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Posts Tagged ‘blogging’

Guest Post: How Internal linking Can Significantly Boost Your Marketing Campaigns

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

Caeden M MacGregor has an excellent article on using internal linking on your blog to improve your search rankings. I’ve used this strategy on my own posts, and it is helpful. Take it away, Caeden!

Exploring the power of optimized internal links on your website traffic

Spent months and hours of late night writing and designing to create your own website or blog? Naturallym you want all of that hard work to get the attention it deserves. The way we do this on the web is by driving as much traffic as possible to your beloved website or blog—especially when you keep in mind that a search engine’s ultimate goal is to identify the very best few and relevant pages about every topic on the web. The search engines want to identify the “expert” pages, and these pages get the accolades of high page rank and internet traffic. And internal linking is one strategy that can significantly boost your online marketing campaigns.

What are internal links?

Internal links are clickable links within your web copy or blog copy that when submitted as guest posts on other blogs, and as copy and navigation links on your own blog, bring readers to different pages of your website. For instance, if you write a guest post on ‘How to Pick a Pet Sitter for Your Dog’ and it’s published, this article might contain an internal link that leads readers, or drives traffic, back to a page on your website about ‘Pet Sitting’.

How to optimize internal links

Simply linking a bit of text within your body copy is one thing, but to get the best bang for your buck, SEOs use niche keywords in their anchor text in order to build an internal link. For instance, instead of simply using “Click Here” as my internal link copy, I would see better optimization and reader comprehension by using the link copy “Find a Qualified Pet Sitter” to ensure the link is relevant to the readers and to the search engines as well. This anchor text (or link text) does its part to boost the interlinked pages within search engines like Google, and contributes value toward your web page.

Four ways that internal linking boosts web traffic

So now that you understand internal links and SEO-optimized anchor text a little better, let’s explore exactly how internal linking can boost your website marketing efforts…

Internal linking greatly impacts your search engine ranking within Google—the stronger it is, the higher your SERP.
It will also affect your organic search engine results—the more effective, the more human traffic will come to your webpage and site.
Internal linking will continue to build link authority for your site over time—especially if you link to pages that the search engines consider “authority” sources (or already high-ranking pages online).
An effective internal linking strategy that targets niche keyword phrases will quickly establish your page, and site, as an authority source by the search engines.

About The Author

Caeden M MacGregor is a staff writer for Prestige Marketing who specializes in PPC Management in Vancouver. Caeden has written for numerous blogs on a variety of topics ranging from guest blogging to landing page optimization.

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Tags: blogging, guest post, marketing, seo
Posted in Guest Post | 1 Comment »

Guest Post: Five Simple SEO Tips Every Blogger Should Know!

Friday, March 2nd, 2012

Today we have a guest post by Brenden Egan of Simple SEO group on some good tips for your blog. Take it away, Brendan.

If you have a website, chances are you also have a blog. Or maybe you just have a personal blog where you go to spill your thoughts after a long day. Whatever the case, you likely blog to gain readers, after all if you didn’t want people reading your blog you would just have an offline diary.

But so many people don’t know how to get readers and traffic to their blog. They produce excellent content on a regular basis on topics people would love to read about, but they just can’t seem to get their blog off the ground.

Search engines play a vital role in driving traffic to blogs around the world. Google, Yahoo, and Bing are three of the most popular websites on the internet, and it’s important to get your blog not just listed in search engines but ranking high for terms that describe your blog’s content. But unfortunately most bloggers don’t have enough money to purchase monthly SEO packages from an SEO firm, and they also don’t have the personal knowledge on how to properly optimize their blog. While there’s a lot that comes into play when optimizing a blog to rank higher in search results, here’s five foolproof tips that will help you get started with ranking your blog in search results:

1) Produce Quality, Unique Content

Okay the first step is producing quality content. Most bloggers already do this, but if you don’t then start to produce a variety of quality content that is easy to read and be sure to post that content on a regular basis. The second part is unique content — make sure you don’t just copy/paste content from throughout the web as search engines will actually penalize your site for doing this.

2) Make Sure Your Comment Links Are “No Follow”

When people post comments on your blog, they often leave a link back to their website in the comment or tied to their name. That’s great, but each outbound link, especially links to shady or questionable websites can hurt your search rankings. Search engines developed a “no follow” tag to attach to those links which diminishes this effect, and you can download a free WordPress plugin called “NoFollow Free” which will handle this for you. (Juli here: I don’t completely agree with this. I think you can make your comments “Follow” if you are careful which comments you approve.)

3) Stop Spammers Right In Their Path

Unfortunately many of the people who comment on your blog do so for one purpose — to spam a link into that comment to improve their own site’s traffic and search rankings. Be a strict moderator when it comes to what comments you approve, and don’t be afraid to edit comments to remove links that aren’t deserved or links that point to questionable websites.

4) Regular Updates Are Vital To A Blog’s Success

We mentioned this already with unique content, but regular updates are so important to having a quality blog. Most people suggest updating your blog at least 15-20 times per month, which for some people is next to impossible, so just try to update as often as possible and on a regular schedule, for example every Monday.

5) Optimize Headings, Titles, And Tags

Think of what people might be searching for to find your blog topic, and optimize your headings, blog title, and tags to match that. This can help tell search engines what your blog is really about and what it should be ranking for, which will in turn obviously drive more targeted traffic to your blog.

Again these tips aren’t an end all be all, but they are a few easy DIY steps to get your blog in better SEO shape. There’s really no substitute for a professional SEO service if your blog is part of a business website and you use it as a source of income, but if you just blog for pleasure then these tips should be more than enough to get your site ranking better in search engines!

About The Author: Brendan Egan is the owner of Simple SEO Group, an online marketing, web design, and search engine optimization firm that helps small businesses improve their web presence. Brendan can be reached by visiting www.SimpleSEOGroup.com

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Tags: blogging, guest post
Posted in General | 4 Comments »

The Flexibility of Social Media

Monday, September 19th, 2011

I was meeting with someone last week about using social media, and she got me thinking about different ways to get value from social media.

Let me start by saying her attitude toward Twitter was…umm…less than positive. She said she considered it a waste of time because it “was just celebrities and other people talking about where they are and what they’re doing.”

True, there’s an awful lot of that happening on Twitter (and Facebook). We talked some more, and she told me some of her challenges in marketing her business. The three that relate to this post were:

1. Blogs and other content in her industry generally contained uninspired content
2. She wanted a source of indexed content
3. Some of the people she wanted to meet are hard to get to

As we talked, I realized Twitter could help her with all three.

1. Better content

As a blogger, I rely on Twitter to point me to good content as a source of inspiration. I’ve added to posts, disagreed with other posts and synthesized information to create my own analyses. Sometimes, I even repost material on my blog. I’d guess that 1/4 to a 1/3 of my content comes from inspirations gleaned from my reading.

I’m sure she and others could use Twitter as a similar source of information.

2. Indexed source of information

Well, no Twitter isn’t indexed, but the search feature isn’t bad. If you are looking for information on a particular topic, you can create a search and then follow that search instead of following a person. As you follow that search, you’ll likely find certain names popping up over and over. If they’re stuff is good, you could start following them.

3. Access to people

Maybe some of the people you want to meet are on Twitter. It’s funny. I’m noticing some people are more likely to respond to a Twitter @Mention than a phone call or email. So search Twitter. If the people or companies you want to meet with are present, build a virtual relationship. If you do it right, the virtual relationship can be transformed into a face-to-face relationship, giving you access to someone you might not have been able to meet otherwise.

See, social media can be good for a lot more than pushing your product or service or keeping up with the antics of your favorite celebrity.

How about you? How have you used social media to grow or add value to your business?

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Tags: blogging, marketing, Relationship building, social media
Posted in social media | Comments Off

Relationships and Blogging

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

On Monday, I had a phone chat with Ari Herzog. We were talking about social media and relationship building (among other things).

He got me to thinking about my strongest relationships on social media. Not surprisingly, my strongest relationships continue to be people I see in person on some regular basis. @beyourboss, @ccooks3, and @paulineleitch are good examples. Check out my @Mention stream. Those three feature prominently. Also look at who I RT. Again, those three are prominent.

But thinking about other relationships I have on-line, there are a few people I do not see in person frequently with whom I consider to have a good relationship. Interestingly, they share blogs in common.

Ari is one. Jason Alba is another. I’ve offered to help both of them in the past, and, interesting timing, I’ve had or will have phone conversations with both of them this week. I don’t consider the relationships as strong as with the three I mentioned above, but they are certainly good.

Let me think of some people I have a Twitter-only relationship with. Ken Peters and I tweet back and forth about stuff, but it’s all reactive. I think he recognizes my handle, and I’m working on a potential referral for him, but I wouldn’t exactly say we have a real relationship. Thom Singer and Gabriel Strange would be other examples. We’ve tweeted back and forth, but that’s about it. They both have blogs, but I don’t read or comment on them as often.

Why are blogs important? I think it’s because you have more space to write, which gives you a better feel for a person. Commenting on blogs gives you more space to delve into an issue. Ari and I have (politely) argued points on each others blogs, and that gives a (somewhat) deeper understanding of each other. About a month ago, I was sensing some frustration on Ari’s part, both in his own blog, and in comments on mine, and that prompted me to reach out in an email and offer to help.

Could I have gotten that through Twitter or Facebook? Maybe, but I don’t sense as much emotion through those channels.

Obviously, I’m not advocating not using them. I love Twitter and am on it most days. I’m building and deepening relationships there, but the best relationships, for me, are ones that go beyond Twitter.

So it seems to me that social media relationships fall into the following categories-strongest to weakest:

1. Social media and in-person
2. Social media and blogs
3. Social media (not including blogs) alone

Anyone want to disagree with me? I’m only one person, and I do have a bias toward in-person relationships. Feel free to chime in and tell me I’m nuts!

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Tags: blogging, Relationship building, social media
Posted in social media | 7 Comments »

Social Media Roles: Be a Content Creator

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

An important role in social media is to be a go-to person for good content. There are two ways to act in this role. One is to be a Content Creator. The other is to be a Content Filter. I’ll cover Content Creator today and Filter tomorrow.

Let’s start with why you might want to fill the Content Creator role in social media. Probably you want to be known as an original thinker in your field. Or you might want to write a book, and you want to use social media as a way to build content and a future audience. Perhaps you are a free-lance writer or consultant and want to build credibility with your future clients. All of these are good reasons to be a Content Creator.

Where do Content Creators promote themselves in social media? A blog is the obvious place to start. A blog provides a foundation for all other interaction. Much of your time in social media is aimed at driving people to your blog so they can read and share in your content.

By the way, that blog doesn’t have to be written. A video blog or podcast are good options as well, depending on what content you are promoting. Are you a writer? A written blog is essential. Are you a trainer or speaker? A video blog or podcast might promote you more effectively.

Once you’ve set up your blog and decided on the format, what other forms of social media are going to work well to promote the blog? I’m a fan of Twitter for blog promotion. Twitter has better tools for promoting outside of your immediate contact sphere. While Facebook has introduced a “retweet” function, it isn’t used as commonly. Facebook is excellent for maintaining close relationships. It’s not as good at promoting or making something “go viral.”

If you are doing a video blog, YouTube is required. It’s a good place to host the video, and it has excellent search functionality. With the ease of liking or reviewing a video and the tracking of times the video has been watched, it’s a good platform for promoting your content.

So most likely, you’ll have your blog on a schedule, and you’ll be using YouTube and/or Twitter to promote your posts. Where does this leave you from a time management perspective?

Obviously, you’ll need to allocate time to write or film your content. For most of you, this will probably be your biggest time commitment. The rest of your time will be monitoring your blog for comments, Twitter for retweets and comments and/or YouTube for reviews.

In addition to monitoring, you need to be engaging with your followers. Perhaps someone in your field has written a related blog post? You can comment on it and link to it. This allows you to engage with other writers in your field and promote them. What goes around comes around. If you promote them, they will likely promote you in return. Over time, you can build a close relationship with your audience and other influential people in your field.

How does this get you business? If you are selling a book or tele-series, your blog allows people to get a feel for who you are and if they might be interested in paying for your content. If you’re a speaker, people can see your style before they book you. Consultants and other professional service providers can build a reputation as a go-to person in their field. Once you are known as the go-to person, people use and refer you.

Does any of this sound like you? If so, great. Now you know where to start. If not, don’t worry. I’m going to cover several other roles over the next week.

Tune in tomorrow for Content Filters, the flip-side of Content Creators.

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Tags: blogging, Relationship building, social media, time management, writing
Posted in social media | 1 Comment »

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