What Size Solar Panels Do You Need?

Solar panels come in different sizes. And when it comes to sizes, usually we refer to the wattage of a panel can produce, or physical size. Both are linked because the watt panel can produce, the bigger.

Decide on the size of your solar system depends on two factors: the amount of electricity used his house, and the money they are willing to invest in the solar system. Solar systems can be very expensive, and even if they pay for themselves over time, buying all panels to power an entire house can be financially out of reach for many families.

The average size of a solar system

Just to give an idea, an average solar panel can produce about 150w. 150w a group of about 1 square foot size. So you should always keep in mind is the fact that the panel can produce as much energy as perfect on sunny days, when the sun falls directly on it. Therefore, the panel will produce 150 watts only 3-4 hours a day (when the sun is brighter) depending on the isolation of the area where you live.

The size of a solar system is calculated in kWp, an abbreviation for kilowatt peak. A 1.5 kWp system can generate 1500 watts of sunshine. This system consists of 10 solar panels 150w and each occupies 10 square feet of roof space. 1500 Wp solar system can not provide all the energy needed for an average household, but it would do a decent job of providing it.

This is just an example and may not apply to you. Unfortunately, a typical house uses a lot of energy, and if you want to provide all the power with the help of a solar system, you would have to pay thousands of dollars on it. It would be best to find a compromise solution that alleviates at least some of the energy needs of your home.

If a solar system which gives all the energy needs of your home is too big, and you have or not have enough space or enough money to pay, there are some solutions you can try. One would be to reduce their energy consumption. You can also buy energy efficient appliances for your home. Another idea would be to buy solar panels one at a time, when you have money. Other financial solutions are also available, such as green tax rebates and incentives, so that would be a good idea to find out about those in force in your state.

The $100,000 Challenge: November Update

We just wrapped up the eighth month of the Nutrition Secrets’ $100,000 challenge. Not only did we start generating revenue (kind of), but we also generated good traffic numbers because of the continual increase of our search traffic.

Traffic went up to 58,260 visitors, which is a nice increase from the 42,822 visitors in the previous month. That’s pretty good, considering that content production has slowed down. Mike currently blogs only two to three times a week instead of seven.

The main reason for this is to give him the chance to focus on promoting our fish oil supplement, which I’ll get into in a bit.

But first, let’s go over our traffic numbers.

November traffic stats

As I mentioned above, the traffic grew to 58,260 visitors. Of those visitors, 36,288 came from search engines (mainly Google).

Over time, that number should keep rising as the content continues to rank higher and we build more links. We have built a few EDU links and GOV links by just doing backlink checks on our competitors using Ahrefs and then begging those people to link to our site.

The model works, and over time, our search traffic should continually rise.

Overall, I am happy with our search traffic and growth, given the fact that Mike isn’t very creative when coming up with headlines. That really is the key to growing both your social and search traffic.

Just look at Quick Sprout. The reason it does so well is because I’m able to come up with headlines that hit hard. For example, when I blog on Quick Sprout or NeilPatel.com, I run a headline through an analyzer that estimates how well a headline will do…

One day, we’ll be releasing this free of charge to all the people who sign up to the Quick Sprout tool. But Mike didn’t have it, so it’s a bit harder for him to create headlines that do well.

Nonetheless, the numbers are good, and they keep rising (most months).

Revenue

We started selling fish oil supplements on Amazon like I discussed in my previous update.

As you can see from the screenshot above, we are starting to get more reviews and feedback from people. We collected most of the reviews by going to Amazon’s top reviewers and offering them the product at a discounted rate (break even) or free. When you do that, the reviewers will then place an honest review, which will help skyrocket your positioning on Amazon.

When you hit up the top reviewers, you’ll find that most will ignore you unless you give them the product for free. Our supplier provided a small batch that we were able to give away, but we can’t do that in quantity, or else we will lose money.

When you offer a discount, you’ll find that not as many top reviewers will accept your offer. So, you’ll have to go down the list and avoid hitting up anyone in the top 100. The lower you go on the list, the more likely you are to get people to accept your product at a discounted price.

When doing this, you’ll quickly learn that giving away your product or offering it at a discount doesn’t guarantee a review. But it’s a numbers game.

As you can see from the screenshot above, there is revenue, but the numbers are deceiving. Most of the sales are for the product at a discounted price, so you can’t really count that as “revenue.” Or at least I’m not counting that as revenue.

It’s a bit difficult to figure out whether a sale was at a full price, discounted, or a giveaway as Amazon’s backend is a bit archaic.

Over the next month or two, the number of discounted or free bottles will decrease as the product gets more popular and generates more organic sales.

Roadblock

Even though the product is doing well, we’ve encountered a few negative reviews.

Although we have a good deal with the company supplying us the fish oil, we need to make sure quality control is high. The current labels are arriving to customers a bit smeared, which has been hurting our reviews.

The design of the label isn’t very appealing either, which makes our product hard to stand out. Over the next month, I will be working on fixing this with the supplier.

Email list

The email list is continually growing, and we started to market the product to a small portion of the list. We are offering our fish oil to these subscribers at a reduced cost. So far, 61 people from the Nutrition Secrets blog redeemed the coupon for a discounted product.

This should help generate reviews, and in the long run, it should help boost the revenue numbers.

Fine-tuning

The other thing that will be adjusted as we generate more traction is our listing on Amazon. Making the headline more descriptive and answering more objections in the copy of the listing should help generate more sales.

One simple thing that we will be implementing over the next 30 days is answering general questions in the listing. For example, we will answer questions such as “Is the fish from Japan?” or “How is the oil being filtered?”

Answering these questions, as well as others, will help put our customers’ minds at ease and help increase sales.

Think of it as copywriting. If you can persuade people through text, which most people don’t do on Amazon, you should be able to increase your sales.

Conclusion

I’m happy with the progress so far. As we fine-tune the Amazon listing, we will be aggressively using the email list to generate more sales.

In addition to that, you’ll start seeing ads for the fish oil all over the blog. As the blog traffic grows, it should be easier to generate more and more sales.

Once the revenue starts kicking in, we will have more cash to spend on ads to grow the sales faster as we currently have a bit more than 40% margins.

How do you think the project is going so far?

We should be more judgmental online, just not the way you think

When Australian fashion and beauty blogger Essena O’Neill quit social media, she didn’t just walk away. She lit a match and started a fire

O’Neill, who had over 600,000 Instagram followers and 260,000 YouTube subscribers, posted a video lamenting the lack of authenticity on social media. Then, she deleted Instagram photos and edited captions on the remaining pictures to reveal the truth: They were heavily edited and carefully curated to sell clothing and accessories for sponsors. Not a drop of reality

See also: 12 words you need to ban from your vocabulary to be a better ally

In the wake of O’Neill’s social media flounce, critics have accused her of continuing to play the game, by using social media to criticize social media, perhaps even for a larger publicity stunt. O’Neill has since gained a larger following and has asked for donations on her new website Let’s Be Game Changers. Read more...

More about Cyberbullying, Social Media, Kids, Celebrities, and Parenting

Quora Launches Troll-Free AMA “Writing Sessions”

The chaos of Reddit’s Ask Me Anythings doesn’t lend itself to the most thoughtful answers. They’re short, plagued by trolls, and people who care about the topic or person might not know an AMA is happening until it’s over. So today, Quora is bringing an air of civility to the crowdsourced question hour with the launch of “Writing Sessions”. They’ll… Read More

We Want to Hear About Your Experience With Marketing Analytics Tools

As fellow analytics fans, we’d like to ask for your feedback in a short 15-question survey. Not surprisingly, it’s about analytics tools and what you as marketers need the most from your systems.

We promise this is not entirely self-serving. Not only will the results inform the topics we consider for upcoming blog posts, we’ll share the results with you as soon as they’re in. After all, what’s the point of insights if you don’t share them?

Participate in the survey here: https://sidra2.typeform.com/to/n3X3qu

And of course, sound off in the comments with any stream of consciousness thoughts on analytics tools, data exhaustion, how marketing budgets are determined, and so on.

About the Author: Maura Ginty is the VP of Marketing at Kissmetrics.

Effective Link-Building Outreach: How to Turn No Into Yes

Posted by KaylaTarantino

There are hundreds of reasons why a webmaster might agree to share content from another website on their own. Unfortunately, for us link builders, there are also hundreds of reasons why they might choose not to.

If you’ve tried to acquire links to your content (or a client’s content), then you’ve experienced the dreaded “No!"

It could have come in a variety of forms, with some being harsher than others. Regardless of the tone of the message, it usually signals the end of the road for you and that link prospect. But does it have to?

I'm a firm believer that we can often turn a no into a yes, and it's likely not as hard as you think.

Avoid 'no' in the first place

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could prevent people from saying no to you? It’s not completely foolproof, but there are ways you can lessen the likelihood of receiving a negative response to your link-building outreach.

If you do your research before reaching out, you will save yourself a lot of time. Some of the following factors indicate that a website will probably not be willing to link to your site:

• No outbound external links on the page. If the page of a website you are planning to reach out to doesn’t have any outbound links on any similar pages, then it may not be worth your time to ask for that link.
• The page is not relevant to your site or landing page. Ask yourself some questions about the relevancy of your page. Are there other links to sites like mine on the page? Can I justify the reason that my link belongs here? If I was the webmaster, would I link to this page?
• The site has paid advertising or native ads. This one is a bit subjective. It’s not impossible to build a link on a website with paid advertising or native ads. It can, however, be a factor in why someone might say no or try to sell you on paid advertising options instead. Also, it’s important to note that if you see any indication of paid links, you should run for the hills. That’s never a good opportunity, as it’s against Google’s Webmaster guidelines.
• The site is affiliated with a competitor. If there’s any indication that the website is an affiliate or partner of a competitor, then they might not be willing to put up your link for that reason. You wouldn’t want your partners putting up competitor links, either.
• The site specifically says they will not link out. If a webmaster has specifically stated in their terms that they won’t consider requesting for adding external links, then reaching out to them probably isn’t going to get you anywhere (except, maybe, on their spam list).

Being able to discern the types of sites that likely won't prove fruitful for outreach can save you a ton of time that you can use more productively.

Craft an effective email

Another way you can improve your yes:no ratio is by writing really darn good emails. Every. Single. Time.

It’s easy to fall into a rut of lazily sending template-based emails when doing with large amounts of outreach. Remember, though, that no one likes talking to robots; so make sure that you put in the time and effort required to make your emails stand out from all the automated emails.

There are a number of key elements to consider when crafting your email:

Personalize your outreach

It might seem like a daunting task to personalize every email outreach you send. But showing that you’ve put time into getting to know someone or their brand can make a world of difference in the responses you receive. Some quick things you can try:

• Check out your link prospect’s Facebook and Twitter accounts to learn more about them. Try to strike up a conversation about something unique to them. Better yet, if you have the resources, try to cater your content to their needs and interests.

• Use a tone that will resonate with your prospect. Based on your research of the company, determine whether you should take a more formal or a more casual tone. (I tend to send more formal emails when reaching out to large organizations, government offices, educational institutions, etc.)
• Use their first name. If you’re reaching out to an individual directly, make sure to use their name in your greeting, and spell it correctly. If you see they go by a nickname, use it.
• Talk about their website. Maybe you’ve signed up for their newsletter, or read a few of their blog posts.Tell them about it! What did you like? What inspired you to reach out to them? What feedback can you give them about their site?

Add value

If you’re not adding value in your outreach, then you're you’re taking value away from the recipient. What I mean is that if there isn’t a good value proposition in your email, then your email will waste the recipient's valuable time. I’m going to assume you have a really awesome piece of content that you want a webmaster to link to. The benefit you’re providing a webmaster can be the content itself, but it can also be added in different ways. Check out whether the website has:

• Broken links/images/forms
• Duplicate content issues
• Outdated information
• Spam (by doing a site search for spammy keywords)
• Weak content

Suggest solutions to these problems. By helping webmasters solve issues on their website, you’re doing two things: 1) Building trust, and 2) starting a conversation. Maybe they take your advice, but don’t put up your link. That’s OK, because you’ve started a relationship of sorts with them. It isn't the end of the road.

If you never start a conversation with them, though, a "no" becomes the end of the road.

Follow up

You’ve done everything right so far. You’ve done your research, personalized your email, and added value to your pitch. Now what?

Link building also requires a lot of follow-up. Here are some best practices to keep in mind when following up with your prospects:

Email tracking

Measuring the impact of your activities is key in all aspects of marketing, so how can you track your link-building outreach efforts? There are great tools out there, including Contact Monkey, Sidekick, and Yesware that allow you to see when someone has opened your email in real-time and generate reports on email opens.

With email tracking, you will also know when someone has opened your email but not responded to it, so you can plan your follow-up emails accordingly.

Timing

You don’t want to annoy webmasters who may already be planning to put up your link, but you also don’t want them to forget who you are and what you wanted in the first place. I like to wait at least two weeks before following up with someone on whether they’ve opened my email or not.

If someone does answer and (even better) agrees to put up a link, I would suggest asking them when that addition can be expected. Sometimes websites have scheduled times for any updates, or part-time employees managing updates. Be patient, it can take some time.

Contact

If you see that within two weeks your email hasn’t been opened at all, your email is likely buried or was deleted. This is a great time to see if there is another contact you can reach out to on the site. Finding a new contact isn’t always possible, but there are some tools you can use to increase your chances of uncovering a different contact:

• Who.is provides webmaster information in some cases
• Archive.org allows you to go back and see old indexations of websites that may have different contact information listed

Subject line

I could write a whole new post on how to write great subject lines for your outreach. And, that could happen. But for now, let's focus on how to write subject lines for follow-up emails. Sometimes changing your subject line when following up with a prospect can be the key you need to get them to open your email. At Vertical Measures, our link building team experimented with changing up subject lines in follow-up emails. We found that we could get valuable results when we added fields such as:

• Email Buried RE: [original subject line]
• Additional Information RE: [original subject line]
• Questions? RE: [original subject line]
• Any Feedback? RE: [original subject line]

When reaching out to a new contact, include your original message. This shows you’ve made previous effort to reach out to someone else in their organization.

• New Contact FWD: [original subject line]
• My apologies-wrong contact FWD: [original subject line]
• Can you help? FWD: [original subject line]

Answer objections

If you've done all of the above legwork and the prospect continues to say no, then it's time to brainstorm about proper responses to possible objections:

Objection #1: I don’t think the link fits on my page (or we don’t post resources like yours)

This is (or should be) easy to answer. Remember all that research you did before reaching out? You already know they do post resources like yours, that your page is extremely relevant to their site, and that it would make a great fit. The hard part is convincing them of that. Thank them for their time and politely reinforce why your link would be beneficial to their page. Maybe ask why they felt the link wasn’t a good fit. You can mention resources that you’ve found on their page that are similar to yours, and let them know how yours would complement them.

This approach won’t always work. You will have two different types of people: the “no means no” people, and the people who might actually consider taking a second look at your offering. If you don’t reply to the initial no, though, then you’ll never know which type your prospect is.

Objection #2: I don’t have the ability to change that page

This is what I would call a soft no. This person is pushing the responsibility of rejection away from themselves. In this case, you can ask them if there is someone else at their organization that might be able to help you. You could get a new contact out of this, and maybe have better reaching out to them.

Objection #3: I don’t want to lead people away from my website

This is a pretty common fear for webmasters to have. The best way to address this objection is to stress the importance of external links to the user experience. Don’t deny that the link will lead the user away from their page, but reinforce the fact that they will be providing the content that users want, which will ultimately allow them to become an authority on the subject matter.

Objection #4: Not at this time

This is a pretty hard no in my book. What they’re saying really has nothing to do with your timing of outreach. It has everything to do with not feeling that their own time is well spent putting up your link. Bummer.

But, put yourself in their shoes for a second. What do they get out of it? This might be a good opportunity to take a second look at their site and see if there are any other value-add propositions you can suggest to make this conversation worth their while. And again, always be helpful, not pushy.

Objection #5: Are you kidding me? I hate [insert brand or company]! (or any response that includes profanity)

Abandon ship. Promptly remove this person from your email list. Permanently.

There’s no use trying to convince them that this link will be worthwhile, and you do not want to give them more fuel for their anger. The only thing you should send them when you reach this point is a confirmation that they won’t be contacted again, maybe with an apology.

Pushing for a link after hearing this type of objection from a prospect could encourage them to go on an online rampage (about you or your brand). That’s the last thing you want to come as a result of your link-building efforts.

Don’t be afraid to hear 'no'

There are hundreds of other objections you might get when link building. It’s easy to lose hope in your efforts when bombarded by objections, but don't become discouraged. Do your research, follow up, and answer objections.

There may be a different approach you can take, or a new opportunity that results from the relationships you build.

You can’t turn a no into a yes if you don’t try.

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