I Hope You Had A Good Tax Season, Because Next Year Is Going To Be A Nightmare

Busy season is over. Last Tuesday, tens of thousands of tax preparers simultaneously emerged from their months-long social cocoon in desperate need of nap, a tan, and a treadmill.

The Complete Guide to the Google Analytics Add-on for Google Sheets

SEOs and marketers always have a lot on their plates.

That's why we care so much about tools that save us time.

Any chance you get to automate some of your work is one that you should take.

That's why when I first came across the Google Analytics add-on for Google Sheets, I knew I had to share it with you in a post.

What exactly is this add-on, and why is it useful? I'm going to assume you know what Google Analytics is.

But you may not know what Google Sheets is. It's essentially the free spreadsheet competitor to Excel that Google has developed over the years.

The best part is your spreadsheets can live in the cloud and be worked on by multiple people at the same time.

The add-on I'll show you how to use allows you to pull data from your Google Analytics account using the API and create reports with it.

Not only that, you can re-run these reports at any time.

That's really powerful because once you create a report, you don't have to spend time remaking it.

Whether you work for clients or do marketing for an internal team, you can generate these reports on a regular basis for your meetings and progress reviews.

Why would you want this? If it's not clear yet, it will be soon. Playing with data in Google Analytics is fine, but it's not the most usable interface.

Compare that to a spreadsheet, where you can use a ton of different functions (like filtering, custom graphing, etc.) on the data you retrieve.

Additionally, it's really easy to generate those reports on a regular basis and make improvements whenever you'd like.

At this point, you should know if this add-on is going to make your life easier or not. If you know it will, keep reading on, and I'll show you the ins and outs of it. 

Step 1: Install the add-on

Installing the add-on is easy.

Start by opening a new Google Sheet.

Then, click on the “add-ons” menu option at the top, and choose “get add-ons.”

A new window will pop up. Type in “Google analytics” into the search box at the top right side, then press “Enter.”

There should be one obvious add-on with the Google Analytics name and symbol. Click it, then press the “+free” button on the next window to install it.

The add-on should now be installed for use with all your future sheets.

Click on the “add-ons” menu again, and you should see a new listing for “Google Analytics.”

If you don't see it there, you may have to refresh the page.

Finally, you should get a pop-up at some point, telling you the link to the support forum, but if you didn't get it, here's the link. If the add-on is not working correctly, that's where you should post your questions.

Step 2: Create your first report

This add-on, while it should simplify your life, can actually be a little overwhelming if you dive right in.

In this section, we'll create an example report and go over the basic settings and options you have.

Start by going back to the Google Analytics option in the “add-ons” menu, and this time, click on “Create new report.”

Once you do that, a menu like the one below should show up on the right hand side of your screen:

In order for this to work, you need to be signed in (in Sheets) to the same Google account that you use for Google Analytics.

The first few settings are obvious: give your report a title, and choose the website (property) that you want to analyze.

The metrics and dimensions are where things get interesting.

Metrics, or key performance indicators (KPIs), are the heart of most marketing reports. I wrote a detailed post on the 14 most common metrics for SEOs that you might want to refer to now.

Many of those metrics can be found in Google Analytics:

• Traffic


• Average time on page


• Pages per visitor


• Bounce rate

When you click on the “metrics” field, a list will appear with a huge variety of metrics. You can choose any metric you'd like for now, but I'm going to start with “users.”

While you'll probably want to choose more than one metric for your actual reports later on, one is fine for now.

The last field is the dimension field. In Google Analytics, you can filter data based on things like source, referral path, keyword, and so on. That's what dimensions are here-they allow you to segment your reported data.

For our example, pick any dimension you want, or leave it blank.

Then, finish off by clicking “create report.”

After a few seconds, you should see something like this:

Here's the confusing part: This didn't actually create the report that most people would expect. Instead, it just created the instructions that the add-on needs to run the report and pull data from your Analytics account.

Let's actually run the report: Now go back to the “add-ons” menu, but this time, click on “run reports.”

This will run all the reports you set up in the active spreadsheet, but since we only have one for now, it'll do just that one.

A few seconds later, you'll get a confirmation box, saying the report was run. And at the bottom, a new tab will appear:

Click the tab, and you should see the data in the report, as expected:

This will match your Google Analytics data, but feel free to double check.

You can create as many reports as you'd like. The settings will all be stored in the main tab. When you run your reports, you'll get a tab for each report (you won't get a new tab if the report has already been run before).

Editing reports: On the original “report configuration” tab, your report settings will always be available to be edited.

You can change dates, add and remove metrics or dimensions, and even add things like filters, which I'll go into next.

To add more than one metric to a report, you'll need to select the metric box, put the cursor at the end, and then press “alt + enter” to create a new line. Then type in the new metric as usual.

Step 3: Understand all the different options

Congratulations, you've run your first report!

But that's just the tip of the iceberg because there are a ton of different combinations and options in this add-on that you should be aware of.

Let's go through all the fields in the main report configuration tab, one by one. You need to know what each of them does and how you can use them:

• Report name – Just a quick note: if you delete the name in this cell, the report will not be run when you run your reports. This name will show up at the top of each report, but it will also be the label of the report sheet at the bottom of your spreadsheet.


• View (profile) ID - That's the ID of your Analytics property that data is being pulled from. It will be pulled automatically when you create the report. However, you could duplicate reports for multiple sites by copy/pasting the rest of the cells and changing this value.


• Start date/End date – You can specify the date range that the data is pulled from.


• Last N days - You can also specify to just pull data from the last “N” number of days, where N is any number you input into the cell. Note that you can use either this option or the start/end date option-not both.


• Metrics – You can add multiple metrics for each report. You can get a full list of the different metric labels here so that you can just edit the configuration instead of creating a new report every single time.


• Dimensions – You use these to segment your traffic to get metrics separated for each type of user. However, dimensions need to be compatible with the metrics in your report; otherwise, they won't work. If you're just typing in dimensions, go to that list of metrics, and select either a dimension or metric to see which ones are compatible.

• Sort - You can set up the report to automatically sort the results if you find yourself wasting time doing that manually. You'll have to manually input the metric or dimension here that you want to sort by (e.g., “ga:sessions”). You can sort in reverse by putting a minus sign in front (e.g., “-ga:sessions”).


• Filters – You can use filters to remove certain parts of your traffic that you don't want to see. For example, if you didn't want to include referral traffic in your report, you'd enter “ga:medium%3D%3Dreferral” in this box. Refer to the “filter syntax” and “filter operators” on this page to see what's available.


• Segment – This is true segmenting, allowing you to look at a specific section of data. To use this field, you'll need to enter a value like “sessions::condition::ga:medium%3D%3Dreferral.” You can find more examples here.


• Sampling level – There are three acceptable values here: “DEFAULT,” “FASTER,” or “HIGHER_PRECISION.” For most metrics, the default value (of “DEFAULT”) is fine. If the report is taking too long, choose “FASTER” to sacrifice accuracy for speed.


• Start index – If for some reason you want to ignore the first “X” results, you can do so by specifying a start index. For example, if you type in 5 here, the first 4 results will not be shown.


• Max results – You can choose the number of results to be returned in your reports, up to 10,000. By default, you'll get 1,000.


• Spreadsheet URL - If you want your report data to be sent to a different spreadsheet for any reason (e.g., if you have a sheet for a specific client already), you can just enter the URL of the file where the report should go.

I know that was a lot, but struggle through it, and you'll have everything you need to get going.

When you consider all these different fields, you can create just about any custom report you want. Be prepared for reports to fail if you're adding many values to them. Just add them one at a time, and tweak them until they work (test each time you add one).

Step 4: Create reports that are actually useful

At this point, you have a pretty solid understanding of what the add-on is all about and how to use it.

It's time to create reports that you'll actually use on a regular basis-that's the whole purpose of this exercise.

Although you might be good from here, let's outline the general steps:

1. Decide which metrics you want to measure


2. Decide which segments you want to analyze


3. Create the report


4. *Run the report periodically


5. Manipulate the results (sort, filter, graph) as needed

I put a star by #4 because there's an alternative. If you haven't noticed yet, you have a third option when you go to the add-on in the menu called “Schedule reports.”

With the scheduling feature, you can have reports run automatically every hour, day, month, etc.-basically, whenever you want.

Conclusion

Saving time and being able to create consistent reports from your analytics data are both important things for marketers.

If you create reports from Google Analytics on a regular basis, you'll likely benefit from giving this add-on for Google Sheets a try.

Once you've created a report, you can then make charts from the data or share the data directly with your client (if you don't want them messing around in Google Analytics).

If you have any questions about this add-on or tips on using it more effectively, please share them in the comment section below.

India Revokes Passport Of 'Panama Papers' Man Vijay Mallya

Vijay also reportedly buying up penthouses in midtown Manhattan.

Rainmaker Rewind: How to Write a Book Without 'Writing' a Word

Jim Kukral, host of Authorpreneur, has a fantastic guest on this week's show to discuss how to write a book without “writing” a single word.

Tucker Max, best-selling author and film producer, joins Jim to chat about what it takes to write a best-selling novel, and how sharing the ideas in your head with someone who can get them down on paper may be the best way to write a book.

Tucker Max's first book, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, is a #1 New York Times Best Seller, spent five years on the list, and has more than two million copies in print.

He has also been credited with being the originator and leader of a new literary genre, “fratire,” is only the third writer (after Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis) to ever have three books on the NY Times Nonfiction Best-Seller List at one time, and was nominated to the Time Magazine 100 Most Influential List in 2009.

Listen and learn.

Here are two more episodes you shouldn't miss this week:

This week, Patrick McGinnis joins Hack the Entrepreneur host Jon Nastor to discuss the importance of aligning a business idea with the passions and strengths of its founder.

Hack the Entrepreneur:

How to Become a '10% Entrepreneur'

In this episode of The Showrunner, Jerod Morris and Jon Nastor discuss the many benefits of mini courses and why your podcast is the perfect place to start prepping.

The Showrunner:

How (and Why) to Teach a Mini Course via Your Podcast

And one more thing …

If you want to get my Rainmaker Rewind pick of the week sent straight to your favorite podcast player, subscribe right here on Rainmaker FM.

See you next week.

The post Rainmaker Rewind: How to Write a Book Without 'Writing' a Word appeared first on Copyblogger.

How Our Startup Simplified Our Family Life

Three wins we automatically experienced by combining our family life and business startup together.

7 Reasons Your Outreach Emails Aren't Getting Responses and How to Fix That

Almost any online marketing campaign these days includes email outreach.

While social media has its place, email is universally the most personal form of contact you can make online.

Well-written outreach emails can get links, joint venture opportunities, clients, and just about any other good result you can think of.

The only problem is that most people can't write a good outreach email.

If you've sent a few thousand and have read some other guides on the subject, you likely have a good grasp of the basics and can write okay emails.

But are you honestly getting the responses you're looking for?

The fact that you're here right now probably means that you know you could do better.

And that's okay.

By the end of this post, you won't be sending just “okay” emails. You'll be sending good to great emails that almost always get a response as well as much better conversion rates (for links, sales, etc.).

I'll go over the 7 most common mistakes I see marketers, even smart ones, make on a regular basis.

Be honest with yourself because otherwise you won't be able to spot your mistakes and make improvements. 

1. Are you a liar, or do you seem like one?

I get several cold outreach emails a day. By now, I'm pretty good at spotting an outright liar or even someone who is just stretching the truth.

In a large portion of those emails, I see an opening line that sounds like:

I'm a huge fan of Quick Sprout…

Okay, cool.

The only problem is that I don't recognize your name from comments (on Quick Sprout posts) or from social media.

Surely, a “huge fan” would at least be subscribed to my email list. Surprisingly, a fairly large percentage of these emailers are not.

Right away, I feel lied to and usually delete the email.

A lie like that makes me assume that the emailer just searched for the top marketing blogs to pitch something to-no thanks.

Can you validate your claims? I'm always talking about creating data-driven posts and backing up all your claims with charts and studies.

Emails are no different.

If you claim you are a fan of someone or you enjoyed their work, prove it.

Here's one example:

I'm a huge fan of your work on Quick Sprout. Your emails Monday morning always get my week off to a great start.

Assuming you're actually on the email list, so far I believe you're not lying.

Another common opener is to tell someone you liked one of their articles. If you really liked it, you would have shared it on social media, left a comment, and, most importantly, applied it.

Don't just say you liked an article with nothing backing it up; no one believes it.

Instead, try something like:

I loved your post “How to Leverage Q&A Sites to Generate Traffic.”

Since I read it, I created a profile on Quora and have already driven 400 visits to my site.

The hardest thing to fake is sincerity. Don't say you're a huge fan or you love a post if you don't mean it.

2. You're asking for a lot of work

Chances are you're emailing fairly well-known bloggers in your niche.

They're busy people.

Even if they aren't incredibly popular, assume they're busy anyway because most people are.

Common sense should tell you that busy people are trying to get through emails quickly so that they can do productive things (emails usually aren't considered such).

So, if you're asking them to do a lot of work on their end, they'll be understandably hesitant.

Let me give you an example of a line that I often see in outreach emails:

Here's the link to my content: (link)

Please take a look at it, and let me know if you have any thoughts and if you think it's a good fit for your audience.

Do you see the problem with that?

You're asking the person to review your work, give feedback on it, and determine if it's appropriate for their audience.

The first reaction of any blogger will be:

Why on Earth are you sending me this if you're not positive that it's a match for my audience?

What could you do instead? Always minimize the time and effort that the person on the receiving end needs to spend if they decide to help you out.

To improve the above example, you could change it to:

Here's the link to my content: (link)

I'm sure it's a great fit for your audience because:

• (reason 1)

• (reason 2)

Just say the word, and I'll create an original summary of the results that you can copy and paste in a future article.

Now it's clear to them that you've done your homework and you understand their audience. As long as a quick glance at the content reveals that it's of a decent quality, you might be onto something.

Finally, offering to write a custom introduction or summary and making linking to your content easier will make the email even more enticing.

To finish off, let me give you a few more examples of what marketers ask in outreach emails that is too much work:

1. Watch this video and see if you enjoy it


2. Look at my new tool and see if the features are worth sharing with your audience


3. I'll write a guest post for you, but please suggest some article ideas

Before you send an email, always ask yourself: “Am I asking this person to do a significant amount of work?”

If so, find a way to reduce it.

3. This might sting-you're not special

I didn't really mean that; I am sure you are special in your own ways.

I'm referring to the fact that most emails do not reveal anything special.

If you ask someone to link to your content, why should they link to it and not to any one of the other hundreds of articles about the same topic?

Most emailers never address this question in their emails.

Let's look at an excerpt of a bad email:

I've just published a guide to making beets. If you're writing a post in the future that mentions beets, please consider using it as a reference.

What's special about that? Absolutely nothing.

Now, let's look at a better email:

I've just published a guide to making beets. It is the only beet-making guide that has step-by-step pictures as well as a complete video tutorial. I know I'm biased, but no other beet guide is as useful for a beginner as mine is.

You need to be able to quickly explain why your content or offer is special. Why should this person help you or work with you over all the other people out there (some of whom have already contacted them)?

4. I don't know you

Take a link building technique like the skyscraper technique. It involves a lot of cold outreach.

The average conversion rate is about 5-10%. That means you'd have to send 1,000 emails to get 50-100 links (pretty good).

It's a great technique that has its time and place, and I recommend it often, but it can easily be improved by removing the cold outreach.

If I get an email from someone I don't know, it's unlikely I'm going to do them a favor right off the bat.

If there's any indication that they're just after a link, their email goes in the trash.

That's why you get about a 5-10% conversion rate even though you're targeting the right people with the technique.

But when I do know someone? Of course, I'll read the email, and if it's a friend or even just a casual acquaintance, I'll help them if they have a reasonable offer.

Get to know someone before you ask for something: This is the hardest part of being able to create great outreach emails-there are no templates for it.

However, learning to build relationships is also the easiest way to skyrocket your success.

In general, you can break down the process into the following steps:

1. Make contact - You have a mutual interest in your niche, so use it to have a brief conversation through email, social media, or comments, preferably about their content.


2. Provide value – Anything you can do to help them out goes a long way. If you have any special skills, e.g., design, offer to create custom pictures for their content or update some graphics in their sidebar. If you're a writer, offer to update and upgrade a few outdated posts. Be creative.


3. Then ask for something – At this point, you're probably at least 4 weeks into the relationship (yes, it takes time). If you follow the other points in this post, you should be able to write a good email to ask for a link or whatever you're after. You'll have a much higher success rate (double or triple at least) than if you did it with a cold email.

All of this takes planning and having a genuine passion for your niche. If you don't care enough to spend weeks getting to know people in your niche that you could work alongside for years, you're taking the wrong approach.

5. I hate it when there “aer” typos

This is going to be a short but necessary section.

There is no excuse for typos in a short email.

One might go unnoticed, but two or more will be easy to spot.

It shows a lack of attention to detail and effort. If you're asking me to work with you or link to your content, having typos is not a good thing. I'll assume that you produce content of the same poor quality and will delete the email.

Almost every email service has a spell checker these days: use it.

6. No one wants to be “templated”

I've hinted at it so far, but let me be crystal clear:

Email needs to be personal.

If your email starts with “Hi”or “Dear Sir,” it's likely going into the trash.

If there's nothing about it that shows you know me well, it's also likely going into the trash.

Bloggers are rightfully skeptical of emails with little personalization in them. They are often sent out to hundreds of other bloggers to try to get links or something else.

Yes, some bloggers don't care, but most do these days. If you ever want a great reply rate, don't dismiss this crucial aspect.

While templates are useful to help you work out the general message you're trying to capture, take the time to personalize every single email you send.

7. It's all about you

Think of emails as conversations.

In real life, would you rather talk with someone who never shuts up about themselves or who cares about your wants, needs, and thoughts?

For 99% of people, it's the second one.

When you write any outreach email, always write it from the perspective of what's in it for the person I'm emailing?

Always explain how what you're asking for benefits their business.

If you're asking for a link, don't do what everyone else does and say: “I think your audience will love it.”

It's not horrible, but be honest, that's not a real benefit for the person you're emailing.

Asking for a link is typically a one-way street, which is why I recommend giving value well before asking for one (in reason #4 of this post).

Conclusion

Email outreach is one of the most effective ways to grow your business. You can use it to get more links (for SEO), generate more sales, and form partnerships.

However, most people make several mistakes in their email outreach campaigns and rarely get positive replies.

You might never write the “perfect” outreach email, but never stop trying to improve them.

Create a checklist based on the 7 things I went over in this post, and use it to make sure you are not making any of the mistakes before you send out an email.

This is how you spot problems, fix them, and learn from them. Eventually, it will all become second nature.

I'd love to hear about how you've used email outreach in the past and what results you've achieved. Just leave me a comment below, and I'll see it for sure.

Action Content: Turn Fans into Customers [Plus a Free Bonus for You]

This article is part of our series on the 4 Essential Types of Content Every Marketing Strategy Needs. Make sure to get your special free bonus at the end of the article.

So far, we've covered Attraction, Authority, and Affinity content. Now it's time to turn your fans into customers with Action content.

And this is where all the work you've done as a content marketer starts translating into revenue for yourself, your clients, or your organization.

The good news is that Action content is probably the easiest type of content to understand. But the bad news is that it can also be some of the most difficult to produce.

We'll dig into the reasons why shortly, but since we are in the habit of defining each term before we get started, let's do that here for Action content:

Action content is content designed to get somebody to take an action.

How about that for easy?

The marriage of copywriting and content marketing

Content marketing is a new kid on the block in some ways, surging in popularity in the last five years.

In other ways, content marketing has been paired with advertising for quite some time. Take John Deere's 118-year-old magazine, The Furrow, as an example.

The Michelin Guide, first published in 1900, is another great example of classic content marketing.

However, what I'm talking about here is the marriage between copywriting and content marketing.

A marriage between copywriting and content marketing helps you attract attention, increase engagement, and then ultimately, persuade someone to take action.

Types of actions

When you create content, you should have an action in mind that you'd like the reader to take. Actions could include, but aren't limited to:

• Asking your readers to comment on a blog post


• Asking your readers to share an article or podcast


• Asking people to participate in a poll or survey


• Encouraging people to download a free video training course


• Persuading people to subscribe to your email newsletter


• Convincing people to follow you on social media


• Enticing people to hire you


• Getting people to buy your product

Naturally, you'll want to start off with small requests. Get people used to taking your advice and following your instructions.

You first want people to say, “Hey, I want to pay attention to this person (or this company, or this brand) because it's really relevant to my current challenge and the journey I'm on.”

You get people to warm up to you and trust you - step by step - until the sale, and then the repeat sale or the recurring sale.

Let's look at some successful pieces of Action content.

Examples of Action content

The most obvious piece of Action content you will create is promotional - sales copy that you publish and run for the duration of the offer. After the sale is over, we recommend you remove the post from your site.

Action content also includes landing pages, like this one on content marketing that encourages visitors to register for Copyblogger's content library.

In addition to those two cases, your best content will combine all four types of “A” content. Here's a stellar example: What's the Difference Between Content Marketing and Copywriting?

What makes it so great?

• It's useful. The headline suggests you are about to learn something important. The question-style headline also helps attract attention. People wonder whether or not they do indeed know the answer. They think, “This might be too important to miss.”


• It's authoritative. Sonia Simone's years of working in the copywriting and content marketing world turned what could have been a shallow answer into an extended clinic in effective writing.


• It takes a stand. The content exposes people to one of our core philosophies at Copyblogger: Really good content is unsurpassed at building rapport, delivering a sales message without feeling “salesy,” and getting potential customers to stick around.


• It's laced with action. You might not see it at first blush, but this piece of content motivates readers to check out the educational resources Copyblogger has to offer - from the My.Copyblogger free membership site to the paid offers like Authority and Content Marketing Certification.

The success of this content wasn't accidental. There was a plan: the content primes people for when we actually do make an offer.

How to write Action content

Writing something interesting to fill space and keep people reading won't cut it here.

You need to pair your content with a business goal.

That's not as complicated as it might seem, because all you have to do is ask yourself this simple question before you write each piece of content:

What is the action I want my audience to take?

Now, getting people to actually take that action requires some skill. Like I said above, this is the hardest type of content to master. It takes time to learn copywriting skills, and it also takes time to master them.

The following resources can help you:

• Copywriting 101: How to Craft Compelling Copy


• The Copyblogger Conversion Series


• How to Be a Copywriting Genius: The Brilliantly Sneaky Trick You Must Learn


• 9 Classic Must-Read Direct Response Copywriting Books


• The Ultimate Guide to No-Pain Copywriting (or, Every Copywriting Formula Ever)


• The Ultimate Copy Checklist: 51 Questions to Optimize Every Element of Your Online Copy [Free Poster]

Once you've worked through that list, the next best thing you can do is to practice. Write. Then write some more.

And on that note, let me close with a little encouragement.

Keep your chin up

When I first got into copywriting, I threw myself into it whole hog.

I devoured every book I could get my hands on. Tore through successful promotional pieces. Listened to a legion of cassette tapes on the art of direct response copywriting, human psychology, and negotiations - yeah, this was way before podcasts. Wrote a mountain of sales letters, emails, and text ads (and then watched mentors tear them apart).

This went on for years. I thought I knew my stuff. However, it wasn't until about Year Five when things clicked … when I turned the corner and all that head knowledge became heart knowledge.

The moral of this short story is that if I can learn how to write Action content, so can you. But it's going to take time. Don't expect too much of yourself too soon. Just start learning, publishing content, measuring results, adjusting, asking for feedback, and so on.

You can do it.

Get your free ebook: 4 Essential Types of Content Every Marketing Strategy Needs

Build a content strategy based on the four content types in this series! Get your free ebook, 4 Essential Types of Content Every Marketing Strategy Needs.

Click to get the free ebook

Over to you …

What's your favorite example of Action content?

Drop us a note in the comments section below to share your thoughts.

The post Action Content: Turn Fans into Customers [Plus a Free Bonus for You] appeared first on Copyblogger.