Saturday 29 November 2014

Truisms: Without art the Earth is just "Eh" Shirts

Featured Product!

A gorgeous design. Click to customize and personalize. Maybe you'd like to see your name or initials on it?


tagged with: wisdom, truisms, insights, astute sayings, wise sayings, support art, supporting the arts, hrbstslr, shrewd cliches, hrfptraz, axioms

A truism t-shirt... The words are:
"without art
the Earth is just
"Eh"

more items featuring truisms

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

Motivational Words #1 fridge magnet

A gorgeous best-selling design. Click to customize or personalize. How would it look with your name or monogram on it - why not have a look-see right now?


tagged with: motivational words,, motivation,, positive thinking,, positive attitude,, encouragement,, positive outlook,, hrbstslr,, values,, encouraging,, encourage

Motivational Words series Be positive! Here's a great design using motivational word art that could subtly and subconsciously help you improve your outlook and attitude. Each time you look at these influencing words, you should get a little reminder and a small positive boost!

more items featuring these motivational words
more


»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this

Puppy Love - Cute MaltiPoo Dog Photo Ornament

Cute Alert!

How can you resist this cute puppy design? Maybe you'd like to see your name or initials on it? Click to customize and personalize...


tagged with: puppy, puppydog, dog photo, cute dog, maltipoo, little puppy dog, cute puppy, puppy face, puppy photo, puppy photograph, toy dog breed, pocket dog

An adorable young puppy dog with big floppy ears and soft fur wants you to show her some love. Cute dog photograph in vivid color showing what may be either a maltese poodle cross, or maybe even something larger like a labradoodle or labrador retriever crossed with a poodle. Use as shown, or upload a photo of your own snuggly fuzzybutt pooch for a treasured dog lover keepsake.

»visit the CountryCorner store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

How to Calculate the Value of Your Blog

Blogging with purpose

original post »

This is a guest contribution from Tom Fanelli.

For most businesses, blogs are marketing tools. And while most take the time to measure their ROI from other marketing avenues, I’m surprised by how many don’t truly understand how their blog is (or is not) benefiting their bottom line.

Understanding your blog’s value can help you determine if you want to invest more on its development, adjust your blogging strategy to make it more effective, or simply cut back on your investment entirely.

Sound good? Here’s a guide on how to figure out your blog’s value.

Track the cost of content development.

This isn’t as easy of a task as it may initially seem. If you work with freelancers to create and upload content, their fees are the most obvious direct cost, but it’s likely that there’s still someone in-house who reviews the content – and their time is a cost to your business.

Be sure to account for time spent by all full-time employees who contribute to the blog as part of their responsibilities. Ask them to track how much time they spend working on blog-related tasks for a month.

Calculate your cost per visit. 

Okay, you know how much it costs to keep your blog going, but you want to consider that in the context of how much traffic your blog generates. If you spend money promoting your blog posts, through PPC, Outbrain, or outreach, factor this in. Don’t forget to include any associated labor costs.

Now add the cost of content development and promotion, and divide it by the number of visits over the same period. This is your blog’s “cost per visit”. It can also be valuable to determine the cost per unique visitor.

Determine the revenue of each visit. 

What direct returns do you get from your blog? You may earn money from advertising or affiliate sales. If that’s the case, calculate your total profits on a monthly basis and divide it by the number of visits during the same period.

However, many business blogs don’t have ads or support affiliate sales. Instead, your goal is likely to convert blog visitors into sales of your products or services. For product sales, you can use analytics to determine how many visitors on your blog ultimately completed a shopping transaction as well as the exact revenue from each transaction. But for most services (and some products), it may still take a phone call before they actually convert into a sale. Accounting for your blog’s influence on sales in this way is a little trickier but not impossible:

  • Track how many blog visitors end up on your “Contact” page. Figure out the average value of a new customer, and use this figure to assign a value to these “conversions”.
  • For a month, have your sales team ask new clients if they visited your blog. If the answer is yes, include that sale as part of the return you earn on your blog.
  • Use call tracking. Provide a unique phone number for those who visit your blog, so you’ll be able to say definitively that the customer was acquired in that manner.

There is also another business blogging goal that shouldn’t be overlooked, though it is not as easy to quantify: establishing your brand or expertise. The best way to account for this type of value is focus on the cost per visitor. From there, you can better determine if your investment is worth the reach you’re achieving.

Don’t forget the value of the content itself.

Many businesses reuse blog content in other ways, such as eBooks, marketing materials, social media updates, and newsletters. It’s worth calculating the cost and value of these other uses to get a more complete picture of how your blog fits into your marketing success.

If you find that your blog’s ROI isn’t bad but also isn’t where you’d like it, this is also one way that you can improve it without blowing up your entire strategy.

Now What?

So you’ve subtracted your cost per visit from your gross revenue per visit, and you now have the value of each visit. Armed with this data, you can evaluate your overall content strategy. Do you need to make adjustments? Should you double-down on your current success? Can you grow your business by driving more blog traffic through PPC ads? This figure is also important if you’re calculating the value of your domain name or website for sale.

Tom Fanelli is one of the nation’s leading experts on website development, SEO, SEM, and social media marketing. For nearly two decades, Tom has built both world-class marketing solutions and leading global marketing teams in corporate and small business environments across many industries. He has shared his insight on online customer acquisition, lead generation, and business optimization in both print and web publications, as a presenter of over 50 webinars, and as a featured speaker for companies like Intuit, Microsoft, Sage Software, and the Small Business Administration.

Follow Tom on Twitter at @tfanelli, purchase his ebook Infographics in Action, or learn more on TomFanelli.com.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

How to Calculate the Value of Your Blog

Build a Better Blog in 31 Days

How to Calculate the Value of Your Blog
 #bloggingtips 

A Mechanical Shark Mural by ‘Phlegm’ in San Diego

Fun and Random

A Mechanical Shark Mural by Phlegm in San Diego street art sharks San Diego murals

A Mechanical Shark Mural by Phlegm in San Diego street art sharks San Diego murals

A Mechanical Shark Mural by Phlegm in San Diego street art sharks San Diego murals

A Mechanical Shark Mural by Phlegm in San Diego street art sharks San Diego murals

Sheffield-based muralist and artist Phlegm just unveiled this awesome mechanical shark mural for PangeaSeed’s Sea Walls: Murals for Oceans festival in San Diego. The piece is done in Phlegm’s signature black and white illustrative style that often depicts shady masked figures manning the controls of unwieldy machines or contraptions. The Murals for Oceans project involves a collaboration with internationally renowned artists in an attempt to focus attention on major environmental issues involving the ocean. You can see many more pieces by Phlegm spanning the last few months on his blog. (via StreetArtNews)

 
#funandrandom 
 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/colossal/~3/S18bnP5sIs4/

Surreal Pencil Drawings of Lips by Christo Dagorov

Fun and Random

Surreal Pencil Drawings of Lips by Christo Dagorov surreal lips drawing anatomy

Surreal Pencil Drawings of Lips by Christo Dagorov surreal lips drawing anatomy

Surreal Pencil Drawings of Lips by Christo Dagorov surreal lips drawing anatomy

Surreal Pencil Drawings of Lips by Christo Dagorov surreal lips drawing anatomy

Switzerland-based illustrator and artist Christo Dagorov created this unusual series of pencil drawings that transform the texture of lips into trees, the aerial layout of a city, and even other human forms. You can see more of his work here. (via I Need a Guide)

 
#funandrandom 
 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/colossal/~3/0BX0Gj26xDs/