoji*

3. WebinarGeek

A great option for a company new to the webinar game, WebinarGeek is a simple software that makes it easy to host and record live webinars and turn them into a library of evergreen, on-demand content.
Along with standard features like customizable waiting rooms and robust analytics, we also love:

WebinarGeek’s intuitive interface: It’s easy for someone brand new to the webinar world to orient themselves in the WebinarGeek platform.
The monthly pricing plan, making this option accessible for businesses looking to explore the webinar space without a deep financial commitment.
The pre-record function makes it simple to test presentations, rehearse with multiple presenters, and explore other features. Pre-recording your webinar also leaves you with a “clean” version to upload as your evergreen content.

Build an evergreen webinar funnel with these top tools.
As we all get more literate in live and on-demand educational content, the need for simple and sleek webinar platforms will continue to grow.
By determining your needs early and taking the time to test various platforms, your team will be ready to educate, inspire, and get a better understanding of your customer base so you can help them make great decisions.

With nine in 10 marketers planning to use YouTube in their 2021 marketing strategy, it’s more important than ever to capture your audience’s attention. One of the best ways to do this is by creating a connection with your viewers through fostering community.

YouTube’s own creator academy says it best: “A loyal community of viewers can help promote your videos to new viewers through their own social networks, and give you instant feedback on what they do and don’t like.”
While building these relationships doesn’t happen overnight, it’s rewarding to see your channel grow.

The community tab is one important way that YouTube helps creators build relationships with their audience. Read on to learn how to get your own YouTube Community Tab, and how to use it to build relationships, increase subscriptions, and boost watch time.
Fans can comment and like or dislike posts, and share them with their friends. And just like that, a functioning community is created.
Community is an important part of our human experience. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the way we participate in our communities has changed.
According to SproutSocial, YouTube has stepped into this position. “Viewers are connecting with YouTube content in a way that helps them feel like they’re living what they’re watching. After a year in a global pandemic, this is a necessary way to help people still feel connected to their passions, hobbies, and normal life activities. “
How to Get a Community Tab on YouTube
To get a Community tab on YouTube, your channel will need to have over 1000 subscribers, and it can take up to one week after passing that number to see the Community tab appear.
Note that if your channel has over 1000 subscribers, but the Community tab option is not yet visible on your channel, you’ll need to enable custom channel layouts to display the tab.
How to make a Community post on YouTube
Once you have access to the Community tab, it’s time to start posting and engaging with your audience. Creating a post is simple and similar to posting on any other social media feed.
To create a Community post:

Sign in to YouTube.
At the top of the page, select ‘Upload’ and then ‘Create post.’
Type a message to create a text post or choose to add a video, poll, gif, or image to the post. You can also mention other channels using the @ symbol followed by the channel name.
Click ‘Post.’

Once your post is published, your subscribers will see it in their feed. They may also get a notification that you’ve posted something new.
Where is the YouTube Community Tab?
You can find each creator’s Community tab on their homepage, if they have it enabled.
On desktop, click on a channel name to go to their home page.

From there, click on Community in the middle of the screen. Here, you’ll find all their most recent posts where you can comment and interact with them.
On mobile, you’ll need to use the official YouTube app to see the Community tab, as it won’t show up in the mobile browser. Once you’ve opened YouTube, visit a channel’s home page. You’ll be able to click on the Community tab on the top of their page.
7 Ways to Use the YouTube Community Tab
Engagement is one of the most important YouTube channel analytics. When your audience is more engaged they will watch more videos, share more, and keep coming back. If you use the Community tab to its full potential, you can grow your audience and build a community around your content and brand. Here’s how.
1. Post behind the scenes footage and updates.
While your videos might be carefully produced, scripted, and put together, many viewers crave authenticity from creators. Your Community tab is where you can show more casual updates. Use this format for sneak-peaks or personal updates.

2. Heart ❤️ and respond to comments.
When reviewing your community comments, use a heart ❤️ to show appreciation for a viewer’s comments.
The viewer may get a notification (depending on their settings), and they’ll be able to see that you liked their comment.
Responding to comments starts a conversation, and builds a stronger connection with your viewers. Don’t get too caught up in replying to all of the comments on your channel, but taking the time to heart and respond to a few will show that you’re paying attention.

3. Pin a top comment.
When a comment really tickles your fancy, it’s from a VIP, or just something that you want to promote, you can pin it to the top of the comments. It will be the first thing other viewers see when they check out your community posts.
4. Promote a collaboration video with a fellow creator.
Are you really a YouTuber until you’ve done a collaboration with another creator? Once you’ve uploaded your shared creation, make sure both of you post about it on your Community tab. It’s a great way to drive traffic to your channel and expand your audience.

5. Poll your audience on what type of video they want to see next.
Find out what your audience wants from your channel. Ask them for feedback on your upcoming videos, or poll them about an upcoming competition.
Sportsnet has over 124,000 votes on their latest poll about the 2021 Rocket Richard Trophy.

6. Shoutout to a fan or fellow creator using an @mention.
Mention a fan or another creator to share the love or get more eyes on your videos. Popular channels will often select a fan to shout-out to at the end of their video. The Community tab is another place where you can make these connections.
7. Share ‘members only’ posts.
If you offer Channel Memberships (a paid subscription to your channel where “viewers make monthly payments in exchange for access to exclusive badges, custom emojis, and other perks”), you can choose to create posts that are exclusive to your channel members.
This is a great way to thank them for their support and give them even more opportunities to engage with your channel.
Building a Community on YouTube
One of the things I noticed when trying to find examples for this post is that many creators aren’t using the Community tab to its full potential.
The power of being able to post updates and notify subscribers is huge! You’ve got a captive audience, so make sure to update them regularly, even when you don’t have time to upload a full video.
Stay engaged with what your fans want, and you’ll build a loyal following quickly.

If you’re looking to attract highly engaged leads, interact with your audience, get real-time feedback, and capitalize on exciting guest speakers, the live webinar format is for you.

In a blind test run by the team at Business2Community it was discovered that a live webinar not only got 2.3x the number of registrants than an on-demand video, but the live webinar’s attendance also exceeded that of its on-demand counterpart by 23%.
The live attendants were also more … well … attentive. Participants viewed an average of 80% of the live webinar content, whereas the on-demand version captured 35%.

To take full advantage of these benefits, you need to choose the best software for live webinars. Read on to discover our favorite candidates for a live webinar platform, divided by category for easy research. Oh, and once you’ve found the right webinar platform, make sure you check out our ultimate guide to creating compelling webinars.
The Best Live Webinar Software
Best Webinar Software for Marketers
1. WebinarNinja

Optimizing for the customer journey is crucial and WebinarNinja knows it. The team of WebinarNinja focused their tool development on making it easy to track and customize according to a prospect’s position in the funnel. We love how this platform:

Integrates with CRMs such as Salesforce and Hubspot so you can easily track your leads.
Offers a gated landing page option to charge for events, which is a great option for hosting online conferences or other high-value content alongside regular webinar programming.
Provides more targeted, customized tracking with a Facebook Ad tracking pixel on webinar attendees.

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2. WorkCast

As the webinar platform that brands itself as “created for marketers,” WorkCast is simple to use and has a multitude of helpful features. Whether you’re offering live or on-demand webinars, creating evergreen content, or a combination of all three, WorkCast has your back with:

Integrations with all of the most popular CRMs, including HubSpot, so you can track your leads and follow up automatically.
No downloads or plugins required to host, attend, or present at webinars.
The option for simulive webinars using pre-recorded video combined with a live Q&A session or presentation. All of the benefits of viewer engagement, without the stress of organizing a live webinar.

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Best webinar software for small businesses
3. WebinarGeek

An easy-to-use platform that provides live, on-demand, and hybrid webinar features. With their smart marketing features, you’ll be able to attract viewers and convert them to customers within the same platform. Priced reasonably for small businesses, WebinarGeek has a number of great tools, including;

No downloads required for your audience, which makes it easy for non-tech audiences to attend.
Create your own webinar channel to showcase all your on-demand and future webinars in one place.
Highly rated customer support (9.8/10 on G2) that will help you set up and deliver seamless webinars.

4. WebinarJam

Marrying a simple interface with comprehensive tools makes WebinarJam an easy favorite for small businesses looking to run live webinars, even on the go. We love their:

Customizable templates, such as waiting room graphics and emails, for an on-brand experience.
Ability to add up to six co-presenters, making it easy to produce a collaborative and high-value presentation. You can even inject pre-recorded video for additional presentation options.
Trifecta of engagement tools: a virtual whiteboard, poll options, and an attendee chat.
Automatic recording function, which makes it easy to follow up with registrants who missed the live recording.

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Best Webinar Tools for Training and Classroom Sessions
5. ClickMeeting

ClickMeeting offers webinars and video conferencing in one tool. Schedule meetings or webinars easily, and scale your webinar program with ClickMeeting’s 5000 attendance capacity.
ClickMeeting is particularly useful for running training and classroom-style presentations because of its:

Customizable waiting rooms with agenda layouts, file delivery, and presenter information.
Full suite of webinar tools including additional rooms, whiteboards, and polls.
Ability to join and deliver webinars on-the-go with the ClickMeeting mobile apps.

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6. Adobe Connect

Adobe Connect is ideal for guided training and seminars where you need to “set the stage” for your audience. Their classroom tools enable students to work together effectively. You can also:

Create breakout sessions, whiteboards, and teaching aids to help you deliver your message effectively.
Set up multiple “topic chats” to keep discussions on track.
Read your audience’s digital body language with advanced analytics to help you improve your delivery.

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Best Free Webinar Software
7. Zoom

While many of us may have used Zoom for meetings, it’s also a great choice for webinars.
Because so many people are familiar with Zoom, hosts, and attendees both find it easy to use. Plus, if you’re on a tight budget, you can use Zoom’s video conferencing platform for small, free webinars (up to 100 participants).
Some of the benefits of Zoom include:

Keeping the focus on the presenter’s video, rather than slides, making for a more human interaction.
Leveraging virtual backgrounds, studio effects, and background noise suppression.
Dedicated live event support, including monitoring and moderation.

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8. Freeconferencecall.com

One of the only completely free webinar platforms, Freeconferencecall.com is still a powerful solution. It’s completely browser-based (which means no downloads for you or your guests), and:

Offers one-click recording so you never miss out on saving your webinar.
Has screen- and file-sharing capabilities so you can share your presentation materials effectively.
Allows you to host up to 1000 guests.

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Best Live Webinar Software
9. On24

On24 is the enterprise platform that does it all, as noted in their positive reviews on G2: “We had a wide variety of needs for a service like this — internal training, external publications, panel forums, expert-led seminars, and more. We felt that ON24 checked every box.”
On24 specializes in live broadcasts and has a host of features designed to increase customer engagement with your video presentations. We love their:

Enterprise-level streaming quality. They’re built for big events that need to stream smoothly.
Engagement analytics that integrates with your business intelligence platforms for better audience segmentation.
Engagement hub that stores past webinars for an “always-on” experience.

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10. GoToWebinar

A best-in-class option that makes running a live webinar feel positively smooth. Equipped with the greatest hits of live webinar management like engagement tools, automatic recording, and excellent integrations, GoToWebinar goes the final mile by offering:

24/7 customer service, which is essential in times of live webinar panic.
Source tracking to help determine the most effective sign-up strategies.
Truly excellent analytics that help you to keep iterating and improving.

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11. Webinar.net

This is an easy-to-use webinar platform that looks good. Webinar.net might be one of the newest platforms on the market, but they’re starting strong with a 4.8 out of 5 stars rating on G2.
Their customers love them because:

They’re browser-based, so there are no downloads required for presenters or attendees.
You can upload a background template and pick your colors and font so that your webinar matches your company’s branding.
Broadcasts can be launched in under 60 seconds with their five-step wizard.

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The Best Webinar Platforms in 2021
There are so many different webinar platforms available. Choosing the right one for your needs depends on your budget and your goals.

If you’re looking to invest in a new tool for your business, you’ll need to do your research.
In many cases, that research will start with a Request for Information (RFI).
Not sure what an RFI is? We’ve got you covered in this quick guide.

What does RFI mean?
An RFI or Request for Information is an educational tool used by procurement teams to understand the options available for solving a problem or completing a task.
For example, if a business needed a new server solution, they’d send out an RFI, and companies that offered servers would respond to share more information about their products and services to educate the procurement team.
RFIs are important because they reduce blind spots and empower your team to make better decisions. With more information at your disposal, you can understand the marketplace and get a better sense of the questions you’ll need to ask as you move forward in the procurement process.  
RFI vs RFP
Both RFIs and RFPs are tools used when procuring new tools, services or vendors. However, a Request for Proposal (RFP) is different from a Request for Information (RFI) in a few ways, including the timing and the type of information required.
An RFI is the initial step a company takes to solicit information from potential vendors, as described above. Its main objective is to obtain information, not to make a final decision. Once the RFIs are submitted, the company will review them and shortlist the best options, armed with more insight. Then, they’ll usually send out an RFP.
A Request for Proposal is a formal request for the selected vendors or suppliers to respond to a specific contract opportunity. The document specifies the scope and price so potential vendors can put together a bid for the work.
These bids are then compared to understand each vendor’s strengths and weaknesses, and the best fit is chosen. RFPs are a decision document, so the questions are more targeted and specific.
After an RFP, the company may be contacted with an RFQ or Request for Quote that breaks down the project even further into specific cost structures and deliverables.
Best Practices for RFI Documentation
The more thoughtful you are about your RFI document, the better quality responses you will get back. Instead of casually emailing a sales rep and asking for information, creating RFI documentation will ensure that you get exactly the information you need. In that document, be sure to:

Be clear about the information you’re requesting, in a way that will make it easier to review all the responses you receive.
Be specific about how and when you want to receive vendor responses.
Be open-ended so that vendors can provide information that they think is relevant, but you may not know to ask. That’s what RFIs are great for.
Be brief and respectful of vendors’ time.

RFIs are usually presented as a PDF or posted on a website to make it easy for vendors to read and respond to.
Request for Information Template
Creating your first RFI can be overwhelming. What should you ask for? What information does the vendor need to know? To help answer those questions, use this simple template to get the most out of the RFI process.
1. Overview or Statement of Need
Outline your goals and objectives, along with some general information about your company. This section should be short and provide an overview of your project to someone with no background information.  
2. Context about Organization
Including additional information about your organization can help the vendor tailor their response to your needs. You may want to mention which department is leading the project, who your customers are, and what your company values are, among other things.
3. Details of what’s needed
What problem are you looking to solve? What information do you need? Here’s where you can detail what you’re looking for. Include any additional information a vendor might need to know to develop a thorough RFI response. That may include:

Any necessary skills and credentials the respondent may need to be successful
Timelines or general scope
What you’re not looking for

4. Information about the process
Explain how interested parties should respond to the RFI. Attach a response template if you have one, outline any deadlines, and note if and when you’ll reply to respondents after the RFIs have been gathered. You may want to mention any evaluation criteria you’ll use when creating the shortlist for RFPs.
3 RFI (Request for Information) Samples
Need more inspiration? Read through the following examples of RFIs for more ideas on what to include in yours. These three RFIs all come from different industries and have different needs, so they are a good overview of the options available to you.
1. NASA
When NASA retires parts of their space shuttles, they like to display them at museums or other educational institutions. To gauge interest and understand the potential options for an upcoming retired part, they opened up an RFI. Here’s a sample of the document:
“This RFI is being used to gather market research for NASA to make decisions regarding development of strategies for placement of Space Shuttle Orbiters and Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) for public display after conclusion of the SSP. NASA is seeking information from educational institutions, science museums, and other appropriate organizations about the community’s ability to acquire and display a Space Shuttle Orbiter after the vehicles are retired from flight status.”
We like this RFI example because it provides a straightforward overview of the purpose of the RFI, and outlines what NASA wants to learn from the process.
2. Government of Canada
Government websites are a great place to find RFI examples because they are required to make all procurement processes publicly available. The following example is from an RFI for financial planning software.

The requirements section of this RFI is a great example of how to explain what you do and don’t need in the responses. While the government of Canada is looking for financial planning software, they will be keeping their CRM and data lake provider.
3. University of Ottawa
In the following RFI except, the University of Ottawa is looking for an ERP integration solution. What’s unique about this RFI is how they want to receive responses. Rather than collecting written responses or documents, the U of O is scheduling strategy discussions with suppliers. This is a unique way to gather information, but helpful when you don’t have enough knowledge in the area to put together a scope of work yet.
“The University of Ottawa (University) is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) to schedule strategy discussions (via a conference call) from interested Suppliers with experience in ERP Integrations.
The intent of these discussions is to obtain feedback from Suppliers to assist the University in developing a more accurate Scope of Work and overall approach for an upcoming Request For Proposal (RFP) for ERP Integration solutions.”  
Request for Success
Every RFI will be unique to your organization and the information you require. Use the template above as a guide to creating an RFI that will save you time in evaluating potential solutions.
With the right information being sent your way, all you need to do is read up! You’ll be well on your way to procuring the best solution for your team’s needs.

In the beginning of my marketing career, I remember being confused that I was tasked with writing ads or creating ad materials.
Since I fell into this industry accidentally (as one does), I didn’t study marketing in school. I wasn’t aware that advertising and marketing work together and aren’t mutually exclusive.

Now, as a marketing professional, you understand that. But that doesn’t mean that you’ve never been unsure about how these two industries interact.
In fact, marketing and advertising have a lot in common. They even have the same goal: increase awareness of your company and products, and then make a sale.
While they share the same goal and have a lot in common, there are differences between marketing and advertising that can help you organize your strategy and maximize your acquisition efforts.
Below, let’s explore the similarities and differences between marketing and advertising.

Overall, marketing and advertising share the same goal. But marketing has a bigger scope than advertising. Marketing creates the tone, personality, and voice of a brand or company as a way to attract its target audience. This can be done through paid, owned, or earned media channels.
Advertising, on the other hand, has a much more narrow goal, which is to get the word out about a specific product or service.
To visualize the differences, marketing is the umbrella term for brand positioning and awareness, while advertising is just one of the tactics that’s used to get that done.
With advertising, you can use social media, search engines, TV or print, podcasts, radio spots, billboards, and more. Depending on your audience, you’ll probably use a mixture of the best channels that will bring success.
As you can see, advertising is a step of marketing. Marketing prepares products for the marketplace, works on overall brand messaging and positioning, while advertising then gets the word out about specific products or services.
Most successful marketing strategies use advertising at different levels of a campaign, in various types of media.
While marketing can be paid, owned, or earned media, advertising is the component of marketing that focuses solely on the paid media aspect.
Marketing will convince potential customers that you’re the brand they want to use, that this product will help them, and advertising focuses on communicating a product exists and is the best way to achieve a goal.
You can think of marketing as the strategic decision making process that helps companies understand how a product or service will align with the target audience. This helps companies figure out how they want to sell the product and position it in the market. And then advertising makes a product or service known to the target audience through paid means.
These two concepts aren’t at odds with each other. In fact, advertising is almost always meant to benefit a marketing plan and communicate the marketing message.
Additionally, the way you calculate success for these two industries is different as well.
With advertising, you might focus on return on ad spend, and actual sales. Marketing success can be measured differently. Brand awareness and impressions are just some of the ways that companies measure success of a marketing campaign (in addition to return on investment).
Now, let’s get into the nitty gritty details about different types of advertising and marketing and how they’re similar or different.
Native Advertising vs. Content Marketing
Native advertising is a way to make paid ads appear more organically in a person’s day-to-day. Ads, in general, are interrupters. They interrupt your day and say “Hey, look at me.” However, people have ad blindness, and might not even notice an ad, especially in the digital space.
That’s why native advertising became popular. With native advertising, you can purchase ad space online and work in collaboration with a media network to make an ad not interrupt, but work in tandem with other organic materials.
For instance, this might look like a promotion or collaboration, which is definitely paid, but appears more native in someone’s feed. It could be a paid post on Instagram, or a paid blog article.
Content marketing, on the other hand, isn’t paid, and is usually the process of creating your own media materials and publishing them yourself. For instance, a company blog is content marketing. Your email newsletter is content marketing. But, a paid collaboration for a blog on someone else’s site is native advertising.
The main difference between these two is that one is paid and one is not. And that content marketing is usually used by your own company, while native advertising will take place on another site.
Now that we understand more about that niche, let’s dive into another area of marketing and advertising that might be confusing.
Mobile Marketing vs. Mobile Advertising
Mobile marketing is the process of creating marketing materials that are meant to be used in the mobile space. That could be an app. It could be location-based services, text marketing, or messenger marketing. It could be making sure your marketing assets are mobile responsive and are designed for the mobile experience.
On the other hand, mobile advertising, again, is the process of paying for ad space that will specifically show up in the mobile space. That could be an ad that comes up in an app or an ad that shows up when people are searching on their phone online.
The difference between these two concepts is similar to the overall difference between marketing and advertising.
Mobile marketing is the process of creating strategies that will reach audiences and increase brand awareness in the mobile space. Mobile advertising is a tactic to get that done.
This framework can be applied to any area of marketing and advertising, whether that’s content marketing, mobile marketing, or social media marketing.
Ultimately, you’ll need both marketing and advertising to have an effective strategy. If advertising is all you’re doing, then you’re missing out on a lot of other marketing tactics you can use to increase brand awareness, connect with your audience, and drive sales.

You know the saying, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
Well, event promotion is similar. If you put on an event but don’t promote it, will it even happen? Without promotion, you probably won’t get any attendees because no one will know it’s happening.

While event promotion is simple in theory, actually planning a successful marketing strategy and promotion plan is not.
Of course, you’ve seen large-scale event promotions. But you’re probably thinking, “We don’t have that kind of budget” or “What are more creative ways to increase brand awareness and lead generation?”
Well, that’s what we’ll discover in this post. Let’s review some of our favorite ways to creatively promote your event without breaking the bank.

Free Event Promotion
1. Offer early bird registration.
A great way to promote your events is to offer early bird registration. This will incentivize your audience to sign up for your event early.
Additionally, this will give you a good idea of how to continue promoting your event — are people interested? What are their objections? Is your current marketing plan working?
With early bird registration, you’ll be able to gauge your audience’s interest and your marketing tactics. Plus, it incentivizes people to buy tickets as soon as possible for the discount.
2. Place a sign outside your business.
Of course, good old-fashioned banners are a great way to increase local awareness of an event.
You can post these outside your business or if you don’t have a brick-and-mortar business, then you can post banners throughout the local area where you’ll be holding the event.
3. Product a creative landing page.
The landing page for your event is the primary way to communicate information about your event. You should post all the details about the event — the day, time, location, topic, goals, etc.
Additionally, you can post an agenda so people know what the content will be like at the event. You can also use this page to post about speakers or influencers you have attending.
It’s also a good idea to include photos or videos from your last event and have an FAQ page that answers any repeating questions.
And of course, you’ll want to link to your social media pages and place a call to action on the page for people to purchase tickets.
4. Participate in content marketing.
Before your event, it’s a good idea to start posting about it throughout your content marketing channels.
You can post CTAs in your YouTube videos, discuss the event in your blog posts, talk about it in a podcast, or post on social media.
Whatever channels you use to post content marketing assets can be used as a way to promote your event.
5. Have event-specific branding.
Another great way to get the word out about your event is to have event-specific branding. Make your event a brand in and of itself. This is the way that HubSpot promotes the INBOUND event. INBOUND is a separate brand from HubSpot. It’s not just an event for our customers. It’s an event for any marketer, sales, or service professional who wants to learn more and educate themselves.
To do this, separate the event brand from your company brand. Have a different website, different colors, different messaging, etc. This will help attract people who don’t know about your company and are just coming across the event.
6. Use email marketing to reach your audience.
Of course, email marketing is a major way to reach your current audience. You should promote your event via email to different segmented audiences.
This will help let everyone who knows about your company know about the event. Plus, you can offer email subscriber discounts to incentivize current fans of your company to attend.
Social Media Event Promotion
7. Post pre-event behind-the-scenes posts.
Social media is another major way that you can promote your events.
One of my favorite event promotion strategies to follow as a consumer is to watch behind-the-scenes posts. I love a good BTS Instagram story or post showing how a company is preparing for an event.
Leading up to your event, post about it on social media. Post about the people you have coming to your event, or any cool decor items. This will get your followers excited about the event and could persuade them to buy a ticket.
8. Retargeting ads on social media.
We all know that social media is where people spend a lot of their time. If they’ve come across your company or other event promotion, social media retargeting ads are a great way to stay top of mind.
You want people to come across your brand continuously and to remind them about the event. Even if someone thinks an event is a good idea, they might not buy a ticket right away. Retargeting is a great way to get those customers at a later date.
9. Create an event hashtag.
While you’re promoting your event, a great way to talk to attendees or people who are thinking about registering is through an event hashtag. This will help you track mentions and stay in the conversation with people who want to attend your event.
This could also help get you trending and increase the number of people who are aware of and see your events.
During the event, again, this is a place for people to ask questions and for you to interact with attendees.
10. Work with keynote speakers, influencers, other brands, and sponsors.
Collaboration is one of the best ways to promote your event. Consider having event sponsors that will want to promote the event for you.
You can also have brand partnerships where you work with other companies who will tell their audience about your event.
Additionally, promote the heck out of your keynote speakers or any influencers that you’re working with. This is a great way to tap into their audiences to get the word out about your event even more.
It’s important to take advantage of other people’s following so people outside of your audience hear about your events.
11. Run a social media contest.
If you’ve run social media contests before and have had success, a social media contest or giveaway might be a good way to get the word out about your event.
You can host a contest where the winner will get tickets. Maybe they have to like your posts or comment and tag some friends. Either way, social media contests will help you garner awareness.
12. Create a social media filter.
A fun way to promote your event is to use a social media filter. You can create one especially for your event and showcase it on your social media.
If you get other people to use the filter, then you’ll be promoting your event to their audiences automatically.
13. Advertise on social media.
We can’t discuss event promotion without talking about social media ads. Again, people spend a lot of time on social media. Running ads with lookalike audiences on Facebook is a great way to advertise to a cold audience.
14. Post on Facebook and community groups.
Social media communities and groups are also fantastic places to promote an event. It could be a Facebook group or a subreddit.
Additionally, you’ll want to create an event page on social media so that you can share it in different groups or communities.
15. Host a social media challenge or takeover.
Social media challenges and takeovers are a fun way to engage your audience. With a social media challenge, your audience can directly engage with your company or brand. If you host a social media takeover with an influencer, again, you can reach their whole audience.
Social media posts, challenges, live streams, and takeovers are excellent ways to promote your events.
Now that you have a few ideas for how to promote your event, it’s time to start thinking about the timeline. When will you do these things? How close to the event should you promote? Let’s discuss below.
Event Promotion Timeline
3-4 months before your event

Email marketing: Email previous attendees, give an early bird discount, etc.
Post in social media groups
Create a Facebook event
Promote influencers/speakers/sponsors
Launch website/landing page
Create event-specific branding
Post banners locally

6-8 weeks before your event

Promote influencers/speakers/sponsors
Set up search engine campaigns and any online ads
Produce content marketing assets
Run a social media contest
End early bird promotions

3-5 weeks before your event

Email marketing drip campaigns
Retargeting ads on social media
Have partnering brands/sponsors post about your event
Create a social media filter

1-2 weeks before your event

Create social media hashtag
Post behind-the-scenes content on social media
Use “last call” messaging

2-6 days before your event

Send an email reminder to those who are interested
Promote on social media
More BTS content

Day of your event

Run your hashtag
Be active on social media
Take photos/videos and post them online
Engage with your attendees online

After the event

Thank everyone for coming
Look at the success of your event promotion

Were people talking about your event? Did content marketing help? Did social media traffic result in ticket sales?

Send a survey — to employees and customers alike — ask how they liked the event, what they liked, what they think could be improved, etc.

Promoting an event is a lot like juggling. There are a lot of moving parts to manage. This list, although it’s not exhaustive, should help you get started brainstorming about the best ways to promote your event.

Sometimes I like to say that no one purchases Pardot because they want a security solution; they do it because they want a secure solution.
One of the attractive features of our cloud model is that Salesforce engineering experts manage the security and trust of the software and its infrastructure. This frees you from maintaining servers, firewalls and security patches so you can focus on growing your business on a platform you can trust, with your data and your reputation.
What’s the difference between security and privacy?
I think of security as the protection of assets against deliberate attacks and inadvertent failures. Security is a prerequisite for privacy — it’s necessary, but not sufficient.
Privacy takes security a step further by implementing practices that protect personal data through mechanisms such as:

minimizing collection and retention of personal data
using data only for the purpose for which it was collected
giving data subjects control over their personal data

Here’s another way to differentiate the two: Security concerns itself with technical controls that protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information. Privacy includes technical and non-technical aspects of personal data protection.
For example, privacy laws like CCPA enforce technical security measures because privacy is breached when security fails. But not all privacy breaches are due to technical failures — a breach can also result from mistakes such as mishandling personal data.
Who’s responsible for security and privacy?
Pardot customers’ main security need is for data to remain available and protected. By protected, I mean that data remains accessible only to parties who are authorized to access it, and the integrity of data is safeguarded from illicit modification.
Cyber attacks compromise the integrity of customer information. If you’re a Pardot customer, this could happen in two ways:

attacks on the Pardot cloud infrastructure
attacks on your account

At Salesforce, we go out of our way to protect the cloud infrastructure, relieving you of this burden. But what about the security of your individual account?
The short answer is that, on both the privacy and security front, it’s a cooperative effort between Pardot and you.

On the security side: While Salesforce identity management goes a long way in protecting user accounts, you still have a responsibility to protect your computers and passwords. This goes a long way in preventing cybersecurity incidents. But we can help with that, too! Pardot security features like multi-factor authentication via Salesforce Single Sign-On help to protect your account and keep information safe.
On the privacy side: Security needs and requirements for customers tend to be uniform: “Keep my data safe and help me keep hackers out of my account!” Privacy is different because customers operate in different compliance environments, and privacy and consent requirements vary around the world.
To allow you to meet your particular requirements, Pardot provides rich consent management options. We also provide tracking features that allow you to manage tracking based on your specific compliance environment. Going beyond compliance minimums, Pardot adheres to some baseline standards, such as never aggregating data across customer boundaries or selling customers’ data.
Part of my job as a security and privacy product manager is to understand trends so we can proactively offer features that allow you to establish trusted, compliant privacy practices for your organization. I’ll be speaking more about privacy with a focus on the web ecosystem at a webinar on April 15.
Register today for Pardot Release Highlights: ABM, Privacy, and More
Where can I learn more about Pardot’s security and privacy promises?
When it comes to security and privacy, it’s our job at Salesforce Pardot to give you what you need to do your job. Here are a few references you may find helpful:

Pardot Trust & Compliance Documentation: This is one of the best resources for learning about the security and privacy promises we’ve made to our customers. These documents describe guarantees about how we keep your data secure. Customers refer to these often during auditing and compliance reviews.

Data Protection and Privacy Knowledge Article: Learn more about data protection, privacy and how to implement workflows for privacy compliance.

Pardot’s Permission-Based Marketing Policy: Trust is our number one value. This is a key example of how we protect our customers by maintaining a trusted, compliant product.

Do you have questions, needs or stories to share? Join our Trailblazer Community, where we can collaborate together.
This blog post is part of our security, privacy, and technology series.

How can you make your blog more profitable? This is a question most of us are searching for an answer to. And while advertising and affiliate links will bring in some money, what if you could generate more?
If you have a loyal following and are producing great content, you might consider creating a membership site to offer your audience exclusive content and perks while also boosting your profits.

Membership sites can be customized in a myriad of ways, but here are some of the most common models you’ll come across.

1. Paywall
If you often read the news online, you’ve likely come across a paywall. A paywall blocks content until a reader is logged into their account and has a paid membership to access the content.
You can offer some of your most premium content behind a paywall to earn more money and create better engagement with your most loyal audience members. After all, they are paying to access exclusive perks, meaning they are likely to be invested in what you are offering.
2. Communities
Most of us love finding a group of people online with common interests or goals. If your audience is always engaging with your content, and with each other in the comments, consider creating a community membership model where users can create profiles and have a platform to interact with one another.
This could mean access to an exclusive app, a Facebook group, or a forum on your website.
3. Courses
If your audience can’t get enough of your content, they might also have an interest in learning about your topic of expertise from you directly. By creating membership courses, you can offer some of your knowledge for a fee.
You can offer courses for a one-time, upfront payment or an ongoing subscription for access to a library of courses that generates a steady stream of profit from your membership site.
4. Products
Outside of knowledge, what do you have the talent to create and sell on your website? Perhaps you can create WordPress plugins or blog templates, or maybe you can offer social media graphic templates or unique budgeting spreadsheets.
Whatever you’ve decided to create, you can earn money for your creativity and hard work. You can sell products individually to members, or offer them via a subscription model where users can access the product as long as they have an active, paid subscription.
5. All-in-One
The all-in-one model is exactly as it sounds. This means your membership site includes most, if not all, of the standard membership model options.
While this could mean multiple streams of income from people subscribing to various parts of your site, it can also become a lot of extra work for you.
Creating exclusive content and perks for varying memberships could be hard to do alone, meaning you might need to spend more money hiring others to help you. Also, it might be off-putting for a user to visit your site and see they have to sign up — and pay — to access nearly anything on your site.
Pros of Starting a Membership Site
Starting a membership site can create a secure, steady stream of revenue for your blog. If your audience already enjoys your content, it’s a logical next step to offer them more for a fee.
Once they’ve started investing money to access your content, you might also find them engaging more, too.
Cons of Starting a Membership Site
Because memberships are so customizable, there aren’t many negatives to starting one. But if you are already strapped for time creating your normal content and managing your site, you might find it hard to create exclusive content as well. This will also add another component to your site to maintain.
Once you’ve decided to turn your blog into a membership site, you can follow these simple steps to get started.

1. Choose your model.
Select the model that works best for your site from the list above. With an active and engaged audience, a community model might be the perfect fit. If users are always asking for your advice, you might consider creating products or courses with a subscription attached.
Or maybe your content is increasing page views so you want to create more in-depth content to offer behind a paywall. Weigh these options carefully to find the right fit for your brand.
2. Find a membership plugin.
If your blog is operating on WordPress, you can add a membership plugin to make your work easier. There are many options available, and you’ll want to find one that will work with the model you’ve chosen. Some of the top picks by bloggers include MemberPress, Restrict Content Pro, and Teachable.
Once your plugin is downloaded, you can configure it by visiting your WordPress dashboard menu, selecting your plugin, choose ‘Options,’ and adjust settings as needed.
3. Set up payments, levels, and rules.
In your WordPress dashboard, go to the menu and select your plugin. From there, you can find payment, levels, and rules settings. Under ‘Options’ > ‘Payments,’ set up the payment amounts and types (such as credit cards and PayPal) for each membership level.
To set levels, go to the plugin, select ‘Memberships’ then ‘Add New’ for each level. You can name each level as well as define prices and restrictions.
Finally, it’s time to set the rules. Go to the plugin in the WordPress menu, then select ‘Rules’ and ‘Add New.’ This is how you shield your exclusive content from non-paying members. Just be sure to mark your exclusive content as ‘paid’ in WordPress as you create it.
Save all of your settings as you go before moving on to the next step.
4. Create content for launch.
Your paid subscribers will likely expect immediate access to some exclusive content right after signing up. Be sure to prepare whatever written content, videos, audio books, templates, or other perks you’ll be offering before launching your membership site to avoid frustrated subscribers.
5. Add a membership page to your site.
This can also be easily handled via the plugin settings on your dashboard, but you’ll need to create a page where your website users can view pricing and membership models, sign up, and log in to access the content.
Once this page is ready, you’ll be ready to launch, and users can start signing up and accessing your content or products from your blog.
Boost Blog Revenue By Adding a Membership Site
A membership site can be tailored to fit your needs and generate more money for your blog. Once you’ve evaluated whether or not a membership site is right for your brand, you can review the different models to find which path is the best for your blog.
Plus, you’ll be able to exercise your creativity and offer the best content possible to your most loyal and engaged followers.