This is it … your absolute last day to invest in the Rainmaker Platform at pricing that will never be seen again. The party’s over today at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time (you can read the original announcement with all the details here).
We hope you’ll join the Rainmaker family before we make the switch. Just head over to the site, check out all the amazing things Rainmaker empowers you to do, and start your free trial today.
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Category: Rainmaker Platform
Improve Your Writing and Last Chance for Rainmaker Platform
Brian wrote on Monday about the big news for this week: This is your last chance to pick up the Rainmaker Platform as a standalone service. We’re transitioning to a bundled hybrid of technology with client services … and that will come with a significantly higher price tag.
If you’ve been thinking about Rainmaker, this would be a great time to jump in. To get the advantageous pricing we have today, you’ll need to start your free trial before Friday, June 16, 2017 (that’s tomorrow) at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time.
On Tuesday, Stefanie asked if your blog necessarily needs a robust editing and proofreading process. And no, the answer isn’t automatically “of course it does.” Answer her three Socratic questions to see for yourself.
And on Wednesday, I shared ways to make your writing more colorful and lively … without getting into Dora the Explorer territory.
On the Copyblogger FM podcast, I talked about how to go from being a “training addict” to being the kind of person who actually implements great advice. And on The Writer Files, Robert Bruce interviewed the always-interesting Ryan Holiday about “why the long game is the only game,” as well as other intriguing topics.
That’s it for this week — have a great weekend, and we’ll see you Monday.
(And don’t procrastinate on the Rainmaker thing — get your free trial going with the current pricing before it goes off the market tomorrow.)
— Sonia Simone
Chief Content Officer, Rainmaker Digital
Catch up on
The Rainmaker Platform Goes Off the Market this Friday
The Rainmaker Platform is coming off the market this Friday at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time. To get the current pricing, you must start your free trial before the deadline.
Last month I told you about the Rainmaker Platform’s shift from software-as-a-service to a bundled hybrid of technology and client services, all at much higher prices. Before we do that, we’re offering one last chance for people who just want the Platform at the current lower pricing.
If you’re not familiar, the Rainmaker Platform is a complete digital marketing and sales solution. It combines powerful website features with email, marketing automation, and a ton of other powerful tools that you have to see for yourself. And yes, it’s the very technology that powers Copyblogger and thousands of other sophisticated sites.
When you choose the annual plan, you always enjoy substantial savings. But from now until we take it off the market, you’ll save hundreds of dollars more every single year when you get on board with the Rainmaker Platform.
Start your free trial today.
The go-forward development plan
Given the shift in business and operational models, you may be wondering what our plans are for continued software development on the Platform. It’s a great question, and I’d like to quickly address that.
If you get on board before the deadline, you’ll join thousands of existing Rainmaker customers. And we fully intend to keep all of you happy even as we serve a different market segment with the bundled services model. That’s a
A Big Week at Copyblogger
Ever been frustrated with putting a site together and wished someone could just do the whole thing for you? With custom graphics, copy, marketing automation, and even content strategy — all using Copyblogger principles?
Very soon, we’re going to be able to make that happen.
Our big news this week is that we’ve entered into a relationship with a new partner that will allow us to offer you an extensive range of done-for-you services in the very near future.
There’s plenty to talk about, including a significant price increase coming for new Rainmaker customers (but not for you if you’re already a customer or start your free trial shortly), so get all the details over on Brian Clark’s Thursday announcement.
On Monday, the editorial team revealed some of their “pet peeves” around content and writing. It’s always fun to gripe a little, but I also thought it would be interesting to explore what those peeves said about our values, as individuals and as a company.
On Tuesday, Beth Hayden let us know how she came to love writing sales pages — with three critical points we need to look at in our own efforts.
And on Wednesday, Brian let us know about an elegantly simple way to create excitement and dramatic tension in your content. This is one of those techniques that creates a massive impact with a modest effort, so do go check it out.
Over on the podcast, I talked with Tara Gentile about her new community for digital
Last Chance to Get the Rainmaker Platform at the Current Pricing
TL;DR version: The Rainmaker Platform is shifting from a pure technology play to software with services included before the end of June, at much higher pricing. That means if you want Rainmaker at its current pricing, you should start your free trial now.
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When we rebranded from Copyblogger Media to Rainmaker Digital in September of 2015, it was a firm statement that put the Rainmaker Platform at the forefront. But it was also a foreshadowing of where we saw things going.
We knew we were headed from software-as-a-service (SaaS), to software and service to create complete solutions. People need sophisticated marketing technology, yes — but they also need done-for-them services such as design, content, and lead generation strategy.
The technology is only getting more sophisticated, and we plan to remain at the forefront of that with Rainmaker. But sophisticated technology calls for equally sophisticated strategy and execution — and not everyone has that kind of expertise in-house.
Our original goal was to create marketing technology for entrepreneurs and small businesses that are doing content marketing themselves or via freelancers. In the meantime, we’ve been turning away businesses happily willing to pay for a more complete solution.
Our go-forward strategy is to follow what the market is telling us. We’re going to offer you the services that we’ve been teaching and doing for ourselves over the last decade.
A complete Rainmaker solution provider
We’ve been doing service work for our Rainmaker Platform customers for over a year, but it’s been very cautious.
6 SEO Friendly Tips to Improve Site Speed on WordPress Blogs
In the world of SEO, user experience on websites has always been a factor, as has the time it takes for a site to load.
However, with the use of mobile devices surpassing desktop use (in most consumer-facing industries) and the wide adoption of broadband, people expect sites to load instantly.
Long gone are the days of waiting 10 seconds for a site to load.
If a page takes more than a couple of seconds to load, users will instantly hit the back button and move on to the next result.
Accordingly, Google officially started paying attention to site speed and declared its importance as a factor in rankings.
In order to keep up with Google’s site-ranking measures, WordPress blog users need to know exactly what they can do to improve their own site speed.
Remember when Google rolled out AMP (accelerated mobile pages)?
They now serve up publisher content in a simplified Google hosted experience that renders superfast. I like AMP from a user perspective because I know that AMP content will load incredibly fast on my mobile device, but as a publisher:
I’d rather speed up my blog and attract traffic directly to my site than have users stay on Google.
If you use StudioPress Sites or the Rainmaker Platform, your site will already load quickly. However, adding ad scripts, featured images, tracking codes, 301 redirects, etc. will slow down the loading of a site and increase demand on your server/hosting company.
Here are six simple
7 Easy-to-Forget SEO Steps You Need to Consider Every Time You Publish
“But I don’t really think about SEO very much anymore.”
That was my initial reaction when we all agreed that March would be SEO month here at Copyblogger. At which point, of course, I knew I’d have to write about it.
“Look, I just create useful content for people. Do that, get it read, get it shared, get links, have good hosting and fast page-load times … and productive search engine results will follow, right? I mean, what else is there to say?”
Turns out, plenty.
Keyword research is more fundamental to your content marketing strategy than you may think. Also, you may already be making fatal optimization mistakes. Plus, who knew SEO advice could be so … practical? (Including #8, which will punch you square between the eyes.)
I read those articles, rethought my position, and decided to examine exactly how much I actually think about SEO on a post-by-post basis.
And, turns out, plenty. (Whether or not I realized it.)
It’s easy to forget about the basic steps I’m going to outline below, but they shouldn’t be overlooked. Because the minute I stop doing them is the minute my content starts attracting fewer targeted visitors. Same goes for you.
So let’s start at the top, because the first one is by far the most important of the seven — and it will take me the longest to explain.
(Note: I’m going to use my site AssemblyCall.com as an example throughout this post. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which
Try the Rainmaker Platform for Free (No Credit Card Required)
A lot has happened since we launched Rainmaker two years ago.
What started as an easier, more secure, and maintenance-free way to build a powerful website has become a complete digital marketing and sales solution.
The website aspects of the Platform are even more powerful, and are now complemented by integrated email, marketing automation, an online course builder, podcasting and content optimization tools, and much more.
I’ve spent a lot of time using the Platform myself over at Rainmaker.FM and Digital Commerce Institute, as well as my personal sites Unemployable and Further. This has been important for our software development process, because if we ran into something Rainmaker couldn’t do, we simply built it.
We had put off moving Copyblogger to the Platform, because a lot of what powers Rainmaker was custom-developed for this site years ago. More or less the same technology, until …
One day, I logged in to Copyblogger to get something done and realized I couldn’t do it myself like I could with our other sites. Rainmaker had left our legacy technology behind.
Naturally, I complained to the dev team. I didn’t tell them to do anything … I was mainly just venting.
So, they went ahead and moved Copyblogger to Rainmaker without telling me. The next time I logged in, it was a pleasant shock — after 10 years on WordPress, I saw the beautiful Rainmaker dashboard instead.
I think you’ll have a similar experience when you try Rainmaker for yourself. And the great thing is, we’re
3 Resources to Help Your Content-Driven Website Flourish
Although it’s only January, I refer to this time of the year as “pre-pre-spring” (in the Northern Hemisphere). Call me optimistic.
The gingerbread, cinnamon, and pine aromas of the holidays have certainly faded, but the sweet smell of flowers blooming and warm breezes haven’t quite arrived yet.
Still, it feels like the seasons are shifting and we’re moving toward a new beginning.
And we don’t have to impatiently wait for this change to occur — a powerful, content-driven website works for your business any time of the year. You can start building or expanding yours today.
This week’s Copyblogger Collection is a series of three handpicked articles that will show you:
How to discover your strengths and supercharge your business
How to become an unstoppable digital content creator
How to gain an unfair business advantage
As you work your way through the material below, the following lessons will help you set business goals for your content.
Discover Your Strengths and Supercharge Your Business
Whether you’re just getting started or you’ve been building your business for a while, you may feel confused about what you should focus on next. What’s the best step to take so you make the right type of progress?
In Discover Your Strengths and Supercharge Your Business, Sonia Simone shows you a way to narrow down all of the ideas running through your mind.
She outlines a simple plan that helps you slow down, take a deep breath, and produce the content that matters to you and your audience.
The Unstoppable Rise of the
Free Webinar: Unleash These 13 ‘Hidden’ Features of the Rainmaker Platform
The Rainmaker Platform has so many useful features, it’s easy to overlook a few here and there.
But one of those overlooked features may be exactly the feature you need to attract your next audience member or convert your next customer.
In this webinar, the sixth in our six-part Rainmaker Platform webinar series, Chris Garrett and I will walk you through 13 “hidden” features of the Rainmaker Platform that can make a big difference in your sales and marketing … once you know they’re there.
And, how to use them.
Among the features you’ll learn about:
Rainmaker’s front-end post and page editor
The built-in editorial calendar
Simple A/B testing
Redirect links … which can be created in two easy ways
The avatar shortcode (Rafal Tomal’s favorite!)
Plus many more.
Not only will we explain how to use these features, we’ll explain why they were included in the first place and what situations call for their use.
We hope you’ll join us. The webinar is free, and it takes place on Thursday, January 21, 2016 beginning at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time (4:00 p.m. CT).
And yes, we’ll take questions as we go.
Click here to register for this event:Unleash These 13 “Hidden” Features of the Rainmaker Platform
Even if you can’t attend live, still register. Once the replay is ready, we’ll email everyone who registered so you can get caught up and learn about these exciting Rainmaker Platform features.
We’ll talk to you next Thursday!
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