Home Archives
Monthly Archives

April 2024

Blogging

LinkedIn Crosses 1 Million Publishers On Its Blogging Platform

by onkar
written by onkar
shutterstock_193524572

There are now over 1 million unique publishers on LinkedIn’s blogging platform, a milestone the company celebrated with a post on its own blog.

Three years ago the platform launched with only 150 hand-picked influencers eligible to publish on it. Now LinkedIn publishing is open to all English speaking members, and is said to soon be available in every language.

Here are some notable accomplishments to date:

  • Over 1 million unique publishers publish more than 130,000 posts a week.
  • Around 45% of readers consist of those at the top of their industries, including managers, VPs, and CEOs.
  • Top content-demanding industries tech, financial services and higher education.
  • The average post now reaches professionals in 21 industries and 9 countries.

LinkedIn describes its most successful publishers as being not only those who create their own content, but also read and engage with the content of other members.

In its post, the company presents two case studies of business owners generating new business through publishing and engaging with content on LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s fledgling publishing platform is clearly gaining traction with its members. However, considering that there are over 130 million English speaking members eligible to publish on the platform, its still only being used by around 7% of its potential user base.

Although 1 million publishers after 3 years is certainly notable.

If you were on the fence about publishing on LinkedIn because you weren’t sure if there was any engagement on the platform, at least you know its growing and finding its audience.

[“source-searchenginejournal”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Blogging

Blogging 101: Traffic Generation for Blogs on a Budget

by onkar
written by onkar
blogging101-traffic-generation-blogs-on-budget

Running a blog often sounds very appealing. You’ll have a place to share your thoughts, build a community, and also generate some much-needed cash. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Well, the reality is it’s not as easy to achieve this as a lot of people make out. I hear the same old things time after time: “Just create awesome content” or “Build a social media following so that you can drive traffic back to your blog.”

It sounds obvious, doesn’t it? That’s because it is obvious.

Who in their right mind would start a blog with the intention of producing crap content and completely neglecting social media? Morons, that’s who.

The reality is you could be producing the most awesome content in the world, but if nobody gets their eyeballs on it then it all goes to waste.

I’ve been blogging for a fair amount of time now and have learnt a lot of tough lessons along the way. During my early days of blogging, the thing that I really craved was advice on how to generate traffic without having to spend a fortune doing it. Most bloggers don’t blog full-time, at least not at the beginning, so they don’t have thousands (or even hundreds) of pounds (or dollars) to be spending every month to get things off the ground.

Within this post, I’m going to show you some ways that you can generate traffic to your blog without breaking the bank. I’m going to mention some paid tools, but nothing that will cost you a fortune!

To kick things off, let’s look at driving traffic through from the search engines, and in particular finding some low-hanging fruit.

Long Tail Keyword Research

One of the first personal blogs that I set up was my travel blog. This became my testing ground for new link building methods and I was really keen on making a big impact within the search engines (all within a tiny budget – i.e. under $50 a month).

During the early stages of my campaign, I made some rookie mistakes on the keywords that I was going after and it really set me back. I decided that I wanted to rank for search terms like travel blog and cash in on huge amounts of traffic to the homepage. I spent massive amounts of time and resources in doing so, and I actually managed to reach the bottom half of page 1 for around 2 weeks. This then died down because I was going up against some of the big boys in the industry that were literally spending over 100x more than me.

It wasn’t the best use of my time, and to be honest, the reward wasn’t great. Most users that came through from this kind of search term bounced from the site and didn’t look at my articles, which is what I really wanted.

It was time for a change.

I shifted my focus away from short-tail, highly competitive keywords and moved to finding some low-hanging fruit in the form of longer, more specific search queries. The result? Just check out this snapshot of my Google Analytics from last year (it’s search traffic only):

Organic search traffic to my travel blog

This made me stand up and take notice. I’d increased traffic from search by over 450% – not bad. What’s more, the visitors were staying on the site because the content was directly relevant to the query they were searching for.

Now, you’re probably thinking, “That’s great, Matt, but I’m not an SEO expert and don’t really know where to start with keyword research.”

Don’t worry, I’m hearing ya!

This is where I’ll suggest a tool. The tool in question is Keyword Eye and it costs £9.99 per month (~$16) for the Pro package, but there’s also a free version.

The reason why I’m suggesting this tool is because it uses data from SEMrush, an awesome tool that costs a significantly larger amount (the top package is $149.50 per month).

The Process

The thing with Keyword Eye is that it’s really simple to use. It has a ton of advanced features, but the main feature I want to talk about is the Question Finder feature.

Question finder feature within Keyword Eye

In a nutshell, the tool allows you to plug-in a general topic and it will gather a number of informational queries related to it. In the example above, I’ve searched for blogging. This has returned a long list of questions that people regularly search for related to blogging, along with the search volume and competition scores. This is perfect for finding some opportunities.

There’s a post on the Keyword Eye blog that goes into a little more detail about this feature – you give it a read here.

My approach, on a basic level, is to pull off a list of broad topics that are related to your niche and then plug them into the Question Finder. From here you can start creating content focused around them to drive through organic search traffic over time.

This is exactly what I did with my travel blog and the results were a dramatic and sustained growth in traffic. Here’s a small snapshot of my Webmaster Tools from the past couple of weeks:

Melted Stories search queries

As you can see, the vast majority of these search terms that are bringing through traffic to the blog are very specific, long-tail queries.

Extra Reading: I recorded a full review and tutorial of Keyword Eye last year that goes into some of the other features of the tool. One thing to note is that there’s been a TON of new features added, but this should give you an insight into what else it can do.

Social Media Scheduling

I can’t stress the importance of growing a social media following enough. For bloggers, it’s a hugely powerful resource to have when you’re looking to build traffic to your content.

Having said that, it’s not always easy when you’ve got a minimal budget at your disposal. This is where you have to make the most out of what you’ve got by being smart with your social sharing.

I’m not going to go into the details of choosing the right social channel to pursue because there are tons of articles out there that you can read which directly focus on this (if you’re interested, check out this, this or this).

Instead, I’m going to show you how you can take the pain out of engaging with your social media following, whilst also getting maximum exposure. This is where I call in some help from Buffer.

If you haven’t heard of Buffer before then you need to go and try it out. There’s a free version (which will be more than enough for a blogger) and a paid version ($10 a month).

In short, Buffer allows you to schedule in your social media posts across a range of different platforms so that they go out at the peak times of activity for your followers (here’s more details).

Rand's Whiteboard Friday image

The above image is from Rand Fishkin’s recent Whiteboard Friday on Moz. In the bottom-right corner of the image, Rand has drawn up the optimal posting schedule for your blog content across Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Tumblr.

For those struggling to read it, I’ve mocked up this image:

Social Media Publishing Schedule

Using this as a guideline, I ensure that whenever I publish any new blog post it gets scheduled through Buffer across each of my social networks. I can then measure the impact of each post and refine it to squeeze the most value out of every piece of content.

Buffer Schedule

Taking automation a step further, I’m able to schedule in some related content to post out to my social media followers by linking Buffer up to Feedly(my RSS reader).

I’ve done this with the help of IFTTT, a free tool that synchronizes a whole host of different tools together. Again, I’m not going to go into the full details of IFTTT because that’s a whole post in itself. Instead, go over and check outMatthew Woodward’s full tutorial.

All you need is the recipe that I created, which is here. Using this recipe, IFTTT will add any articles that you Save for Later on Feedly directly to your Buffer queue. This saves me so much time when I’m on the move.

Smart Facebook Advertising

So, I’ve discussed how to optimize your social shares for maximum exposure. Now it’s time to look at reaching a wider audience through paid advertising.

I know I mentioned we’d be sticking to a budget and I meant it. I’m not talking about spending a fortune here; I’m talking about spending small amounts that deliver big results.

Does that sound better?

I thought so.

Just to set the scene a little, I’m going to introduce you to my latest personal project – my pescetarian food blog. The truth behind this project is simple… Ilove food. Also, along with my lovely partner Laura, I don’t eat meat (I know, how hipster of me… sigh).

We decided that we wanted to create a blog for other dinner-party nightmares like us and start sharing some of our own recipes; hence the creation of our blog.

Anyway…

I knew that Facebook was going to be a huge channel for us (along with Pinterest), so I used the food blog as a testing ground for some new approaches to Facebook advertising. All of this for under £80 per month (this is the max budget for me at the moment, but you could easily do half of this and see great results).

The blog is coming into its third month of being live and so far our Facebook page (at the time of writing) has 2,364 likes. Not bad for under three months.

Pescetarian Kitchen Facebook page

What’s more, the engagement on each of our posts is awesome. Just look at the most recent post I published yesterday:

Facebook post

It’s been liked 159 times, shared 22 times and has had 4 comments (this is all within 24 hours). The rest of our posts tell a similar story.

On top of the post engagement, Facebook has been a huge traffic generator for us, sending over 1,000 unique visitors to the blog within the first two months, and this seems to be growing rapidly day-by-day.

In the past 30 days we’ve hit just under 5,000 unique visitors and this has largely been fueled by our social campaigns (spending under £80 per month in total).

So here’s how…

Facebook have recently launched an awesome new feature where you can install a tracking code onto your website to identify if any of your visitors have an associated Facebook account. If they do, they’ll be added directly into a custom audience profile that you can display ads to.

The great thing is that they’ve already engaged with your content. This dramatically improves click-through rates, which has a direct effect on your cost per click.

Here’s a snap shot from my campaign that is focused solely around getting website visitors to like the Pescetarian Kitchen Facebook page:

Facebook ad stats

Now, bear in mind that this is just a simple page like advert and there’s no sponsored posts being promoted. At a price of £0.09 per page like (from anengaged user), I’m able to grow my following at a rapid pace.

 

Other Paid Advertising Platforms

Facebook isn’t the only platform that you can utilise for advertising on a small budget. Most major social networks now have a paid advertising option, but StumbleUpon and Reddit are two that I’m particularly fond of.

StumbleUpon’s Paid Discovery platform gives you the unique advantage of being able to deliver your content directly to users without actually requiring them to click on an ad. This makes it perfect for traffic generation, and it’s even better when you consider you can pay as little as $0.10 per visit, but you need to ensure your content is right for the platform first or you’ll end up with a huge bounce rate.

To do this, I’ve been practicing a technique that I learned from Ross Hudgensof Siege Media. In this post, Ross suggests spending no more than $15-20 dollars to measure the feedback that users within StumbleUpon are giving. If the ratio of visits to Thumbs Up (a StumbleUpon metric) is low then it’s no longer worth pursuing the ad campaign.

It’s worth taking a full look through the post Ross wrote because it offers some seriously valuable insight.

One thing I also love about this is that any visits through to your blog will be added into your custom audience profile on Facebook (granted you’ve set up the tracking code) and you can start marketing to them there as well.

Reddit Advertising

Like StumbleUpon, Reddit offers an incredibly cost-effective way to drive through traffic to your content. I’ve run campaigns from as little as $20 through Reddit and still had good success.

The key here is targeting.

You get the option within Reddit’s advertising platform to only display ads within a specific subreddit. Considering there’s a subreddit for pretty much anything, you’ll be able to hit a really targeted bunch of people.

One great campaign that I read about a few years ago was with Duck Duck Go (here’s the link). They managed to bring in 20,700 visits from just $650 – crazy! The platform has moved on a lot since then, but there’s still huge potential to bring in cheap traffic.

Niche-Relevant Communities

Within nearly every niche there are a whole host of community websites where you can share your content to drive traffic to your blog. I’ve just talked about advertising through Reddit, but even without advertising, Reddit is a seriously powerful traffic generator.

A quick tip that I’ve found with Reddit is to look for subreddits that have minimal activity within them but an ok level of subscribers (you usually find this with really specific topics).

I found this within the pescetarian subreddit. As a result of  a lack of content being submitted, the posts that receive a few upvotes will stay in the hot list for a long time. In the screenshot below you’ll see three links through to my food blog that have been there for over two months!

Dominating the subreddit

This has generated just under 950 unique visitors in the past two months. Oh, and did I mention that Reddit links are dofollow? So that means I’m getting a ton of link authority passed through to my blog that will have a direct effect on my search rankings.

As well as Reddit, there are a number of sharing sites that you can upload your content to in order to bring in traffic for free. Here are a few of them categorised by niche:

  • Foodgawker (food)
  • Hacker News (tech)
  • CafeMom (parenting)
  • BlogHer (women)
  • Professional Travel Bloggers Association (travel)
  • Inbound.org (marketing)

These are just a small few, but with a quick Google search, or by asking fellow bloggers, you can uncover loads of smaller communities relevant to your niche.

My advice for engaging within these communities is to spend at least a week or so simply observing. See how frequently content is shared, who is submitting it and what types of content seem to perform well. This will give you some sense of what works and what doesn’t – and it also saves you looking like a complete noob!

Competitions

Running giveaways on your blog is a great way to drive traffic through to both your website and your social media accounts. I wrote an enormous guide onrunning online competitions on my own blog a few months ago that you may find useful for this (it’s around 6,000 words long, so you’ve been warned!).

The main challenge with running a competition is actually sourcing a prize. This could cost a significant amount to buy in, which if you’re like me, you don’t fancy doing.

Luckily for you, there’s another way…

PR companies.

If there’s one thing that PR companies love, it’s supplying bloggers with free products from their clients.

Now if only there was a way to get in touch with a load of PR companies to see if they want to give you some products for your giveaway… oh wait, of course there is! They come in the form of journalist enquiry services.

My weapon of choice is ResponseSource (completely free to send requests through), but there are tons out there, for example Gorkana and HARO.

Simply put in a request and you should have a load of responses from companies within an hour or so – win!

Building Your Email List

If there’s one thing that I can’t stress enough, it’s the importance of building your list of email subscribers. These people are the most valuable assets that you have within your blog.

They’ve signaled that they like your content so much that they want you to inform them whenever any new content is published. These are up there with your most engaged visitors.

Within my digital marketing blog (I know, I have too many blogs), my biggest traffic source comes from my newsletter subscribers. Every time I presspublish, I can almost guarantee around 400 unique visits from that alone. More importantly, these are the people who will share and engage with my content to help it reach a wider audience.

At the beginning, building your list of email subscribers is slow. This takes time to develop, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that you don’t want to look back at traffic spikes from a few months ago and wish that you’d set up newsletter capture forms – that’s a real killer.

So, with that in mind, here are a few easy ways (without having to do any coding on your website) that you can capture email data:

  • Create a free account on an email marketing platform. I use MailChimp.
  • Add a tool like ManyContacts to your blog to enable newsletter subscriptions forms to appear across your blog with clear calls to action.
  • Use the Subscribe to Download plugin for WordPress to offer PDF downloads of your content in exchange for signing up to your newsletter.
  • Set up Twitter lead generation forms to get people to sign up for your newsletter directly within Twitter. Read this amazing guide from Dana Tanon how to do this for free.
  • Use Rafflecopter within your blog competitions to link directly to MailChimp and add any new entrants to your mailing list.
  • Allow anyone who comments on your blog to sign up directly to the newsletter with a simple tick-box. This WordPress plugin will do just that.

These are just a few ideas, but I’d encourage you to experiment with this. Just remember to stay in regular contact with your subscribers and always split test your campaigns to ensure that you’re getting the best possible results moving forward.

TL;DR

  • Focus on more specific, long-tail search queries to target within your search campaign.
  • Schedule your content sharing across social media to ensure you’re getting the optimal reach.
  • Utilize paid social advertising platforms on a small-scale to for great results.
  • Participate in niche communities and Reddit subreddits to cash in on some quality blog traffic.
  • Run online competitions to increase your blog’s exposure, build its social following, and increase your mailing list.
  • Ensure your blog has a good level of call-to-action around email capture.
  • Don’t think that you need to spend a fortune to get results. Sometimes, less is more!

The author has no affiliation with any of the resources listed.

[“source-searchenginejournal”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Blogging

Five Underrated Blogging Communities to Supercharge Your Blog

by onkar
written by onkar
blog readership

When you mention blogging communities, are you hearing the same old networks again and again?

It is time to move on! If you want to build your blog readership and get new eyes on your content, the blogging communities listed below are just a few alternative options. While a few have been around for a bit, their capabilities and features have changed so significantly that bloggers can’t afford to ignore them.

Ready? Let’s dive in!

Here are five underrated blogging communities where smart bloggers can share content, build relationships, and supercharge their blog:

Medium

Medium is an up-and-coming blogging community created by Twitter co-founder, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone. If you are looking for an additional way to connect your writing to other writers, like-minded industry professionals, and readers, Medium is a great blogging community.

Since its launch in 2012, Medium has become a go-to destination to share content (even previously published content) and build a new network of fans and followers.

medium

One of the benefits Medium offers to potential readers is the rating of posts in terms of minutes. Each post of the site comes with a label, “X minute read” letting readers know how big a commitment they’re making by clicking a headline. If you’re a short-form writer, this might be your new destination for quick tips.

Getting started is easy; just head over to the site and sign up using either Facebook or Twitter authentication. Then, dive into their writing interface.

Benefits:

  • The startup and growth know-how of visionaries like Evan Williams and Biz Stone are sure to keep Medium relevant and growing.
  • Top 100 feature allows you to quickly see what content is resonating and learn while you build your Medium audience.
  • If you are a colloquial blogger and less business-y, this is the place to share that style.
  • Beautiful contributor profiles allow readers to follow you and get all your updates.
  • Contributor profile allows link to your website.

Why Medium Might be For You:

  • Platform: Very user-friendly interface (like a modern-day Blogspot – but 10x better) that is ideal for beginner bloggers looking to expand their reach. With Medium, you also can follow blogs, as well as be followed, so it serves as a news source as well.  Medium is also a powerful place to post pieces you might feel are off-topic for your blog, but are important messages you want to share, growing your audience in new ways.
  • Target audience: Wide.
  • Compensation: None except the awesome addition of new people who follow you, who love your writing, and can easily find your website, bringing new readers to your world.

StackStreet

Do you regularly write about topics that would be of interest to millennials? If so, you definitely want to bring your blogging talents over to StackStreet. Unlike Medium, however, this is a by-application-only blogging community. You’ll be asked to complete a painfully short application and from there, the ball is rolling.

stackstreet

The upside to StackStreet is that, while in its beginning stages, they do offer “top contributors” (assuming they mean those with a large number of page views) who will be eligible for paid opportunities in the future. Not too shabby if you’re already writing.

Benefits:

  • Clean interface
  • Focused audience
  • Curated contributors (application-only process)
  • Ability to take your existing blog content and hone for a millennial-focused readership
  • Beautiful contributor profiles rich with social media links to build your audience

Why StackStreet Might be For You:

  • Platform: Brand new. How often do you get the chance to get in on the ground floor of a new site targeting a specific audience you crave to reach?
  • Target audience: Narrow, but meaningful. Millennials are targeted to spend $200 billion annually by 2017.
  • Compensation: Potential to earn as a top performer with additional editorial opportunities.

Triberr

Not only does Triberr give you the chance to connect your blog with new readers, it gives you an endless stream of new content created by other savvy influencers like yourself to share with your audience. Once you create a free profile, it’s easy to begin the search for Tribes or like-minded bloggers with whom you can connect and begin sharing content.

triberr

Here, you can peruse a wide variety of exiting tribes, see how many members they have, and their reach (how widely their posts are shared).

When getting started, you can easily find Tribes by using the drop-down category function:

triberr-drop-down

The basic membership on Triberr is free and they also offer premium options starting at $8.50 per month. These premium accounts allow you to unlock more site features. Compare the paid plans here and see what makes sense for your audience growing goals.

Benefits:

  • Direct link with your blog’s RSS feed to import new posts
  • Home Page Stream that shows all of your Tribes’ content so you can quickly connect, share, and build relationships
  • Ability for users to view your posts and share directly to Twitter from Triberr
  • Ability to quickly identify those who share your posts most frequently
  • You can create, be invited to join, or ask to join Tribes (groups of bloggers) for deeper connections, and a more personalized Home Page Stream
  • A crazy rich overview video explaining the site’s key blogger benefits
  • Wild tutorials designed to get you up and running on Triberr in no time

Why Triberr Might be For You:

  • Platform: Best for socially inclined bloggers who enjoy joining conversations.
  • Target audience: Wide. Ability to reach bloggers both inside and beyond your area of influence who love your content.
  • Compensation: If you sell products, imagine the benefits increased blog traffic and subscribers can bring to your bottom line. There are also options for bloggers to connect with brands and become paid brand influencers.

Google+ Communities

Yeah, you keep hearing people talk about Google+, but you’re not sold. Maybe their communities feature will finally sell you. If you are not using it to share your blog posts and connect with new influencers, the joke’s on you.

Head over to your Google+ home page and click the drop down. From there, you can access the Google+ Communities section.

google-communities

From here, you’ll be brought to the Communities home page where you can immediately see recommended communities and search for other niches where you want to build your audience.

This will bring you inside a world of people sharing content on similar subjects and access to a dedicated space to share your own content. Community members can directly +1 your post (which will update the social sharing buttons on your blog) and increase traffic to your blog from new members who are joining the Community daily.

People do not understand the power of G+ communities.

As an example, our social team recently posted an article on our iPhone card reader site about password security. Then, to give the article some love, we submitted it to the “Tech, Security & Social Networks” Google+ community. This community has over 69,770 members.

So, how did our post go (result highlighted in green)?

google plus

8,500+ views, and some decent “ripple effect” with the social shares, too:

google-ripples

The power of Google+ communities can be astronomical. Make it a part of your blogging syndication routine.

Benefits:

  • Ability for Community members to +1 and share your blog posts directly from your posts within the Community.
  • Rich Google+ profile for content creators and lets fans connect with you easily by sharing your blog URL and various social media profile links.
  • Ability to quickly find sharable content for your network from posts by other Community members and build relationships.
  • Offers a simple help section to assist bloggers in building or joining a community.

Why Google+ Communities Might be For You:

  • Platform: Not often used but highly powerful. If you’re a blogger with visual content, Communities and G+ in general allow for a beautiful sharing of your visual content. G+ users are most often platform devotees and active users.
  • Target audience: Wide, yet communities bring focus. G+ is still the wild, wild, west of the social networks, but bloggers can tone down the noise and turn up the meaningful relationships quickly by joining or creating communities that focus on their niche and blog areas of interest.
  • Compensation: It’s Google. No compensation, but you’ll enjoy the inflow of +1s and the ability for people to quickly comment on and share your fresh blog posts within the Community.

LinkedIn Groups

If you’re writing about anything in any industry, odds are there’s a LinkedIn Group for that topic. Simply visit LinkedIn Groups and start some keyword targeted searches for groups that focus on your areas of expertise. However, you might find the results overwhelming. I recently published a “How to Start a Blog” guide for newbies, so I went to LinkedIn Groups and searched “blogging” – and found over 886 groups:

linkedin-groups-blogging

 

Then, I found some active blogging groups (highlighted in green), asked to join, shared some valuable insight in the forum, then shared my post.

Just in those 2 groups alone, (8,000 + 2,000) “bloggers” are exposed to my blogging guide.

You can also take advantage of LinkedIn’s newer publishing platform to share your best blog posts. Posts that are well received can be reviewed by LinkedIn editors and then widely circulated through LinkedIn Pulse for wider visibility. LinkedIn even has a handy guide to help you get more information on their new publishing options to grow your readership and visibility.

As a note, if you see the pencil icon on your status update box , you’re already approved as a LinkedIn Publisher. They’re not currently accepting new applications, but are soon rolling the Publishing feature out to all members.

linkedin-search-bar

Benefits:

  • LinkedIn’s home page stream puts your shared blog content in front of fellow professionals.
  • It is a respected social platform that allows bloggers to share blog content and create content.
  • A better quality of leads coming to your site through your blog post shares, as you’re sharing with industry professionals, not just casual hobbyists or fans.

Why LinkedIn Groups Might be For You:

  • Platform: Longstanding, but growing richer by the month. If you thought LinkedIn was stodgy, think again.
  • Target audience: Professionals. While skill levels on LinkedIn range from green to seasoned industry professionals, this social network assures that you’ll find a readership for content from 101-level to expert industry niche.
  • Compensation: None. But LinkedIn Groups offer the chance for conversations on posts you share and to build new connections both for your blog and your professional network. It’s a “one-two punch” content platform, as you may find new guest blogging opportunities through your new relationships as well.

Recap

Bloggers – remember hitting the publish button is just the beginning. With all the outlets out there, get in the habit of sharing your content in these powerful communities every time a new piece goes live.

In doing so, you’ll become a better brand, establish credibility in tight communities, and your content will be seen by thousands of additional people.

[“source-searchenginejournal”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Blogging

Why Matt Cutts Can’t Kill Guest Blogging

by onkar
written by onkar
guest_blogging_dead

I’d hate to be in Matt Cutts’ shoes. He’s often in an incredibly difficult position, serving as a mouthpiece for Google, passing on the company’s unpopular and even hated policies, and then bearing the brunt of the ensuing criticism from the digital marketing industry. I have tremendous respect for Matt, and am grateful for the information and updates he shares. I have no doubt we would complain a lot more if Google refused to share any information with us as to what they are thinking and doing.

That said, I was dismayed by his recent blog post declaring the death of guest blogging as an SEO tactic, not because of the declaration itself, but because of how it was communicated.

While Matt Cutts is a prominent figure on both the Google and the digital marketing landscapes, he’s not the final word on Google policy. While his frustration-fueled post may be an indication of things to come from the search engine, we—especially those not in the digital marketing industry—need to keep some important things in mind.

An Abuse of Trust

Matt’s blog audience isn’t just made up of SEO and marketing professionals. Being in a highly visible position has made him known to business owners and others in the digital space as well. One of the comments on Matt’s guest blogging post came from a representative of a fitness blogger network who was expressing not just concern, but actual fear that his websites may now be penalized for the way they were handling guest blogging:

“We are a health and fitness community which has always allowed our members to submit guest articles and blogs for editorial review. We have always steered clear of spammy articles, not allowed optimized keyword links and made sure we used the correct Google+ Authorship.

I am worried now my website will be penalized for this activity ??

Are you saying “ALL” Guest blogging is bad or can high-quality publishers still carry on if we make sure the posts are high quality and relevant ??”

Despite Matt’s efforts to stress that he was referring to guest blogging as a link building tactic, there was clearly still a lack of understanding from those who are not digital marketers or SEO professionals.

Hopefully that commenter will find someone who can allay his concerns. The point is, using broad language like “guest blogging is dead” and “guest blogging used to be a respectable thing” is at best careless, and at worst, irresponsible, and can have real consequences for those who don’t live and breathe digital marketing and SEO.

SEO Isn’t Everything

In “Why Your High Ranking in Google May Be a Failure Point“, I showed just how dangerous it can be to rely solely on a high-ranking in Google. Smart business owners stabilize their marketing and conversion sources. Their businesses take advantage of multiple marketing channels.

If you think about it, guest blogging is really the Internet’s version of traditional PR. It’s a valid and legitimate strategy on its own, and doesn’t need SEO to be a powerful promotional technique. Guest blogging can be a form of link building, yes, but it doesn’t require links to be effective, depending on what your goals are.

For example, at this moment, you’re reading a post I wrote for Search Engine Journal, a respected site. My goal is not to acquire a link, but to build my brokerage’s brand and reputation, as well as my own. Whether you agree with my post or not, the mere fact that you’re reading it means I’m gaining exposure for my business, and building my authority. As far as I’m concerned, this is already an instance of successful guest blogging.

The Threat to Small Business Owners

Guest BloggingThis is why issuing  a statement such as: “So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy”, is so dangerous. Small business owners may abandon a valid technique for promoting their business because they may see it lumped together with other spammy practices.  They don’t have a deep enough understanding of how guest blogging works—or should work—and they don’t have the knowledge or experience to differentiate between spammy guest blogging and the legitimate promotion tool it can be.

That’s the part I find dismaying. We all know the Internet has lowered the barrier to entry for a lot of people to become business owners who otherwise may not have had that kind of opportunity. A lot of the people who make a living from their online business are single moms, retirees, students, and others for whom it may be difficult to work outside the home.

They’re not SEO experts, or even marketing experts, and they shouldn’t have to be. So when someone like Matt Cutts takes it upon himself to “call it” and declare a perfectly valid promotional technique “dead,” without a fuller, clearer explanation, those people can become frightened, and their businesses can suffer. And that is a greater travesty than a link building tactic becoming more difficult, or even obsolete.

The Unofficial Last Word

The most important thing to note about Matt’s post is that it was published on his personal blog—not the official Google blog. To the uninitiated, it may have seemed like a change in Google policy when it was actually Matt expressing his frustration with the 8,436th guest blogging pitch email he’s received.

Matt is perfectly within his rights to complain about, well, anything on his personal blog. While I do think a little more care is warranted when blogging about topics like this, small business owners must also change the way they respond to posts like this.

So if you’re a small business owner, what are your actual takeaways from Matt’s post?

  • Identify good guest blogging partners: Avoid sites that offer “open invitations” to guest bloggers, unless they’re moderated and edited.
  • Look for strong metrics: This is important in both the SEO and audience areas. Do they have a responsive audience? Is the audience targeted to your industry? Can you legitimately add to the conversation?
  • Avoid linking to your content in the body of the article: Links to your website should be mostly saved for your bio. Focus on your brand and develop thought leadership.
  • Be creative: Put in the time and effort to create high-quality content, whether it’s on your site or someone else’s. Any benefit you may get from guest blogging will be negated by poorly written, thin content. Besides, if you are paying attention to the first point (Identify good guest blogging partners), they hopefully won’t allow you to publish thin content.
  • Develop relationships: Be a true partner to those sites that publish your content. Your job isn’t done once the post goes up. Be available to respond to comments, and stay in touch with the site’s publisher.
  • Diversify your marketing efforts: If you’re using guest blogging as your sole method of building links or marketing your business, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Use multiple marketing techniques to not only broaden your reach, but to ride out changes such as one of those techniques eventually being killed by Google. And it will happen, whether it’s guest blogging, or some other tactic.

Stay on the Course

Above all, see posts like this for what they are—a reason to do things better. Guest posting as a link building tactic is on its way out because too many people have abused it. The same can be said for several past SEO tactics. Too many people out there look for the loopholes they can exploit, to the point where Google changes its algorithm, and the process starts over again.

Don’t let yourself fall victim to the latest marketing trend or tactic. Keep things above-board, maintain quality in everything you do, and don’t make business decisions based on one person’s blog post, whether it’s Matt Cutts or anyone else. Weigh the pros and cons, and seek out more information before you make changes that could put your business in jeopardy.

And Matt, next time you get frustrated, maybe you can give it a day or so before you write that exasperated post. I think we’d all appreciate that.

[“source-searchenginejournal”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Blogging

How to Identify a Bad Guest Blogging Site with Eight Questions

by onkar
written by onkar
How to Identify a Bad Guest Blogging Site with Eight Questions

Guest blogging has its pitfalls and its advantages, both of which are obvious. I’ve explained before how you can find high-quality legitimate places to guest blog. Now, I want to tell you how to identify and avoid a bad guest blogging site.

I can’t emphasize enough the danger of spammy guest blogging. The bombshell announcement from Matt Cutts was a needed caution to many would-be spammers. He wrote, “So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy.”

We know, thanks to Cutts’s own disclaimers, that guest blogging is notactually done. But we also know, thanks to Cutts’s rampage against blog networks, that guest blogging is under intense scrutiny and potential penalization—at least for blog networks.

There are severe consequences to spammy guest blogging. Linking from a spammy guest blog network can ruin your site and tarnish your online reputation. If you are interested in the advantages of guest blogging, then you absolutely must know how to steer clear from a spammy guest blogging site.

Here are eight questions to ask about a potential guest blogging site.

1. Are There Ads Above The Fold?

Google doesn’t like to see ads above the fold. January 2012’s “page layout algorithm improvement” by Google, also known as the Top Heavy Algorithm, created a problem for ad-greedy sites. Such sites allowed advertising to ravage the bulk of above-the-fold real estate, creating an unpleasant user experience. Motivated by these complaints, Google rolled out the algo and has since refreshed it at least three times.

Here’s how Cutts described it: “ If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.”

If your potential guest blog site attempts to bring in ad revenue, that’s okay. But just make sure that it has an overall pleasant user experience.

I caution against ads above the fold, and I have good reason for doing so. However, there are a few exceptions to the apparent devaluing of sites with top-positioned ads.

The New York Times has at least three ad blocks above the fold. Any algorithmic devaluing due to this ad placement is outweighed by the stature and validity of the publication.

How to Identify a Bad Guest Blogging Site with Eight Questions

Often, a site has internal-focused “ads.” These are less ads than they are conversion elements for the site. Such features are not penalized.

On my blog site, you’ll see the persistent header and several sidebar blocks with calls to action. These are simply features of the site, even though they “advertise” my products. This is not considered a top-heavy ad layout.

How to Identify a Bad Guest Blogging Site with Eight Questions

2. Does The Design Look Outdated or Unpleasant?

If it looks like spam, it probably is spam. One of the ways you can find out is simply by giving the site the eyeball test. How does it look?

Often, you can tell from a quick glance whether a site is spam or not. Here are some of the issues you should insist upon in a guest blogging site. Each of these are backed by algorithmic factors.

  • The content should be visible above the fold. The Top Heavy Algorithm cited above means that sites that lack content above the fold are subject to devaluation.
  • There should be clear navigation paths. Site navigation structure affects SEO significantly. Some navigation issues are obvious—providing a sitemap.xml, using a navigation header, creating internal links, etc. But sometimes, when webmasters and SEOs are working separately, other negative navigation problems can creep up. For example, some developers use ajax effects, but neglect to implement the correct URL linking structure. Other times, designers create parallax scrolling effects on a single page website, but provide no navigation to other content-rich pages on the site. These issues are important for navigation, and therefore for SEO.
  • There should be no flash. Flash sites have been done for years. If you’re looking at a flash site, just forget it.

3. Do Articles Deal With Random Far-Ranging Topics, or Are They Organized Into Silos?

A telltale sign of a spam site is its random collection of unorganized content. There is no defined topic to the site. Such a haphazard collection of content does not help users. This kind of content is published in an attempt to rank for any keyword, and thus to generate traffic and ad revenue.

The following two points are positive indications of a site that focuses on usability in its design and content curation. This is what you want:

  • The site is about one niche subject. Your goal in guest blogging is to find relevant sites in your niche. Sites that deal with a single subject in-depth are ideal guest blogging sites. You don’t want to see a website that deals with petenia care in one article, and then the next article about Titanfall maneuvers.
  • The site is about multiple subjects, but has clear content organization. This is the typical arrangement of most authoritative news sites. There are ways to organize a lot of data in a way that helps the users and makes sense. The header below from The Atlantic, conveys clear categorical breakdown for a user to access the content that they are interested in.

How to Identify a Bad Guest Blogging Site with Eight Questions

4. Is Google Authorship Implemented?

One confirming sign of a trustworthy guest blogging site is implementation of Google authorship. A site that uses Google authorship evidently knows what they’re doing when it comes to guest blogging.

In the screenshot below, you can easily tell from Google whether or not a site uses authorship markup.

How to Identify a Bad Guest Blogging Site with Eight Questions

I strongly encourage you to seek sites that use Google authorship. Besides, the more content you publish under your authorship, the better your own personal brand becomes.

5. Is The Content Reviewed or Edited?

Unedited content is a red flag. If you don’t personally know the site owner, yet are automatically given publish privileges, you should be cautious about the site’s validity. Most sites that value their content and reputation will place some sort of editorial process in place.

The “submit for review” button on a WordPress post should give you a level of confidence that content is being vetted and the site has a care about its integrity.

How to Identify a Bad Guest Blogging Site with Eight Questions

6. Is There a List of Enforced Requirements For Guest Blogging?

If the site you’re angling for has a strict list of standards and requirements, don’t despair. This is actually a very positive sign.

If a site accepts guest bloggers, they are undertaking a significant risk. In light of the crackdown on guest blogging networks, it’s evident that Google takes a dim view of indiscriminate guest blog posting. A site must be stringent on its standards in order to avoid penalties or devaluation.

The requirements are a positive sign. You should comply with them.

7. Is The Site DA Above 25?

As a general rule, any site you post a guest blog to should have a Domain Authority that exceeds the DA of your own site, especially if you are hoping to gain a backlink. So, if you have a website with a DA of, say, 62, you probably don’t need to be spending time creating an article for a site with a DA of 41.

I do not recommend that you guest blog anywhere with a DA below 25. Sites with a historic web presence and a low DA are sites that are characteristically spam.

One of the first things you should do when checking out a potential guest blogging site is to quickly check the DA using a resource like opensiteexplorer.org.

8. Do You Have to Pay to Post?

This is a no-brainer. You should never, ever have to pay to post a guest blog. Any exchange of content that also involves an exchange of money, goods, or services is highly suspect. If you are asked to provide compensation for “hosting,” “publication” or “editorial services” I highly recommend you look elsewhere for guest posting opportunities.

Conclusion

The era of guest blogging is alive and well, but it’s more important than ever to be extremely cautious. The number of sites that provide legitimate and reputable guest blogging are few and far between.

Look carefully, choose carefully, and write carefully. You have a lot to gain through guest blogging. As long as you’re staying vigilant and weeding out the bad guest blogging sites, you’ll begin to see huge advantages.

[“source-searchenginejournal”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Blogging

9 Networks You Can Use for Guest Blogging and Blogger Outreach

by onkar
written by onkar

When it comes to online marketing in the post Penguin and Panda age, two strategies that many marketers are turning towards are guest blogging and blogger outreach. While you can do a lot of leg work on your own by searching for bloggers related to your industry on Google, you can also turn to networks designed to connect businesses and bloggers. However, there is an easier way to find blogs looking for content…

Guest Blogging & Blogger Outreach Networks

The following are nine networks for guest blogging and blogging outreach that you can use to market your business for increased exposure and additional backlinks.

BlogDash

BlogDash calls itself the blogger outreach dashboard. Their network has a directory of 109K bloggers which you can search based on topical keywords, category, Klout score, gender, and other demographics.

You can use their service to interact with bloggers tweets, share blog posts, and pitch bloggers to write about your product or service. Some notable companies using BlogDash include Likeable Media, Shine United, and True Media.

Bloggers can join BlogDash for free to connect with businesses related to their niche. Businesses can start with a free account to browse the blogger directory, but to start pitching to bloggers through the dashboard, membership begins at $49.99 per month. You can save by paying for three month’s or one year’s membership at a time.

Be sure to read testimonials from satisfied agencies using BlogDash and download their free guide to blogger outreach. You can also read a review of their service (while it was still in beta) on Social Media Explorer.

Blogger LinkUp

Blogger LinkUp is a free service that connects bloggers who need content with marketers and businesses looking to place content in exchange for links. The best part is bloggers who have signed up for the service shouldn’t request payment (according to the guidelines on the network, but actual contact requests may vary).

The way it works? You submit your offer for a guest post, product for bloggers to review, or contest announcement. Bloggers will also request guest posts and interview sources for their websites. An email goes out to everyone on the list on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. If you see a request you can fulfill or if a blogger likes your request, you can contact each other directly via the contact information provided in the email.

There’s not much content available on the Blogger LinkUp site itself, but it did get a nod in a post on Social Media Examiner as a great place to find guest bloggers. But considering it’s a free service, it doesn’t hurt to give it a shot!

BlogSynergy

BlogSynergy is a social network for bloggers looking to guest post for other blogs and receive guest posts for their own blogs. Registration is free!

Once you have signed up, you can create a profile for your blog to accept guest blog posts and for yourself as a writer to provide guest posts. You can browse the 2,000+ blogs listed that are looking for guest posts and submit articles for people to use on their blogs.

If you are looking for content for your blog, you can browse the 17,000+ writers ready to provide content, as well as articles that are waiting to be published on a wide variety of topics.

GroupHigh

GroupHigh is a solution for big brands looking to incorporate blogger outreach into their marketing strategy. Their service indexes millions of blogs so that you can search them by keyword, topics covered, number of followers, and location. You can also see if the blog supports video, guest posts, sponsored posts, ad networks, and giveaways.

Once you’ve created a list of blogs to target, GroupHigh can provide key information about them including social profiles, contact form locations, author names, traffic statistics, and SEO metrics.

Notable companies using this service include Social Media Explorer, Distilled, Citrix, Billboard, Home Depot, and many more. You can read mentions of their service on their In the News page which includes nods from Convince & Convert, Content Marketing Institute, Search Engine Journal, and SEOmoz. They also post tweets mentioning their service on the homepage of the website.

Pricing is not listed on the GroupHigh website—you have to contact them for a demo of the service. One site reviewing their service in January listed the price as $3,000 per year, so you can expect it to be on the higher end of the spectrum of premium outreach services.

GuestBlogIt

GuestBlogIt is a community where you can submit content for other blogs to use on their website and receive content to use on your own blog. Free membership allows you to have one article on the market at a time; pro membership for $20 a month allows you to have five articles plus access to other features including ratings, sending / receiving direct messages, and a membership to the Blog Engage social voting network.

Guest Blog Genius

With all of the fear invoked by Google Panda and Penguin, Guest Blog Geniusadvertises that they are 100 percent transparent and that their services fit within Google Webmaster Guidelines. Their service geared towards SEO professionals allows you to find great guest blogging opportunities, as well as order quality content on a regular basis from U.S. based writers. They take the hassle out of link building with content by sourcing content ideas, recruiting skilled writers, building a list of authoritative blogs, and cultivating relationships.

Pricing is based on the content topic you need for your articles. Current prices range from $36 to $144. You can see what their service has to offer by browsing the current guest blogging opportunities.

Guestr

Guestr helps blog owners find new content from bloggers and helps guest bloggers and SEO’s find guest posting opportunities to place their content and build links. Guestr is currently a free service for both site owners and those looking for guest post opportunities. There are currently 804 listings for sites looking for and accepting content in a wide variety of categories. Each site is listed with their current Google PageRank and number of estimated visits.

MyBlogGuest

MyBlogGuest is probably one of the most well-known names when it comes to guest blogging communities. You can sign up for free to list yourself as someone looking for guest bloggers or looking to guest post on another blog in specific categories in the guest blogging forum. There is also a forum dedicated to those looking for social promotion help for their published posts.

There is also a Pro Account option that allows you to submit articles to the article gallery for other bloggers to use on their sites, submit guest posts directly to a blog’s admin dashboard for faster publiscation, submit articles to the infographics gallery for bloggers to discover, track published article status, and more. You can choose from a Basic Premium account for $30 per month or an Advanced Premium account for $70 per month.

You can learn more about MyBlogGuest through features they’ve had onSEOmoz, Blogher, and Search Engine Land.

PostJoint

PostJoint is a platform that helps to make guest blogging quicker and easier for both parties. The key difference between PostJoint and other services is that there is no searching or browsing through galleries of blogs / posts. Instead, advertisers supply content they are looking to have published, the system matches the audiences up against its database of blogs, and bloggers then offer to publish the posts. The advertiser simply has to choose which publishing offers to accept.

Various metrics are shown to help advertisers make a decision, and bloggers are only shown an excerpt of related posts helping to stop the content from being duplicated. All of the bloggers registered with PostJoint are quality screened by moderators, so the response rate and your satisfaction should be high.

This is a unique and interesting concept and one to watch out for. Pricing has not been announced yet, since its currently in a free beta phase for all users. You can read a review of their service on Growmap.

5 Simple Tips for Guest Blogging & Blogger Outreach

Just because a blogger is a part of one of these networks does not mean they are guaranteed to accept your requests. So, whether you use a service or Google to connect with bloggers for guest posts or pitches, there are a few things you should do to ensure your success.

1. Personalize your request.

Be sure to include the name of the blog owner in your request. As a blogger, there is nothing more irritating than seeing a Dear Sir or Madam, Hello Webmaster, or other generic greeting on a request, especially when my name is plastered on the sidebar of the blog, on blog posts, and on the about page. These are the places you should start looking to find the blog owner’s name so you can address them properly in your requests.

2. Interact with the blogger before pitching them.

If you are really interested in a particular blog accepting your guest post or reviewing your product, consider investing a little time in getting to know the blogger first. Commenting on their blog posts, sharing their posts, and interacting with them on social networks are great ways to become a familiar face in the blogger’s community—one that they may be more open to accepting a request from.

3. Make sure your guest post, product, or service fits the blog.

Sure, you may find a blog that lists itself under the Fashion category, but if the title of the blog is Handmade Fashions, then they’re probably not going to be too open to a pitch from a retailer selling name brand fashions. Make sure that the guest post, product, or service you are about to pitch is going to be something that the blogger is actually interested in promoting on their blog. Otherwise, you’re just wasting an email.

4. Make sure the guest post topic you’re submitting hasn’t already been covered.

There’s a great search string that you can use to make sure that a topic you are about to submit as a guest post hasn’t already been written about. Search Google for site:domain.com intitle:keyword—this will show you any posts with a particular keyword in the title. So, if you are a marketer submitting a post about link building, you can see other posts the site has received about link building to ensure that yours is unique enough to make the cut.

5. Read the guidelines.

Many blogs will have guidelines on their site pertaining to guest posts and product reviews. Be sure to read them so that your request is as on target as possible.

[“source-searchenginejournal”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Blogging

The Top 5 Benefits of Guest Blogging

by onkar
written by onkar

Many experts have named contentas one of the main areas of emphasis for SEOs to focus on in 2013 and beyond. This is especially the case with Google’s recent algorithm updates that place an emphasis on fresh, unique content. However, simply placing unique and great content on your own blog isn’t going to maximize your online presence.

Posting and guest blogging on other websites is a great way to gain a bigger following on your own social media accounts and websites, while also gaining credibility and networking opportunities.

Because many online users visit the same social networks and related blogs in their industry on a regular basis (even daily), seeing the same author in multiple places reinforces the idea that this person is an expert in their field. This is due to the fact that they not only are writing useful content, but that content is also being published on websites that are reputable and useful.

Guest blogging is usually time-consuming, but it can pay off in spades, especially when it comes to building individual and company branding.

Exposure

Great, high quality content has become even more important as more readers are getting the majority of their news and information online instead of nightly television news programs or newspapers. This means that there is a flood of content being published each day, and the more websites a person or company is mentioned on, the better (not only from a human perspective, but also a search engine perspective).

In the advertising world, companies know that a potential customer must be exposed to an ad multiple times before they begin tying positive feelings or subconscious recognition of the product or brand.

The same could be said for the online presence of a company and its individuals. Not only do authors with published guest posts on a wide variety of websites get more exposure, they get more opportunities to craft a positive association in readers’ minds.

Credibility

Positive association with brand names definitely drives credibility for individual authors and the companies for which they write. An author who has been published on sites like Huffington Post or Marketing Land will most likely be seen as more credible in their field than someone who has no guest posts at all. It can be difficult to get approved as a guest writer or contributor for top industry sites, so starting with smaller blogs and using them as a portfolio will start creating the online credibility that will only grow once the author has been published on more popular sites. It also helps to mention any type of experience that may lead to better posts, such as continuing education (e.g. conferences or additional certifications) or recent client experiences.

Guest blogging on popular industry sites can also lead to greater opportunities that go beyond writing posts for additional websites and blogs. They often lead to actual sales of products and services, speaking engagements, and increased website traffic for both the publisher and the author.

Inbound Links

Increased website traffic is one of the main reasons why many writers choose to begin guest blogging in the first place. Most websites allow writers to submit a bio and/or their social media profile URLs to be published at the end of the post. These links drive referral traffic and boost organic search rankings, resulting in better search visibility for the author’s website.

Because the guest blog post provides inbound links, it’s important to provide only high-quality content. Link building is almost always worthwhile, as inbound links play the biggest role in the search engine ranking algorithm. In addition, thoughtful, useful, and valuable content that gets traffic and steady engagement will help you publish more regularly at each publisher with whom you work.

Social Media Growth

social mediaIn addition to website links, links to social media profiles can help improve your visibility and online presence. If a reader likes the article, they’ll often follow you on Twitter or Google+ to see what other content you are publishing on other websites, including your own.

Besides growing a following, great articles will also get shared via social media channels, leading to improved visibility for authors that are constantly writing and publishing great content. This may include tweets like, “Great article on Google Analytics Custom Reports by @username: LINK” or “@username’s The Comprehensive Guide to e-Commerce Websites is awesome: LINK”. These shares will further speed up the growth of your following in social media channels while also driving traffic to your articles and establishing social proof for the legitimacy of your content, whichstrengthens your Author Rank and allows your content to rank higher in search engine results pages.

Networking

Besides outright promotional tweets and sharing of your content, guest blogs also often drive conversation on social media, the comment section of the post, and via email, which could lead to great networking opportunities or sales. For instance, I often get emails from readers thanking me for my articles and offering to connect on LinkedIn.

After responding, you leave a positive association with that reader. The next time a reader needs services or products the author’s company may provide, you could be the first person they go to.

Beside potential sales, networking that results from guest blogging can also lead to valuable industry contacts that are great for support and business referrals. In addition, a new contact may ask you to write a guest post for their own blog.

Networking can also be a great way to find guest bloggers for your own website. Bringing in regular, quality guest bloggers can result in more fresh content and a better variety of perspectives and knowledge that may not come from a single individual or team working for the same company. This further fosters a supportive environment of authors helping one another.

Conclusion

Whether you are looking for more exposure, credibility, inbound links, social media exposure, networking opportunities or all of the above, guest blogging is a worthwhile content marketing strategy. While it takes dedication to consistently write great posts, the benefits far outweigh the time investment.

[“source-searchenginejournal”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Blogging

Matt Cutts Clarifies Guest Blogging for SEO (with tips)

by onkar
written by onkar
guest blogging

Matt Cutts dropped the hammer today on people that are guest blogging for links.

Matt Cutts stated “I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.”

Downfall of Guest Blogging SEO

He shows the following email:

Bad Guest Blogging Example

 

Here at SEJ we get 20+ of these same type pitches daily.  It’s annoying.  We are a site run by guest bloggers, though we’ve tightened up our guidelines to only accept the best posts out there.  I, much like Cutts is really getting sick of all the crap out there.  Cutts later explained “… stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy. In general I wouldn’t recommend accepting a guest blog post unless you are willing to vouch for someone personally or know them well. Likewise, I wouldn’t recommend relying on guest posting, guest blogging sites, or guest blogging SEO as a linkbuilding strategy.”

So if you don’t get what he’s talking about.  If you’re willing to have someone blog on your blog for you, they better produce good content and be a credible person.  You’re staking your reputation and the reputation of your blog on them.  I’d imagine that it will harm your blog/website if you have crappy content or crappy authors on it.

Moving Forward

First, SEO isn’t dead.  Guest posting isn’t dead. Our lives aren’t over.  If guest posting was your main strategy for getting SEO links, you may want to re-evaluate what you’re doing.  Guest posting is NOT dead and can be a very good source of links, but more importantly interactions that drive REAL people to your site.  Create amazing content and links that will help inspire people by it’s content.  That’s what’ll really help your SEO.  That type of SEO will never die.

I’m positive that Cutts isn’t bashing on all guest posting but more on people that are only guest posting for a stupid link.  Seriously people, stop guest posting for links.  Guest post cause you’re now infront of a unique audience that you can teach something new too.  Teach and inspire them.  Show them something they haven’t seen before.  Be a real part of a new community to expand your personal brand.  Focus on HIGH-QUALITY and not lower/garbage posts.

Where Do I Start?

So now comes the big question, where do I get started with higher quality guest posting and building quality links?  Honestly, there are a million places to get started.  Join your local community and become a strong voice for positive.  Read and comment on SEJ, SEL, SEW, Moz, Wordstream, Hubspot, Social Media Examiner, iAquire,, Google Webmaster Blog, Bing Blog, and 100’s of others.  Become the expert.  Comment on posts, show the community that you’re worth listening too.  Then start small.  Get your own blog.  Signup for the Examiner (pretty easy to get into). Then work your way up.

Remember:  Only post GOOD information that’s valuable to readers.  Honestly, if you’re putting up content that Matt Cutts would read and want to strangle you… you probably shouldn’t put it up.

[“source-searchenginejournal”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Blogging

3 Ways Real-Time Live Blogging Can Triple Your Traffic

by onkar
written by onkar
SEJ_0000_SEJ_3wayslivebloggingcantripletraffic

What if I told you that you could triple your traffic, without coming up with any of your own ideas, just by getting faster at publishing your content?

Is that something you might be interested in?

Well, you can! And the process is incredibly easy and useful to your content strategy. Consistent idea generation for website content can be challenging. In fact, 50% of marketers say they have trouble simply coming up with enough ideas to fuel their content strategy, according to a survey by Kapost.

There are a lot of shortcuts out there for coming up with more content ideas, such as curation of other people’s content or even repurposing of your own content into a new format. The benefit of live-blogging, however, is getting in front of an audience that is already online and engaged. This creates the potential for spreading your content to a wider audience, faster.

There are three ways to create a high amount of impact, quickly with real-time blogging.

1. Live-Blog at Conferences and Events

If you’ve ever been to a conference, you know that the hashtag blows up during the entire event, and often the weeks leading up to and following it as well. Both attendees, and even people who maybe wish they could have attended, follow and engage with the hashtag to learn and network.

This is a great opportunity for you to jump in and add something relevant to the conversation. The key here is relevancy. People are really quick to write you off if you contribute something that seems overly promotional or forced. But if you authentically add value to the conversation, you can get your message in front of a new audience and increase traffic to your website.

There are several potential ways to successfully capitalize on an event hashtag and drive traffic to your blog.

Write a Session Summary

People try their best to take notes during speaker sessions, but between live-tweeting, and well, life, some of the important things can slip away. And while slide decks are really helpful while the presenter is speaking, many times they just look like a bunch of pretty pictures after the fact.

Conference attendees, and those who may have missed out, will be genuinely grateful for composed, thorough recaps of a good session. And the speakers will be equally happy that you are helping to spread their message, and will likely share as well.

Tips for success:

  • Write down everything you hear. Literally dump as much as you can as fast as you can, you can go back and edit after. The more thorough your notes, the easier crafting your post will be.
  • Choose a session with a well-known speaker. And if you can get into a session that’s so popular they had to turn people away, even better. The speaker will likely share your recap with their audience. And the people who missed out will want to read it too.
  • Put the hashtag in the headline. This way, when people click the tweet button from your blog post, your content will automatically be fed into the conference stream. But please be careful with this (i.e. people on a conference hashtag will realize very quickly if you have bots sharing your posts in abnormal patterns – not you, ever, right?).

Write an Overall Conference Recap

A second conference opportunity, which is along the same lines as the first, is to write a recap of the overall conference. You can give opinions on the best presenters, talk about what influencers are forecasting for the industry, and give suggestions for future attendees.

Tips for success:

  • Take thorough notes each day. Write it down while it’s fresh in your mind. And better yet, write a post for each day (day one recap, day two recap, etc.). The more recent the information, the better.
  • Don’t wait too long to publish. While people are likely still checking into the hashtag the day after the conference, they’ve moved on to bigger and better things if a week has gone by. Get it posted right away (see a pattern here?).

Write a Curated Content List

Remember how I was talking about how beneficial curated content is for lightening up your editorial planning load? You can give it an extra punch by curating real-time conference information. One easy way to do this is to write a list of the “most notable one-liners from presenters” or “best tweets of the day.”

Tips for success:

  • Make sure they are actually notable notes. Don’t just write a list for a list’s sake. Be sure they are useful takeaways and give suggestions for how they could be used.
  • Include a few influencers. Again, influencers are promoters of their own brand too, so they are likely to share your list if you make them look good.

2. Create Real-Time Recaps of Twitter Chats

Much like conference hashtags, Twitter chats are a great way to connect with an audience that is already actively engaged in a relevant conversation for your brand. Some Twitter chats have as many as 3000 tweets within their scheduled time slot!

The nice thing about Twitter recaps is that you don’t have to actually write a large amount of unique information for the post to be relevant, making it a quick way to churn out good content.

Write a brief introduction and then segment your post out by the questions asked during the twitter chat. List out a few of the best tweets per section. Then add a section that links back to the chat for those who want to continue reading, like this:

“ Click here to see all of the answers to #SaaSChats question nine. “

The hyperlink above automatically pulls you to all of the people who wrote “A9” in their tweet – pretty cool, right?

Tips for success:

  • Copy the best tweets as you see them. Make sure you are taking good notes during the twitter chat. This can get tricky if you are trying to participate at the same time. But it will take you twice as long to go back and comb through the information later.
  • Send shout outs when it’s published. If it takes you a day for the post to go live, be sure to let people you’ve quoted know they’ve been featured. Let them help spread the word, too!

3. Newsjack Relevant Topics

This is an oldie but a goodie. Newsjacking means jumping into a trending topic and adding something unique to the conversation. PR people have done this for years, but did you know it can help your SEO as well? And you don’t have to come up with the idea, you just have to share your perspective.

Some of the best brands are really good at newsjacking. We all remember the brilliant Oreo ad after the super bowl lights went out:

 

Newsjacking is great for social media, but you can use it to drive traffic back to your content as well by live-blogging a corresponding post. This is essentially what news sites like Search Engine Journal are really good at doing, writing about topics that are trending right now, and getting the message out, fast.

One company that does a lot of newsjacking is Spirit Airlines. They especially like to make waves with edgy emails, like one of their subject lines of “You know that cliff everyone’s been talking about” after Congress’s infamous fiscal cliff troubles.

Tips for success:

  • Plan to be nimble. The ability to newsjack actually comes from careful planning about how you will get content out quickly. Know who is going to write, design, and edit ahead of time so that you can get the content out quickly.
  • Don’t be a jerk. I love a quality edgy campaign, but DO NOT newsjack something that is going to make your brand look like an insensitive a**hole. It will become a huge PR scandal that’s not worth the risk. Just don’t do it.
  • Make sure you have a CTA. It’s great if you’re brand goes viral for a minute in a conversation, but lead the viewers somewhere now that you’ve got their attention. Have a piece of content ready for them to consume.

Get in Front of a New Audience

All three of these tactics will help you get your content in front of a new audience you aren’t currently reaching—and the best part is they’re all free! On top of that, they simplify the content creation process, putting time back in your day that you can put toward other things like distributing your excellent new content.

[“source-searchenginejournal”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Online Marketing

The 4Ps of Online Marketing

by onkar
written by onkar

 

online marketing

The 4Ps of marketing have remained the guiding principle for marketers for several decades. However, with advancement in technologies of today’s digital age, the marketing landscape has totally transformed and so have the guiding principles for marketers.

For this article, we closely scrutinized the present state of the corporate sector and the approaches marketers can integrate in their marketing campaigns to get the most out of online marketing. From our studies, we have identified a latest list of the 4Ps of digital or online marketing: People, Performance, Programmatic, and Platforms.

People

It may appear common to state that people are the nucleus of marketing. With 40 percent of the world population on the Internet today, marketers are posed with both challenges and opportunities. No doubt, to create a strong impact, marketing communications must get to the consumers. When it comes to online marketing, the way to analyze your online market is through factors like impressions, traffic, cookies, and click through rates.

It is worth mentioning here that the Internet has empowered marketers to reach the target market with greater accuracy, and dispense a customized message to the people. The use of cookies is a cornerstone in reaching out to the people in today’s digital age.

Performance

In order to understand the total impact of online marketing, digital marketers must carry out a performance-based strategy that should integrate important factors like brand cognizance, interactive impression, sales lift, etc. These factors are more effective than other metrics like impressions and click-through rate.

A new string of comScore researches carried out in Europe unveiled the following optimistic online marketing campaign results:

1. About 52 percent increase in traffic to the website of companies that conducted online advertising performance measurement as compared to those that didn’t.
2. About 49 percent increase in branded search queries from consumers who were exposed to performance-based online marketing campaign than those who weren’t.

Programmatic

Programmatic audience obtaining is deemed as a great answer to the present digital challenges. This can be corroborated by the fact that the US programmatic ad revenues stood at $10.1 billion in 2014. It can cut cost and enhance targeting precision in addition to boosting return on investment. No matter how effective the benefits of programmatic, it is equally significant to keep correct and practical projections about the expected number of audience each ad would serve.

Transparency is very important in programmatic, and concurrent campaign transfer data and pre-bid comprehensions can offer the required transparency. According to a new study, 68 percent of marketers think that Data Management Platforms are crucial to for sustainability of programmatic marketing.

Platforms

People are now accessing the Internet through a number of different platforms, such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and other digital devices. According to comScore, 184 million people in the US own smartphones. For marketers, this means an opportunity to target eyeballs on multiple platforms.

It is worth mentioning here that about 75 percent of the UK’s online population uses more than one device to access the Internet, mainly mobile devices. For marketers, this underlines the importance of focusing on different platforms in their efforts to get their messages across to consumers. It is also important to note that different platforms have different needs. For example, a website developed for PC will not display properly on a mobile device, and marketers must take these factors into account as well.

The world of Internet is changing and we understand it well. We offer multitude of services ranging from SEO to PPC management. Get in touch with today and know what we can do for your business.

[“source-business2community”]

0 comment
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
error: Content is protected !!