Monthly Archives: April 2015

Tips on How to Write a Great Guest Post

Everyone in online business should know by now that guest posts are essential to growing blogs. However, not many people realize that the right kind of guest posts can actually grow their careers. Most bloggers simply pump out articles with the idea that the more they post, the better they will fare, but the truth is that there are no long-term benefits to this. Here are some tips that could help you to write some truly great guest posts.

Guest Posts Should Move Readers to Outcomes

Every time that you decide to write a guest post, you will be given a small amount of space within that post where you can input a link to your blog, a small biography, and maybe even a picture of you. The mistake that most people make to start with, is that they don’t think about where they’re going to send their new readers. Make sure new visitors to your website are welcomed with a useful landing page that’s full of helpful information.

Mention Important Bloggers in your Niche

A great way for newbie’s to grow their blog is to give a shout out to other websites or blogs that have already established big audiences. The first benefit of this strategy, is that it associates you with the experts in your area. Secondly, if you provide an email or tweet before your guest post goes live, you can harness the benefits of their contact list as they associate themselves with your content. This a great bit of promotion that your host blog will also thank you for.

Follow up on Your Guest Posts

One of the best things to learn about guest posting is that you can leverage the fame it develops to create more buzz for your blogs. Mention big bloggers in your posts, then make sure that those bloggers have a reason to promote any of the follow-up posts that you produce. Make sure that you don’t only reach out once than give up, instead follow on with a continuous content relationship.

Look for Long Term Results

A lot of people write guest posts and then immediately sit around waiting for the traffic to come in. However, the short term response isn’t as important as your long term impact. Ask yourself some important questions when you’re assessing the success of your guest posts, and you’re sure to see an improvement:

Does it rank well on search engines for a keyword that is relevant to your goals?
Does it boost your credibility and reputation in your niche?
Has it created a new discussion somewhere?
Has it given you any new contacts to chase down?

Use the Comments

One of the most important things you can do for your guest posts is stick around and look into the questions that you get through the comments. Usually, most of the long-term relationships you really need will be built in the comment section, so don’t be afraid to respond and answer. If a particular question or comment is incredibly interesting or particularly engaging, you could take the idea and use it for the start of your own new blog post, then announce that in the comment section to get people moving.

Top 5 SEO Facts that Business Leaders Need to Know

Despite what certain blog posts might be saying, the truth is that SEO is still as important as ever to online success, and the chances are that it’s going to remain that way. However, if you’re still preoccupied with the SEO practices of 2010, you need to make sure that you get yourself up to date. SEO rules and regulations can change from one year to the next, and failing to be up to speed could mean that your website suffers with some serious repercussions. If you want to stay on top of SEO, here are some facts that you absolutely need to know.

1. You’re not Owed Your Search Rankings

The first thing you’ll need to come to terms with, is that having your site ranked well by Google is not something that is owed to you, it’s a privilege. Google doesn’t owe your website anything, so don’t expect any special treatment regardless of how important or successful you perceive your business to be.

When it comes to ranking placements, you need to remember that your placement can shift within seconds, without any warning or apparent reason. Because of this, you’ll always be playing catch up. However, the effort doesn’t mean that a high ranking is any less important. Losing your rank could actually put a huge dent in your finances, and ignoring search engine updates could lead to costly mistakes for your business.

2. Tiny Changes can damage your SEO

Sometimes, a business could find that it loses its dominant presence on a search engine, because they made a very small incorrect decision. A tiny change to a title tag, page header, or navigation bar could be enough to knock you down off the top spot instantly. Modifications can have a serious impact on the present and future of your web presence, so it’s important to test aggressively before you commit to any changes at all.

3. Be Cautious with new CMS systems

Moving your website to a better content management system may seem to be a good idea, but you have to be sure that you have a good migration strategy in place if you want your SEO to be preserved. Improperly switching to a new CMS could kill off your sales and traffic. Although working with a new CMS can provide numerous benefits, from enhanced functionality to better productivity, it’s important to remember that a lot can go wrong from a SEO point of view.

4. Mobile SEO is more than Responsive Design

Many website owners have convinced themselves that responsive design and mobile SEO are the same thing. Though getting your website to work well on a smartphone or tablet is important, Mobile SEO involves a lot more, including optimization techniques for:

Easy navigation on mobile devices
Access to relevant information
Improved geo-targeted local rankings
Easy share-ability
Customized experience for users based on their location

5. Change is Constant

The only thing that you can rely on to stay constant in the world of SEO is change. Everything about the online marketing sphere will continue to evolve as new technology emerges and people change the way that the buy and research products.

Top 3 Content Marketing Concepts to build your Reader Rapport

If you really want to make an impact on the online business sphere today, then you need to be ready to learn the various facets of internet advertising and web presence. An essential part of this process will be figuring out the best content marketing concepts for your needs. Different people will have different requirements when it comes to offering the right amount of content, at the right times, in the right locations. However, one thing that all content must have in common is that it is relevant, useful and valuable to your reader.

Once, it was easy enough to pack your blogs and articles full of the right keywords, therefore manipulating search engines to place you at the very top of the results pages. Today however, achieving online success is far more complicated. It requires a direct focus on producing excellent quality posts that your readers will enjoy, and generating organic visibility. Part of this will require you to establish a relationship with your clients, which allows them to trust you, show interest in your products, and give you the valuable interaction that you need. Here are a few ways to do that.

1.) Conduct Surveys

If you have a reasonable amount of visitors approaching your website on a regular basis, or various connections through social media outlets such as Facebook and LinkedIn, you could find that running surveys is incredibly useful. By asking your readership directly about what they’re interested in, what they care about, and what they would like to see, you are showing your audience that your company puts them first. Conduct surveys that are relevant to your needs or business, and publish the results regularly on your website, alongside personal commentary.

There are plenty of tools for creating free surveys available online today, as well as options that are offered by LinkedIn and Facebook directly.

2.) Write an FAQ

Take some time to sit down with your team and establish the questions that appear most often in regard to your services or products. A frequently asked questions sections can be incredibly useful, as it helps to develop organic visibility, and offers a way to make customer service simpler.

If you have quite a few questions in mind, and the answers are going to be somewhat complex, you should consider developing a system where the questions are on one page, and the question is repeated with the answer beneath on another page. This will not only make the process of reading simpler, but it will also help to boost your search results by focusing on each HTML page separately.

3.) Newsletters

They may seem like old-school forms of contact today, but newsletters are just as useful now as they have ever been. Having a newsletter is a great way to make sure you’re keeping in touch with your current prospects, clients and more. Newsletters also deliver new opportunities for you to add content to your website, as you can add the content from the newsletter into a certain section or page. It’s a good idea to include a HTML version of your newsletter that makes it easy for people to see what you’re offering and what you’re trying to achieve. Don’t forget, newsletters should be:

Personal
Interesting
Engaging
Informative
Fun to read

How to Overcome Content Writing Block and Write more

Speak to any expert about what you need to become more successful online today, and the chances are that one of the first things you will hear is “more content”. Adding interesting and valuable content to your website can be incredibly difficult, as many people feel as though their service or product may not be interesting enough to gather enough readers. However, a bigger problem than this is coming up with fresh and engaging material on a regular basis. If you’re struggling to come up with enough ideas to improve your SEO marketing, then the following advice could be useful to you.

1.) Develop a Q&A or FAQ section

This is probably the best option available when you’re struggling for things to write about, as it gives you direct access to the things that your specific target audience is most interested in hearing about, or learning more about. There are plenty of customers or potential clients out there that will have questions to ask, and finding ways to answer those questions in a helpful and creative manner provides you with instant content.

Add a simple form into your website and give people the opportunity to send you their questions, then write a short post or article about each one. Another benefit of this is that your audience gets to see first-hand just how knowledgeable you are about your product, business or industry. As a result, they are far more likely to trust you with their money.

2.) Transcribe your Podcasts and Videos

Another way to develop new content for your website is to transcribe the podcasts and videos that you and your team have made in the past. You can then post these transcriptions within certain sections of your site as article, or even place them on the same pages as the podcasts and videos they are about. Even if you do mini training sessions internally, you could record those and have them transcribed too.

3.) Give your Business a Human Edge

One of the best things that you can do for your company is remind people that there are human beings working behind it. People are far more inclined to trust a person over a nameless, faceless corporation. Humanizing your business means talking about the various aspects involved in it. This could include:

Talking about the most embarrassing things to happen to your company
Talking about how you have overcome issues
Discussing your aims and concerns

On the other hand, you may sometimes find it useful to take about what’s actually going right in your industry, and how you feel that will impact the future of the world around you. Don’t be afraid to get passionate about what you’re doing, and let your audience have the occasional peek behind the curtain.

Remember it’s Going to be Hard Work

One important thing to remember about this process as you are searching for new ways to inspire yourself into further content is that it’s always going to be tough. Content writing is hard work and it requires a great deal of time, dedication and personal growth to get it right.

Advice for Using Guest Posting to Grow Your Audience Online

Before you can fully understand the benefits of guest posting, you may need a refresher on what the process actually means. Guest posting means that you write and publish an article of your own on someone else’s blog or website. Plenty of websites online today offer this kind of activity, and you simply need to find one that is relevant to your industry if you want to get involved. It’s a great way for people to establish connections with brand new groups of readers, and get their name out into the crowd for the first time.

Guest Blogging Creates Relationships

There are a number of ways why guest posting has become such an important strategy for bloggers and website owners who want to build their online influence. Bloggers in general need good content, and by adding value to someone else website with your writing, you’ll quickly start building relationships with bloggers and other individuals in your industry.

Bloggers make up a pretty big percentage of the conversations that are currently taking place on the internet, especially on social media locations like Twitter and Facebook. They’re good friends to have, because they can be incredibly influential, which helps you to grow your influence too.

Guest Posting is good for SEO

Whenever you chose to get started with some guest posting, the one non-negotiable demand that you should have for your researched and high-quality work is this: the host must include a link to your blog or website somewhere in the post.

Over time, these natural backlinks will help to improve the overall value of your blog or website to search engines, meaning that you’ll quickly become easier to find in important places like Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Guest Posting introduces you to New Audiences

Perhaps the most beneficial part of guest posting, is that you get to enter into an already existing community, and share your message with anyone and everyone who’s there. This means that you can connect with brand new people, which is incredibly beneficial to your business if you do it right.

If your guest blogs join into a discussion and add some value, then you will see that value convert into other things over time, such as fans, followers, and further readers. On the other hand, if all you’re ever doing is begging for attention, you could get plenty of fame, but not for the reasons you were hoping for.

How to be a Good Guest

If you want to be a good guest on any blog, you should make sure that you:

Link to your post from your own website or blog
Share the post on twitter and Facebook – feel free to post about it on twitter several times
Thank the host of the blog in question
Make sure that you’re available to answer the questions and comments that will undoubtedly appear regarding your post.

Although none of these steps are mandatory, it’s a good way to improve your chances of establishing a great reputation online.

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