James McAllister Online

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  • How Interviewing A Major Celebrity Changed My Business Forever

    It was 9 AM on a Tuesday morning. Coffee in hand, I started my work day, checking my website’s email to see what sort of letters I get today. As usual, the majority of it is spam. “Your PayPal account has been limited”. “My husband died, and I’d like to transfer $3,999,999 to your bank account.” Sound familiar? 🙂

    I click over to the final email in my inbox, when my eyes shoot wide open.

    “Hello James! I’m a publicist on NBC’s upcoming show “The Million Second Quiz.” She then continues to discuss a little bit about the show.

    “Given iOS Universe’s emphasis on new apps and iOS technology, we would love to work with you on spreading the word about this exciting first for network television. Would you be interested in conducting an interview with “MSQ”‘s executive producer, Eli Holzman? He can talk about “Million Second Quiz” and its revolutionary format.” (For privacy reasons, I’m changing the emails around a little bit, but they are very similar to what’s written here.)

    What? WHAT? Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I had figured this had to be a fake letter. My blog is only receiving a few thousand visits a day, and NBC, a major television network are contacting me for business related activities? Is this real?

    Despite the fact that their email was from NBC’s domain, I was skeptical. I asked my close friends what they thought about this. They were also skeptical. I found the LinkedIn profile for the person who was emailing me, and sure enough, everything matched up.

    Nervously, I responded saying that I would be interested in the opportunity. We talked a bit about what the focal point of the interview would be, and who I would be talking to. Then we scheduled a date and time. Friday, 1 PM.

    “You’ll be speaking with Eli Holzman, one of the executive producers of the show, along with Michael Martin from the NBC Digital team who was instrumental in developing the app. Eli’s bio is attached. I can set up a conference line so that you can all chat.”

    The day came quicker than I thought. Here I am, a 17-year old high school student about to conduct a HUGE interview. I was nervous, shaking almost. Strangely, I get nervy talking on the phone to people I know, let alone a group of major celebrities!

    I wondered what the heck I had gotten myself into as I called in.

    “Hello?”

    “Hey, are you James McAllister?”

    “Yes I am.”

    “Great. Mr. Holzman is running late, he’ll be with us in a few moments.”

    Oh great, I thought to myself. What was I supposed to do in the mean time? Was I supposed to talk? Remain silent? My heart was thumping.

    Thankfully, the wait wasn’t too long. Within a few minutes, Eli Holzman entered the conference call. One of the other members answered,

    “Hello Mr. Holzman? Mr. McAllister from iOS Universe is here with us for the interview.” The entire time, they treated me like I was the celebrity.

    “Great, let’s get started.”

    Nervously, I began asking questions, notepad in front of me. You could tell I was very nervous. Fortunately, they were very laid back with their answers, telling stories and jokes as the interview went on. As I ran out of questions, I asked them if there was anything else they’d ask me to include in the article. I just wanted it to be over. The entire thing lasted about 15 minutes, but it felt like hounvrs. When it was over, we thanked each other and hung up.

    I had done it. I had just interviewed a major television producer, and several of the world’s top application developers. It was the scariest thing I had ever done, but I did it.

    I quickly and carefully wrote up an article. Then I edited it about 10 times. I wanted it to be perfect, but I wanted it released in a timely manner. Despite how scary it was, I wanted to get more opportunities like this, because it felt great.

    After about an hour and a half, the article was published. It was the best thing to ever happen to my website.

    Why?

    I added myself to the Wikipedia page along with some more information about the show. At the time, I was one of the first references on the page. I quickly began ranking very highly for several of the show’s main keywords. My website had exclusive information, that wasn’t published anywhere else. As a result, I got a TON of backlinks, and my traffic nearly doubled.

    On top of that, every time a commercial ran for the show (which became increasingly frequent as it got closer to the release date) I’d see a huge surge of traffic. I remember a commercial coming on once while I was working at my computer. Curiously, I checked Google Analytics to see hundreds of people beginning to read my article. This continued throughout the time the show was aired. I made a ton of money during that period, and all the extra backlinks kept my site ranking higher than ever before.

    It wasn’t long after that I started receiving invitations for sponsored posts paying several hundreds of dollars or more. Unfortunately, I haven’t had any huge opportunities like that since, but I know they will only become more and more frequent as my websites grow.

    I consider this the highest point in my business so far, and couldn’t think of one single event that has done for my business and me personally than that one. Take advantage of every opportunity you can, because you never know how beneficial they could be for you.

    Have you ever had any opportunities like this one? How did they go for you? I’d love to hear about your experiences!

  • The Benefits Of A YouTube Channel For Your Website

    Are you taking advantage of the world’s 2nd largest search engine?  Are you utilizing potentially the biggest entrance door to your website in existence? Chances are, you’re a regular user of this site. But are you profiting from it?

    The fact of the matter is, YouTube is an incredibly powerful resource for your business provided you’re utilizing it as you should. In this article, we will discover the potential benefits of having a YouTube channel for your website. (more…)

  • Do Forum Signatures Give Any SEO Benefit

    Is it possible that one link inside of a forum signature could send you to the front page of Google? Are forum signatures the key to blasting your rankings above all of your competitors? Should forum posting be part of your SEO strategy?

    Ten years ago, this actually could’ve been true. Unfortunately, today forum signatures are near worthless for SEO value.

    Why? Well, to start off, most forum signatures these days are nofollow, and as we know, there is little value to nofollow links in terms of SEO benefit. But what about the forums that allow dofollow links in signatures? These don’t have much value either.

    First of all, these links are incredibly easy to reproduce, which makes them instantly devalued by Google. After all, you only need to make another post on that forum to have another link back to your website.

    Secondly, forums often have a TON of outbound links on every page. This also drastically decreases the SEO benefit of all the links on the page.

    This is why it is so important to focus on the quality of your backlinks rather than the quantity of them. One backlink embedded in quality content from a reputable website is far more valuable than even 1000 forum posts.

    How Forum Signatures Are Still Useful For Driving Traffic

    Now, that’s not to say that forum signatures are completely useless. In fact, quite the opposite – I have personally received over 10,000 visits from various forums from my signature alone. The thing is that today, forum signatures are only beneficial for human eyes rather than the eyes of search engines. Get people to read your signature, and they just might visit your website!

    How To Make An Eye Catching Forum Signature:

    1. Use images with bright but easily noticeable colors if the forum allows it.
    2. Clearly state what your website is about, and why people should visit it.
    3. Make sure people know where to click – make the link to your website easily visible.
    4. Contribute valuable content to the website. Not only does this get more people finding the thread in search engines, it also gets more people reading your post in depth rather than simply skimming over it. When people like what you have to say, they are far more likely to visit your website.
    5. Important: NEVER spam. Not only will this not add any value to the conversation, it gives a poor image to your website and may also result in getting you banned from the forum. This wastes both your time, as well as the forum admin’s time.

    By following these tips, you’ll be able to create a great eye catching forum signature that will bring in slow but steady traffic for years to come.

    Although forum signatures do not give any SEO benefit, they are still wonderful for bringing human visitors to your website. In the end, forum posting can be an extremely rewarding traffic method and you should definitely include it as part of your marketing strategy. You’ll thank me later!

  • Why Organic Traffic Triumphs Viral Traffic

    Which of these two options sound better to you? One, you could have a blog post go viral, bringing thousands of visitors to your website in one day. Or two, you could have one well optimized post that brings you a small amount of organic traffic (that is, traffic from search engines) each day. A lot of people would choose option one – how cool would it be to see hundreds of shares on one of your post, hundreds of visitors browsing your website at one time, right? Well guess what – a lot of people are wrong. The steady organic traffic would by far be the best option, and here’s why. 

    Let’s take a look at the reasoning behind why things go viral. It’s not always because the content was amazing, no, you could have the world’s best content go completely unnoticed. It’s almost like a snowball effect – the psychology behind this is that, if people see someone sharing a post, so they read it, and they think they should share it too. So what happens?

    More and more people start sharing the content, and it gets a lot of views for a day, a week, if you’re lucky, maybe even a month. But then it dies down, and people forget all about it. Now this would be fine, except for one thing. Most of the people that were exposed to the article didn’t care about the topic, they weren’t actively looking for it.

    Organic traffic is completely different. Not only will it probably bring you more traffic in the long run (due to its consistency) it’ll also make you significantly more money. Why? Organic traffic is targeted traffic. Let’s think about it for a moment.

    When you type something into Google, you’re looking for something specific. You’re looking for a piece of information that you need. That piece of information is important to you. You click on one of the results, and it tells you what you’re looking for.

    What does this mean?

    When you attract organic traffic, you can be sure that the person is actually interested in the topic at hand. This provides extremely more potential for sales than if someone clicked on your article through Facebook, for example. The clickthrough rate for your advertisements will be higher, because people will actually be interested in the ads that will serve. The conversion rate for affiliate sales will be much higher.

    Let’s take an example of this, and show how it works. Let’s say for example, you were a visitor, and were looking to buy a Studiopress/Genesis theme for your blog. You type in “Genesis Framework Review” on Google, and are presented with a full review covering everything you’ve wanted to know about the framework. You are convinced it’s the one for you, so you buy it through that person’s affiliate link. The webmaster has made a sale due to the organic traffic he got to his review page.

    Now let’s say someone shared his review on Twitter. It would get clicks, but those people that do click on it aren’t actively looking for new themes, and so they’re less likely to spend the money to buy one. See what I mean?

    We all want traffic. We all want our posts to be shared, and go viral. However, if your goal of your website is to make money, you should instead focus on building natural, organic traffic. Not only will it make you more money in the long run, you’ll get more traffic from it as well. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.

  • GPT-3 And Beyond: How It Affects Content Publishers

    Note: This article is outdated. GPT-3 is now considered an ancient model. I’m leaving this article up for legacy purposes.

    GPT-3 may bring the single biggest shift to content publishing, since the advent of the internet.

    Yet while this technology may radically change the publishing and SEO landscape, it also comes along with a huge host of benefits – benefits that you can take advantage of today.

    Although the general public doesn’t know it yet, this is a transformative technology that will have far-reaching effects for everyone.

    The most exciting part?

    It’s just getting started. (more…)

  • Branding Success Comes From Sticking To The Basics

    You probably already know everything that you need to succeed.

    And if you’re like most people, there’s a chance you’re not actually doing it each day.

    I had an interesting realization the other day. When progress comes to us slower than we feel that it should, our natural inclination is to look for the reason why.

    We want to know what we’re doing wrong, and why the results are not showing up.

    By doing so, we jump on opportunity after opportunity, but never stick with any of them long enough to actually see them through.

    The funny thing is, there are no secrets. Chances are, you’ve already been told everything you need to find some initial success with your brand. I call these actions ‘The Basics’, and I’m going to share them with you here. (more…)

  • 7 Lessons I Learned Recording My First Podcast With A Guest

    I recently tried out something that I’ve been putting off for months.

    Something I made countless excuses to avoid, out of my own personal fears and insecurities – recording an hour long podcast episode, on the spot, without much preparation.

    It was incredibly eye-opening, and I learned a lot. Seeing as this was a type of content that I had never really created before, I wasn’t entirely sure how things would pan out.

    Podcasting is going to continue to rise in the coming years, and as entrepreneurs I think it’s important that we take advantage of audio content. Because of that, I wanted to share the personal lessons I learned – both to help you get off the ground faster, and avoid some of the mistakes I made during this first recording.

    1. If Possible, Try This With A Friend First

    I was pushed forward with this because of a friend and student of mine, Mark Newsome from YouCanMarketOnlineNow.com.

    This was Mark’s idea, and I owe him all the credit for actually pushing me to go through with it.

    And to be quite honest with you, there’s a good chance I’d still be delaying if the opportunity wasn’t so perfect.

    Podcasting with a guest, unlike writing or doing audio / video by yourself, can make you feel a lot of pressure. My biggest fear wasn’t the time investment needed to get this done, it was things like the following:

    • Embarrassing myself in front of someone that I respect.
    • Wasting Mark’s time, and potentially losing the ability to collaborate with him in the future.
    • Setting a poor impression of myself.

    It sounds pathetic, but I was practically shaking when it came time to start recording. Throughout the process, I had to stop several times and recollect my thoughts before continuing on.

    Working with a friend makes this possible. If you’re nervous about starting audio like I was, try it out with somebody that you can trust. Mark allowed me all the time I needed to reorganize myself and push on. After the first 15 minutes of recording, I already felt so much better.

    It also helped that he was a wonderful speaker. (P.S: If you’re running a podcast in the business space, I’m sure he’d love to be on it.) 

    2. It Really Doesn’t Take That Much Time

    Another huge fear I had about running a podcast was the time commitment.

    I am working 100-hour weeks right now. Any new time commitment usually means that I have to cut attention somewhere else. Running 3 companies, I understand that I’m spreading myself dangerously thin.

    I was pleasantly surprised how quickly the entire process of producing this episode took.

    Overall, the hour-long episode took about an hour and a half to record (due to pausing mid-way, along with preparation beforehand.

    Editing took about another two hours, and this is something I will certainly pass off to an assistant once I’m doing this regularly.

    Lastly, I’ve taken some segments I’ve particularly liked and repurposed them for social posts and YouTube videos. This took about another hour.

    So all-in-all, about 4 and a half hours for 1 hours worth of content. 3 hours of that will eventually be outsourced.

    Am I willing to give up an hour and a half per week to run a podcast, with all of the benefits that podcasting provides? You bet!

    3. Podcasting Is Completely Different Than Writing

    If this episode was any indication of what’s to come, than I can say with certainty that podcasting requires a completely different skill set than writing.

    The fact that everything is on-the-spot makes things challenging. Not to mention, you need to deliver your message in a clear, understandable manner, and speak with confidence.

    This is certainly a skill that can be developed over time with practice.

    I can’t wait to listen back to this first episode a year or two from now, after I’ve had much more practice. I’m sure the difference will be night and day.

    One thing that helped me was to think back to the first time I ever published written content online.

    Chances are, your first piece of content wasn’t world-class. The same will likely be true with audio. While some people probably are naturally gifted speakers, this is a skill that must be built over time.

    Embrace the idea that your first episode won’t be that great. As long as you keep practicing, things will surely get better in time.

    For a fun little exercise, take some of your favorite podcasters and scroll back to their very first episode. It will be clear how far they’ve come!

    4. Run An Audio Test Beforehand

    I screwed up.

    It wasn’t until I began the editing process that I realized my microphone was suffering from pretty bad electrical interference. You can understand everything I’m saying, but there is static in the background that was very difficult to remove without also damaging the parts where I actually spoke.

    I thought that I was fine, because I was monitoring my audio as I was recording it. I couldn’t hear any electrical interference while I was talking.

    When I played it back however, it was clear as day.

    A simple 30 second recording before I got on the call with Mark would have prevented all of this. Now, the audio quality will suffer due to my mistake.

    Even if you’ve used your microphone hundreds of times before, run a brief test before you actually begin your call. If it saves you even one time, it’s worth it.

    5. Your Guest’s Audio Won’t Be Ideal – Invest In Tools

    Mark’s audio wasn’t perfect either – and this isn’t his fault. As a host, you need to be prepared for whatever audio setup your guest is currently running.

    A while back I invested in iZotope’s suite of audio processing software. While I’m not suggesting you need to go out and drop $1000 on audio processing tools right now, don’t be afraid to make the investment if the right deal comes up. These tools saved me literally hours of working on both of our audio, and boosted the quality as much as it reasonably could.

    I asked Mark to record his audio separately, and it allowed me to do so much more to each of our individual recordings. Some of the tools I used included…

    • Adobe Audition, for general editing. Also used their Amplify effect so our audio levels would match.
    • iZotope RX7. The tools I used were Mouth de-click to remove mouth noises, Voice de-noise to remove background noise, Breath control to remove loud breaths, and their de-esser to remove the harsh ‘s’ sounds from the audio.
    • iZotope Neutron 3 – EQ, compression, and sculptor.

    Again, you do not need professional software to go very far with a recording. Just remember, your guest will not have the same overall audio setup that you’re used to – and this is something you have to account for.

    6. You Can Truly Learn A Lot

    One of the reasons I’m so excited to launch a podcast isn’t for the business benefits it will bring me, but the value that I’ll be able to provide to my audience – and the value I will gain personally as well.

    When you bring in a guest, you have an incredible opportunity to tap into all of their experience and expertise that they’ve gained over the years. You get to ask important questions in real-time, and shape your episode to extract the most amount of value from a potential guest.

    The episode that I recorded with Mark was so valuable for me personally because he specializes in areas that I do not have much experience with. The content was centered primarily around viral, word-of-mouth marketing strategies for brick and mortar retailers. This is a topic I had very little personal experience in. Because of the hour and a half I spent with Mark, I now consider myself to be much more knowledgeable in this area, and will be able to pass that knowledge forward to others because of it.

    When starting a podcast, do not focus solely on sponsorships or product sales. Remember that there is an immense amount of value in building a network, and learning new information through your podcast.

    7. There Is Little To Fear

    I’m not normally a person to make excuses, but I gave myself plenty for delaying the production of this episode.

    15 minutes in, and I began to realize that I really had nothing to worry about. Like most fears, my hesitation was completely irrational. Most of the things I had told myself simply weren’t true.

    As entrepreneurs, we like to hold ourselves to standards, and we try not deviate away from them. However, it is doing what makes us uncomfortable that actually allows us to grow. If we continue to accept where we are now, we can never truly make it to wherever we want to be.

    You’ve got to stop and ask yourself – what’s the worst that could happen if you tried starting a podcast? Maybe you embarrass yourself, or you waste a few hours of your time and have to scrap your episode entirely.

    In the meantime, you will continue to get better. Mistakes will become fewer and fewer. One day, just like any other skill, you’ll look back and realize how far you’ve came.

    Considering the benefits that podcasting can provide, I would say that’s certainly a risk worth taking.

    If you want to practice, I’m sure both Mark and I would love to appear on your show. As mentioned in point number one, working with someone who’s willing to let you stop and do things over takes so much pressure off of actually getting started.

    I believe in you!

    Conclusion

    Recording this first episode wasn’t easy, but few things worth doing are.

    I’ve learned a lot in this one experience alone, and I have no doubt that I will have many other lessons to share as I continue to practice with this.

    I’d love to hear what concerns and fears are holding you back from starting a podcast. I’d love to see more of my readers launch one this year, and I hope you’ll get in touch with me than that happens. I’d be delighted to become one of your first listeners.

    And as always, if there’s anything that I can help with, you’ve only got to ask.

    To your success,

    – James McAllister

  • You Can’t Survive With A Website Alone

    The world has changed a lot in the last 10 years.

    Technology has evolved, and so has the way that we spend our time. For the majority of people today, the way we spend our day-to-day lives (at least, outside of work) is quite a bit different than they were in the very recent past.

    As our daily habits and actions change, so has the way we purchase products and services.

    Companies who have been in business for decades or longer are falling left and right, primarily for one core reason:

    They fail to adapt with the changing world.

    10 years ago, it was possible to make a killing online with only a simple WordPress blog. If your content was good enough, people would take the time to stay updated and read each and every post you published, almost religiously.

    If your goal is to achieve massive levels of success online, unfortunately this is no longer possible for most people.

    If you want to really form a connection with people, you have to go beyond your own site – publishing content for many platforms, rather than just one.

    Let’s look over this a little bit more deeply, and discuss some strategies you can utilize to build a larger, more engaged audience far more easily creating a strategy that will still be relevant throughout the 2020’s. (more…)

  • How To Be A More Productive Writer – 12 Tips To Improve Writing Speed

    How much would your business change if you were able to double or triple the speed in which you write your content?

    When it comes down to writing, we all know that quality is what truly matters. Our writing has to be good, or else it won’t retain readers for very long.

    At the same time, we all have a limited amount of time each day in order to get things done. When you’re able to write more quickly, you’re literally creating time for yourself – time that can be spent either writing even more content, or focusing on some other area of your business that needs attention.

    Whether you’re a blogger, video creator, author, copywriter, or someone else entirely, there are a number of creative writing hacks that can help you to improve your writing speed.

    Let’s look over some of my top writing tips to help you write more productively! (more…)

  • This Long-Term Content Strategy Offers An Unbeatable ROI

    When content marketing is done right, it can be one of the most powerful marketing channels available.

    Good content marketing can offer a return that far exceeds most other marketing spend, both in the short and the long-term.

    Content has the power to drive visibility and awareness to your brand years after its initial publication, and continue making money for you around the clock.

    After all, each piece of content can act as an entrance door for your brand, making consumers aware of what you have to offer and naturally moving them closer and closer to a sale.

    The potential is insane.

    The real power of content marketing however, comes when you can begin utilizing these benefits at scale – releasing more and more content that all works together in a system, each piece building each other up.

    By developing a framework that fosters this long-term growth, you ensure that each piece of content that you release continues to build up your brand. Permanently.

    In this article, let’s go over how you can create a content marketing strategy that continues to work for you, and build your brand over the long-term. These strategies aren’t specific to any one platform. They’ll work whether you’re utilizing blogging, YouTube, podcasting, social media, something else entirely, or a combination of all of these.

    Let’s get to it! (more…)