1. Why guest blogging? Your benefits
2. Finding a blog to connect with
3. Getting your proposal accepted
4. How to write an exceptional guest post

Why guest blogging?

Ann Smarty is authority on guest blogging and runs the successful MyBlogGuest community. She offer up how you can benefit from publishing a guest post and how not to think of it as a shortcut. Hint: You develop positive brand awareness, reputation and engaged fans… not SEO backlinks and instant traffic.

20+ Reasons Why You Need to Start Guest Blogging

What Guest Blogging is NOT: Getting It Right

Finding a blog to connect with

You need to find blogs who you’d like to work with and make a connection. Here are several excellent articles to help you find blogs that are relevant to the value you offer and are open to guest posts.

My 3-Step System for Finding Guest Post Opportunities – Problogger.net article by Jocelyn Ann

Want Guest Post Links? Find Them Via Twitter – Ethan Lyon created a great tool which he explains on SEOmoz

5 Reasons Why MyBlogGuest Is My Best Find After 5 Years As Webmaster - Daily SEO Tip explains why the aforementioned MyBlogGuest community is the place to make connections.

Getting your proposal accepted

Next you need submit your guest post proposal. Here are some helpful tips on what to do and what not to do. Hint: Put yourself in the blog owner’s shoes. Always remember guest blogging is not a numbers game. If you spam and send half-baked mass proposals, you won’t get the benefit.

12 Ways to Guest Post on the Greatest Group Marketing Blog – MarketingProfs

4 Tips for Pitching Guest Posts Like a Pro – Problogger.net post by Aman Basanti of ageofmarketing.com

The 2 Biggest Guest Blogging Mistakes You Can Make – DailyBlogTips

Write an exceptional guest post

Now it is time to write and publish an excellent post. Here are the fundamental elements to include in your guest post that will help you successfully develop your brand and reputation.

A Quick and Dirty Guide to Your First Guest Post – Neil Patel offers the ultimate guide to writing a guest post on Problogger.net

Creating a Funnel with Your Guest Posts – DailyBlogTips

What additional resources do you recommend to help learn how to guest blog?

Picture of the Week

Image: Two Cows in Pt. Reyes National Seashore in California by AnnaOne

Related posts:

1. Prime Angus Filets: Links this Week 1-4-2008
2. Prime Angus Filets: Links this Week 1-11-2008
3. Angus Prime Filets – Links of the Week 11-11-11 Edition

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Post tags: angus, blogging, content, how-to guide, Links of the Week, tips, traffic

Warning: Royalty free in many cases does not me free to use. Almost all images you find on the internet are likely copyrighted. You don’t want someone copying your creative work. Please don’t infringe on the copyrights of these easily accessible stock photos.

Please verify the terms or use for images from these stock photo services before using them. Even if a photo or graphic is not copyrighted, it is always good karma to mention or link to the creator.

Free stock photos, but don’t steal

Here are the three best websites to find absolutely free photos. For these you will see the term “Creative Commons”. Check out this excellent description of creative commons terminology.

1. Flickr – The best place to find unique photos from professionals and amateurs alike. Most of these images are copyrighted. For free images, go to the creative commons section. It is full of images that are free to use. Make sure to see very cool public domain photos from the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library.

2. Historical Stock Photos- A large collection of historical images that are now available to the public domain for free.

3. Google Images - Google image search makes it incredibly easy to find images of almost anything. Again, the use of many of these images is restricted. Just be prudent when using them.

4. Creative Commons Search - Use Creative Commons Search for more than just photos. You can also search for music, videos, writing and even code.

Top stock photo sites

Stock photo sites are royalty free, but not entirely free. These sites allow you to purchase a professional image once and use it for multiple times without having to pay a royalty each time. When using or joining these sites, make sure to review the terms of service for exact rules and regulations.

5. Stock.Xchng - This community where creative people can share their photos has approximately 400,000 images available. Most of the images are free, but you will want to contact the creator to make sure it is okay. Stock.Xchng is also now part of Getty Images (see below).

6. Fotolia - Fotlia has around 15 million images, vector art and videos in its archives. Images start from only $0.75 on a pay as you go model. If you use a lot of images, then it is worth a monthly subscription starting at just $75 for use of up to 5000 images.

7. iStockphoto - Millions of high quality images are available here. Each image has a different credit value. You can purchase “credit packs” or a subscription.

8. BigStock - Millions of low cost stock images are here too. BigStock also uses the credit approach for payment toward individual pictures. Their credit packs net out to a $0.99 starting price.

9. Alamy – Alamy says it is the largest stock image website with over 27 million images. Purchase images individually so that you don’t have to worry about wasting unused credits. They also have a cool iPad app.

10. ShutterStock - Shutterstock is the largest subscription-based stock photo agency. Thousands of photographs, illustrations, and vectors are added to their exceptionally high quality collection every day. Shutterstock is best for hi-res images for advertisements and print. It is a little more expensive with 1 hi-res image starting at $19, but well worth it for incredible images.

11. Corbis Images - Purchase image CDs that can be used for unlimited commercial use royalty free.

12. Getty Images - Most professional marketers know the Getty name. They are the leading provider of digital media worldwide with a range of assets – from royalty-free stock photography and editorial images to video, music and multimedia.

 Specialized Stock Photos

13. Arabian Eye – Some of the most incredible imagery comes from the Middle East. Arabian Eye is a specialized resource for Middle Eastern pictures run by Corbis Images.

14. VectorStock - A lot of stock photo sites now include vector images. However, Vector Stock specializes in only royalty-free vector backgrounds, textures, icons and images. So they have access to some truly unique vector art.

15. Vecteezy – Vecteezy is another vector-only resource. Very cool, leading edge graphics can be found here.

16. Sweet And Talented – Do you want to include a picture of Angelina Jolie on your site? Or pictures from Harry Potter? Sweet and Talented is a great resource for photos of movie stars, musicians and celebrities.

17. PhotoEverywhere – Choose from over 3500 free travel stock images on this website. PhotoEverywhere focuses on well-known tourist destinations from cities like San Francisco to Caribbean beaches to the Scottish Highlands. I especially like that they offer panoramic images.

18. bigfoto.com - bigfoto.com offers completely free images from around the world. Just make sure to include a link back to the creator or their website.

19.Trip Album – This site is in French, but is very easy to navigate. Trip Album has incredible photographs of exotic places in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

 More stock photos for great prices

20. Dreamstime – Dreamstime is quickly becoming the most popular source of photographs for advertising agencies, magazines and media companies. The reason is that they have a very focused selection of memorable images that start at just 20 cents.

21. everystockphoto.com – Everystockphoto.com is a combination image search engine and blog that lists millions of photos from many sources.

22. freerange – As a free-to-join membership site, freerange makes it very easy to find exceptional photos. The cool thing is that photographers are rewarded for giving away their images for free by getting a share of freerange’s ad revenue. So you get free images and the photographer still gets paid. Win-win!

23. Depositphotos – Images start at just $0.50, but their monthly subscription programs bring your costs way down.

24. Thinkstock – Very high-quality professional images that come in packs starting at $99 or through subscription programs starting at $199 per month.

25. Photl.com - The unique feature of this website is that these photo images are not widely circulated and are contained only in photl.com base. Download up to 40mb worth of images daily.

26. 123RF – 123RF is a fantastic image search engine. Many of the images are free for the low-res pictures, which is perfect for most blogs or websites.

27. morgueFile – morgueFile is a haven for creative professionals. Very cool imagery can be used free as long as you aren’t using it commercially (like re-selling it or claiming that it’s yours).

28. Epictura – Epictura is a bank of 11 millions stock images perfect for corporate communication. They edited and compile stock pictures from Corbis, Pixtal, Fancy, Denkou & PhotoAlto and thousands of agencies and photographers.

28. RGBStock – RGBStock is a smaller site, but completely free for use on your blog or website.

29. Pixmac - Pixmac has millions of stock images. Prices start from $0.92 per image using a credit purchase model.

30. Jupiterimages – Jupiterimages has compiled over 2.5 million royalty-free stock photos and illustrations from Getty Images and other premium-quality collections.

31. StockLib – Last but not least, StockLib is a subsidiary of Epictura. They have over 11 million royalty-free stock images from as low as $1 for use on your blog.

There are hundreds of other royalty free stock photo websites around. These 31 recommendations should be plenty for your project though. These sites offer unimaginably huge selection, but I bet you can find other very focused niche stock image sites if you need to dig deep. What sites do you use or recommend?

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this list are affiliate links. However, my recommendation of these stock photography websites is not based on my financial gain. These are the sites that I use and fell they are worth sharing.

Related posts:

1. Free Website Launch Checklist and Daily Tracker
2. Free Creative Brief Template
3. FREE – Jeremy Palmer’s High Performance Affiliate Marketing ebook

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Post tags: best practices, content, free resources, graphics, list, photography, web design

1. Don’t tell your agency what to do creatively

Probably one of the biggest traps to fall into is telling your agency or freelancer exactly what to do. Resist the urge no matter how creative you are. You’ve hired them for their creative skills and to produce great work. Let them do it. Unleash creative teams to bring in their experiences and unique insights to develop an exceptional campaign. And frankly, the project won’t be as fun for them if you dictate the creative details you want in your creative brief.

2. Provide high impact proof points

One of the key difference makers in a creative brief is to include some key data points – meaningful facts, research results, milestones, 3rd party confirmed rankings, customer testimonials, anything that your creative team can leverage. These proof points give creative teams something to build on to develop influential messages and avoid blah, blah, blah marketing. From an audience standpoint, these proof points validate any marketing claims and help them affirm their decision to act.

3. Tell stories

Sometimes the “a-ha” moment coming from a creative brief isn’t in the bullet points. Good creative teams can tease out something meaningful or emotionally evocative from anecdotes and real world experiences with your company, product or service. You probably won’t be able to write out the whole story in your creative brief. Just add some reminders in the document and then be the storyteller when reviewing the brief with the team or agency.

4. Don’t use the same creative brief again and again

It is likely that you will work with the same agency or team more than once. Or you are promoting the same product, but just creating a different campaign. To avoid getting diminishing or mediocre results, I highly recommend that you don’t reuse the same design brief over and over again. Refresh the content of your creative brief with each project… even if the target audience and proof points are the same. It signals the creative team to stay engaged and thinking of the next exceptional campaign, because you are engaged too. If you feel the brief isn’t that important to update or don’t put in the effort, you should expect equivalent lackluster results from the project.

5. Define measurable objectives

We all know to make our goals measurable, right? Make sure to include objectives with more than just a generic statement like “increase ROI” or “drive more leads”. Give an actual target number. Better yet, substantiate that measurable objective with any baseline results or analytics you have. For example, let them know that your last three campaigns had an average conversion rate of 7%. That objective is much more actionable.

6. Better targeting through buyer personas

Describing the target audience and what motivates them can be considered the most important element of a design brief. Paint a picture of the types of people who will buy to get the most out that section of the brief. You want your creative team to be able to mentally step in that buyer’s shoes. What is their job? What do they do day-to-day? High-level industry or broad customer segmentation information is useful, but providing your creative team with personal details is where you get great ideas.

7. What drives action?

Building on the buyer persona tip, the next secret is to tap into what will drive the buyer act. Take the persona information a few steps further by 1) describing what motivates the target buyer and 2) identifying what emotion can induce action. What do they do to get a raise or make their life easier? Answer questions like that to uncover motivations and to show examples of what a person actually does, based on that motivation. Then figure out an underlying emotion associated with that action. For example, do they feel something positive like association or comparative advantage or something negative like scarcity or loss aversion?

There is a lot of great information you can provide in a creative brief. Use these secrets to maximize results of your campaigns and projects. Check out the creative brief template that I use. It includes reminders for each these tips. Feel free to download it and use it for your next project.

What’s your secret ingredient to a great creative brief?

Related posts:

1. Free Creative Brief Template
2. 3 Infographs That Hold the Secrets to Your Twitter Success
3. 5 Work Tips You Can Learn from Running a Marathon

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Post tags: best practices, content, creative, design, download, education, how-to guide, productivity, template

The creative brief template below is the same one that I use for all of my projects. It provides key design considerations and a list of questions that will help describe your project or campaign. As the subject matter expert for your project, you are best suited to explain relevant details about the target audience, key messages, and brand guidelines. It can take time to complete a thorough creative brief, but you will save a lot of time over the course of the project and most likely result in top quality, high impact creative work.

It is also important that you sit down and discuss your creative brief with your design or creative team. Give them inspiration and share your knowledge, but avoid prescribing the creative elements. Or as the excellent creative brief guide from AdCracker.com says,

Great advertising and design briefs have insights and anecdotes – quotes from buyers, interesting stories about the company, key research findings. Stuff like that.
Bummer briefs are incomplete, or dictate the creative, or use ambiguous language. Fluff like that.

Here is the creative brief template that I use. You may also download a MS Word or Adobe PDF version.

Download Creative Brief Template – MS Word (.docx)

Download Creative Brief Template – Adobe PDF (.pdf)

Creative Brief Template

Overview

Provide a brief description of project and the expected deliverables. Keep this overview to just one paragraph as this is the creative brief only. Additional details can be referenced in the Resources section.

Objectives

List 2-3 desired outcomes and strategies for success, including measurable results if possible.

Schedule and Budget

Identify the target due date for the finished project and any event date driving completion. Also include major milestones or checkpoint dates that occur during the creative and production process.

Provide budget information for the project as appropriate.

Target Audiences

Target audience is the most important part of the creative brief. Describe the target audience and all relevant characteristics that will help “put you in the audience’s shoes”.

Provide the following types of audience information:

• Audience types – relevant industry, market segment description
• Buyer types – relevant description of individuals by role business decision maker, technical buyer, marketing, sales, etc.
• Key motivations – What makes them act? What emotion can we connect with?
• Key issues – What are their problems that we can solve?
• Characteristics – Where do they access information? What types of media do they consume?
• Demographics – gender, age, etc.

Key Messages

Present information that can be used in developing the creative:

• Benefits and features
• Facts and proof points – rank by a credible 3rd party, major milestones
• Testimonials, case study examples

Call to Action

What action do you want the audience to take? Where do they go or click?

Creative Considerations

Identify any requirements and brand considerations that impact format, copy, and visual elements, including:

• Format – web, print, video, sound
• Layout – considerations in accordance to brand guidelines
• Tone – personality or voice that resonates with the audience or as required in accordance to brand guidelines
• Visual – color palette, typography, graphics, photography, logos, icons
• Localization – any language or regional considerations or requirements

Resources

Link to additional resources and reference materials that can be researched during creative development, including:

• Brand guidelines
• Existing source materials, including business plans, technical documentation, or websites.
• Competitive analysis
• Benchmarks or best of breed comparable examples
• Legal considerations

You feel free to download the MS Word or Adobe PDF versions of this creative brief template.

Download Adobe PDF (.pdf)

Download MS Word (.docx)

Related posts:

1. 7 Creative Brief Secrets Every Marketer Should Know
2. Free Website Launch Checklist and Daily Tracker
3. 31 Royalty-Free Stock Photo and Image Sites

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Post tags: best practices, content, creative, design, download, education, productivity, template

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Post tags: affiliate marketing, blogging, content, traffic