Use SpeakPipe To Keep The Conversation Going With Your Audience

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SpeakPipe is an online service that allows podcasters to get voice mail feedback from their audience. It's a handy online tool that works in one of two ways. 

1. You can add a snippet of code to your website or blog which will display a widget
2. You can send listeners to your custom SpeakPipe homepage

In this episode of the podcast I play a question that was left for me using SpeakPipe.
The question came in from Ron Hitson and he wants to know how I would send traffic to a squeeze page without using my blog.

Many professional podcasters are using SpeakPipe to connect with their audience by allowing them an easy way to leave a voice mail using their built-in computer mic or smartphone.  When I listen to podcasts I enjoy hearing the playback of questions left by by podcast listeners like myself.

Podcasters Who Are Using SpeakPipe

Here are a just a few examples of podcasters who are using SpeakPipe to turn listener feedback into content for their shows:

• James Schramko dedicated six episodes of his Super Fast Business Podcast (so far) to Listener Comments. 
• Daniel J. Lewis of The Audacity to Podcast features the SpeakPipe widget prominently on his contact page along with his phone number and additional points of contact. 
• Dave Jackson from School of Podcasting gets tons of feedback through SpeakPipe that he often plays on his show. Here's a great example of a message left by your's truly.

SpeakPipe Plans and Pricing

VIEW THE SPEAKPIPE PRESENTATION

SpeakPipe Keeps The Conversation Going from Ileane Smith

Promoting Squeeze Pages

To respond to Ron's question about Squeeze pages I talked about how there are many marketers using YouTube videos to promote their offerings.

I gave three examples of marketers who are using YouTube videos to effectively drive traffic to their landing pages.

• Amy Porterfield
• James Wedmore
• Clay Collins from LeadPages

LeadPages is the number one solution for creating landing pages and squeeze pages. I'm using LeadPages to grow my email list and the folks from LeadPages have a long list of options for you to choose from. Another thing I love about them is that they are masters when it comes to split-testing conversions. They test colors, images, copy - you name it - if there is any aspect of an offer that they can test, they will do it and share the results with all of their customers.

PS: Don't forget to leave a rating and review for the show over in iTunes! 

Finding The Best Guest Bloggers for Your Blog

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Get The Best Guest Authors for Your Blog

In the past 3 years I have served as the host to over 150 guest bloggers. I opened up the blog to guests as a way to give back to the blogging community. Many new bloggers, as well as seasoned blogging veterans, get the opportunity to promote themselves and expose their writing to a new audience. 

The other benefit for guest posting (and hosting) on Basic Blog Tips is that it helps to strengthen and grow the community. The guests feel a deeper connection to the blog and they interact and engage with one another in a familiar place. 

The Down Side To Hosting Guests Authors

As with everything in life you have to take the good with the bad and there is a down side to offering guest posting on a popular blog. One of the biggest challenges I faced was that my inbox would be flooded with requests on a daily basis. 

If you have the standard contact form on your blog, most of these request will come from "link builders" who have no idea what your blog is about or what your readers are interested in. These random requests will come in from hired writers who only have one goal and that is to get links for their clients. 

In the podcast and in the presentation slide posted below you'll discover how I avoid that problem and keep those requests from over-taking my inbox.

5 Tips For Finding The Best Guest Bloggers from Ileane Smith

My 5 Tips for Vetting Guest Bloggers

1. Require a Human Gravatar

2. Verify the Google+ Profile

3. Get Samples of Previous Guest Posts

4. Set up contributor accounts in WordPress

5. Reward Your Guests

Best Ways To Reward Guest Bloggers

Give your guests access to their own profile and display it in a bio box. The good thing is, because you already vetting your guest carefully, there is no need to worry about them adding "questionable" links in their bio. This will also help you in the long run - as your guests build their Author Rank, your blog will build Publisher Rank.

Install Premium plugins so that your guests will get exposed to plugins they might not have on their own blogs. I recommend having SEOPressor Version 5 and CommentLuv Premium. 

Support the post by submitting to blogging communities and directories. This will send traffic to your blog as well as your guest's blogs. When your guest logs into Google Analytics or Webmaster Tools sees all the referral traffic coming from your site, they will be sure to submit more posts and they will save their best content to post on your blog.

Bonus Tip!

Install the SpeakPipe widget and take down the standard contact form.

If you are new to blogging and the concept of accepting guest posters, start off by inviting your friends to do a guest post. This will help you get your feet wet in the process.