Someone in Low Hanging System recently discovered a great free tool that allows you to create word cloud designs in pretty much any shape and color scheme you want.
To show you what you can do with this tool I pulled a list of “happy words” off a random search and made some examples:
In their FAQ, WordClouds says “The word cloud images you create are yours to use any way you see fit. You are even allowed to use the generated word clouds commercially.”
That said, here’s how Michaela (my assistant) and I create and sell images with this tool.
Step 2: Click “Word list”, then go to “Paste/Type text to paste in a big list of words you want to include in your design. Tip: the more words, the better the final result:
In this example we’ve added words to describe dogs (happy, loyal, cute, etc.) and positive/motivational words (appreciative, amazing, etc).
Step 3: From the “Size” tab, decide what size you want your word cloud to be.
Michaela left the default size option selected, which is 1024 X 768. There are tons of options including a size for Facebook covers.
Step 4: Click the “Shape” button and either choose a shape from the default options or upload a design of your own (silhouettes work best).
Step 5: Decide whether or not you want to include a mask with your design. Having the mask turned on shows the shape’s shadow as the backdrop (see below).
Michaela decided it looked better to keep the mask turned on with the designs she made. But it’s totally up to you.
Mask On
Mask off
Step 6: Choose a color theme for your word cloud. Or, go to the “Colors” tab and select your own cloud colors and hit apply. Here, you can also adjust the color of your word cloud mask if you chose to have it turned on.
Step 7: Select the font you want for your Word Cloud words.
Step 8: Adjust the numeric sliding scale underneath the tab options.
You’ll need to play around with this feature to get your word cloud to look just the way you want and results will vary.
Step 9: Click the “File” tab and download the PNG of your word cloud.
Step 10: Decide how you want to sell your word cloud.
How To Sell Your Images
There are several ways you can sell your designs, but here are some of the main ways we’re using them:
1. Sell a digital printable.
Michaela put some designs up on Etsy as digital prints that people could download and print. You can sell them individually or as a matching set (a mug + digital download, for example).
Here’s a description Michaela used in her listings – you’re welcome to copy and paste it:
This listing is for an instant download of 1 PNG file of original artwork.
All you have to do is complete your payment and then your printable will be ready for download (no physical item is shipped to you).
This printable makes a great gift and would look fantastic hanging on the wall of [your target market, e.g. pet owners, people who crochet, etc].
How the process works:
1. Purchase the listing. 2. Once payment has been confirmed, you will be directed to the download page. 3. Click “Download” and save the PNG file to your computer. 4. When you’re ready, print the image, and enjoy!
NOTE: This is a digital download ONLY. Your purchase does NOT include framing materials. Also, final print quality depends on the type of printer and paper used. For best results, print your printable at your local photo center.
Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about your download. Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed.
Thank you!
2. Put them on a done-for-you product.
You can put your designs on any of the products on UseGearBubble.com and then sell them on Amazon, Etsy, or eBay.
Posters are a perfect choice for this. So are photo boards, if you’re in LHS.
I hope you found this post useful. As always, feel free to comment below with your thoughts and/or results if you try it out.
However, targeted traffic isn’t always the easiest thing to get – especially if you’re not interested in spending hours and hours on drawn out blog posts and backlink strategies.
Because of this, I set out to see if there were any 5-minute traffic tweaks that might make a big difference.
Michaela and I approached this in 3 ways:
Asking 7 industry experts what their top traffic-getting tips were
Reflecting on what I’ve found to work the best
Doing research
Here are some of the top tips we found:
Use Hash Tags When Promoting Your Content
I shared in this video how I got a sale on Instagram in 5 minutes, and it was mostly because of the hash tags I used:
Hash tags work. They might not be as great on Facebook, but they’re great on Twitter and Instagram.
Add This To Your Headlines
You’ve probably seen website headlines that said things like:
“7 Tips For Losing Weight Fast. #5 Will Blow Your Mind!”
“I never knew how much money I could make before I did these 5 specific things. Especially #3.”
These types of headlines drip with intrigue and you can’t help but want to know more.
If you add this type of “extra” to your headline, it really can help you get more traffic. You might not get extra people on your website, but more people on your website will click through.
You could do this with gift-guide type traffic too. I can easily see something like:
“Top 10 Gifts For Pit Bull Lovers. #7 Is Crazy-Cool.”
Add Opt-In Forms To Your Top 5 Posts
This technique is super simple and it’s something that not a lot of people do.
Log into your analytics account and find the five pieces of content on your site that have earned the most views over the last two months.
Add an opt-in form to each of those posts.
This strategy takes almost no effort but it can have a big impact.
Optimize Your Old Posts
If you have old posts that you’ve created in the past, open them up to see if you can make any quick optimization tweaks.
A couple tweaks like adding in a solid title and naming your images could be a huge difference-maker.
Create Personalized Flipboard Magazines
“One tip is to create a personalized Flipboard magazines where we have built followers and flip content to it from the blog.
We trialed one Flipboard magazine content tactic, and on some days, its organic traffic generation kicks sand in Facebook’s face. Some days it drives 25% of our traffic.”
If you wrote a post that ended up being really popular (lots of likes, shares, tweets, etc.), you can take that post and repurpose the content. That is, use it in a different format, such as turning it into a Slideshare PPT or recording it as a podcast.
And be sure to link back to the original post in whatever new format you choose to increase your web visits.
Here’s a post I made a few years back about how to repurpose your podcast or blog content.
Have A New Headline For Each Social Networking Channel
A study conducted by BuzzSumo.com revealed absolutely zero overlap when it came to the most shared “trigrams” (three word phrases) on Facebook and Twitter.
On Facebook, people shared things like lists, questions and quizzes, warning posts, pictures, and funny posts.
On Twitter people shared more more serious and informative things like “the science of” or “the case for”.
If you know this, you can easily manipulate your headlines.
Take this post, for example. We could spin it to:
Facebook: 10 ways you can feel awesome about your web traffic (these are the BEST – especially #3!)
Twitter: The science of fast web traffic – and how you can now get people to your site quicker than ever
OK, the Twitter one wasn’t so great. But the point is, experiment to see if you get higher click-through rates.
Use An Image To Promote Your Content
Before you promote something to social media create an image based on your post.
Image-based posts always outperform text based, and images with (attractive) faces do the best.
Analyze Your Headline
Use a Headline Analyzer tool like this one to see how effective your titles are.
You can use this for product or blog titles.
Post on Quora
Quora can send you a lot of traffic when you post quality information.
This post is about “5 minute tips” so I’m not recommending that you write a dissertation, but I’ve seen some very quick comments get a ton of upvotes and traffic.
I’ve had some very quick-to-write posts get great traffic.
You can even sell products on your Quora when done in a useful way. For example, if someone asks about “Where does society get negative images of pit bulls?“, you can quickly (but helpfully) answer and include a picture of your “Don’t judge my pit bull” mug to show that you don’t feel pit bulls should all be judged negatively.
Create Shareable Content
“Write the best shareable informative content! Create interesting copy for your readers related to your industry.
Be as informative as you can, use high quality images and make the title of the article enticing!”
“One of my favorite ways to get more traffic is through recycling social media posts.
Who said that you can only post something on social media once?
It definitely wasn’t me.
In fact, I have been recycling social media updates for years and getting great results with my evergreen blog content.
Here’s the deal, not everyone is going to see your social media updates when you post them. So instead of posting something only once, why not post it again at a later date?
And when you have multiple status updates around multiple evergreen blog posts, you’ll have a nice library of status updates to choose from.
Of course, you can go next level and use a social media automation tool that will recycle and post your updates on your behalf – automatically. As a result you spend less time figuring out what to post and more time on engaging with your audience.
When you recycle social media updates, you’ll be able to make your evergreen content work even harder for you.”
“Channels such as Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn are especially effective in not only sharing valuable content to promote thought leadership but driving traffic back to your website at the same time.”
– Richard Lorenzen (reported on his behalf by Kayla Starta) (Twitter, website)
Blog Pages Rank Higher Than Posts
“There are tons of ways to increase the amount of traffic your website receives. The first thing I recommend you do is add a blog to your website and fill this with relevant, evergreen content.
If you use WordPress as a platform try to concentrate on pages as a content type (rather than blog posts). They often may rank higher.”
Include some long tail keywords in your blog posts, and promote them on social media. Use ViralContentBuzz to amplify content. Check long tail keywords using SEMRush or Searchmetrics (especially focus on competitors).
Even if these don’t instantly increase your traffic, over time, as they get linked to, they will.
Track your brand mentions with tools like Brand24 and proactively ask (where needed) if mentions can be also linked to your website.
These are [the] easiest ways of getting continual traffic, all it takes is some time (or money) to create some blog posts. And remember – getting traffic is not a sprint, it is a marathon.
Finally, don’t forget to interact with the traffic that appears on your site. If you can engage your audience, they will return, and that’s half the battle.”
“For me it is not about tools, but about strategy and execution. Look for holes in your competition: Take a look at your competition’s blogs and websites. Are there content holes they’ve missed that you can take advantage of? Ways to add value not already available and help you stand out.
I know that the more quality content I produce and post, the more regularly I do it, and the more I emotionally connect, engage, and converse with those I am looking to reach…the more my blog will become visited, shared and known. Spend time sharing content of those you want to share you content… liking and commenting on their posts.
Then…syndicate, syndicate, syndicate. Share your content via all social channels always including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn, which also makes it easy for others to share. And don’t be afraid to do it more than once periodically sharing old posts via your social channels, especially those that were well received. Also, let others freely repost your content with a link back to the original post, and whenever they do…syndicate that as well.
The critical point here is to create a steady stream of valuable and relevant content that your audience (friends/fans/followers), and any audience you are looking to attract, really cares about. Simply put…#NoLetUp!”
I hope you found these traffic-driving tips useful! If you have any advice of your own to share or know of anyone else I should contact, leave a comment below and let me know!
I hope your day is going great! I’m actually writing to you from an airplane today because I’m enroute to Chicago for some training. Fun times! :)
The picture to the left is from yesterday morning. Don and I both missed my nephew a ton so on Thursday I texted my sister to see what her plans were for the weekend. Luckily she didn’t have much planned so we flew her and my nephew out from Friday–Tuesday.
As always, we had a great time. Some highlights: we visited the toy store a couple times (I was unprepared with new toys due to the spontaneous trip), went to a Medieval Times-esque dinner, and my sister and I went to an escape room on Sunday night.
Don and I were both so sad when they left. We get so attached to my nephew!
And speaking of Don, I’ve been wanting to share a presentation of his with you. I was going to share it last week but knew some of you were excited to hear about the Instagram results so I waited. ;)
The presentation is called “Simple On-Demand Selling That Works In 2017” and is available 100% free on Facebook. Obviously I’m biased, hehe, but I think the presentation was really useful (and so did other people in the thread).
In it you’ll see a case study that Don went over explaining how he sold 7k units of a color changing mug. You’ll also learn:
Why you need to make your selling model as simple as possible
The top on-demand niches based on more than $35 million in data
What sells best on mugs and necklaces
His favorite advertising strategy – it’s “dirt simple” to steal one of his catch phrases ;)
This is very step-by-step and is 100% free, no opt-in, all available on Facebook. Check it out here:
