Protected: A Blog Formatting Guide: Mock Template
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Blogging
How to Find & Work With Your Best-Fit Blog Writers
Today, content is everything. Unfortunately, most companies simply don’t have the time, resources, or skill level to create quality content in-house. While many businesses try to scrape by, anyway, the truth is that opting to skimp on content is an excellent way to damage your business and put your livelihood at risk. Luckily, there’s a better way. By hiring professional blog writers to create your content for you, you can reap all of the skill and expertise these professionals have to offer, without pulling your hair out in the process. Read on to learn more. Why Hire Professional Blog Writers? While many marketers believe that hiring professional blog writers is just an unneeded expense, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, today, blog writers are more important than they’ve ever been before. As it stands right now, the U.S. population conducts roughly 12 billion Google searches each month, and 60% of the clicks produced by those searches go directly to the top 3 search results on Google’s SERPs. With this in mind, it’s clear that customers have more than enough websites and companies to choose from online, but that they consistently choose the ones that establish themselves as authorities in their niches and industries. While many companies believe this can be achieved through a mixture of paid advertisements and link building, the fact of the matter is that content is the single best way to produce a great business strategy that lasts. By hiring professional blog writers to manage your content for you, you’ll reap the following benefits: Authority. Customers want valuable, authoritative content that helps them learn something new. Hiring professional blog writers is one of the best ways to ensure that you’re offering this for your audience. Because professional blog writers know how to craft concise, compelling, unique content for your site, their services are a fantastic way to boost your brand authority and become a better-known entity in your industry. Relevancy. Professional blog writers have an intimate understanding of how to make sure content is as relevant as possible. Because blog writers are skilled at writing in an approachable, conversational, friendly tone peppered with heavy research, and then adapting that voice to suit your particular audience and segment of the market, hiring a professional blog writer is a fantastic way to boost your relevance across the board. Skill. Let’s face it – writing well takes skill, and many people simply don’t have it. When you hire a professional team of blog writers, though, you’ll get a skilled, high-quality team of writers who know how to craft flawless content for your brand. From spelling and grammar to today’s most current SEO standards, blog writers understand how to make content shine. Simplicity. As a business owner, you’re incredibly busy. While you might not have the time or the effort to put into crafting quality content, professional blog writers do, and this can help you boost your business. According to HubSpot, companies that have between 401-1000 pages on their website earn six times as many leads as those with between 51-100 pages. With this in mind, more is better, and blog writers can help you populate your site with quality content without sacrificing your sanity or home life. Adjustability. Your business is going to grow and change, and a skilled team of blog writers will be there to see you through it. Because bloggers are highly adaptable and adjustable, they’re the ideal people to have on your side – whether you need to create a blog post, press release, or a simple product description. Google’s Standards Now Demand Expert Writers While all the reasons I just mentioned are valid ones to hire blog writers, there’s one huge reason that rules them all: Google demands it. Last year, Google released the entire transcript of its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. The document was 160-pages long and designed to assist Google’s infamous human search quality evaluators understand what constitutes a quality site and what doesn’t. While there was plenty of highly useful information within the long document, two acronyms stood out: EAT and YMYL. EAT EAT stands for expertise, authoritativeness, trustworthiness and refers to three of the top things websites need to rank well in Google. The acronym, while useful on many levels, provides increased evidence for Google’s obsession with expert writers. Because there are so many low-quality web pages across the internet, Google rewards sites that offer high levels of EAT. Unfortunately, this is nearly impossible to obtain unless you hire a professional writer. For a page to have high levels of EAT, it must be concise, expert, and relevant. Be advised that these guidelines shift depending upon what type of page we’re dealing with. While a page that deals with breaking a young horse will require exactly as much expertise as a page that talks about how to become a stand-up comedian, the industries are slightly different and, as such, the knowledge required for each will be slightly different. While Google does differentiate between formal (Educated) and non-formal (lived) experience, it’s critical to have a high level of expertise to rank well in the search engine. YMYL While EAT describes what a page needs to rank well, YMYL provides some additional insight on which pages need the most of it. YMYL stands for “your money or your life” and is a critical acronym for marketers who want to improve their content across the board. You see, YMYL pages are distinct: they’re the web pages that have the potential to have a direct and negative impact on a person’s health, wealth, or well-being if the content within them is not perfect. These pages include financial advice pages, family law pages, any medical page, and the like. While YMYL pages have always been important, Google underscored how critical it is to have expert writers construct these back in 2015, and recently updated the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines to reflect an increased importance on both EAT and YMYL. 5 Rules for Working with a Blog Writer Now that you … Read more
3 Easy Ways to Keep Up Your Blogging This Summer
Can’t wait to escape to the beach and enjoy your margarita this summer? Hold on there, if you’re a business owner or marketer… The sad news is your business and marketing won’t run itself, if you’re gone and no one else is left to run it. That’s especially true of your online presence, like blogging and social media. It might seem ridiculously tempting to just let the blog sit still for a month and take off, but here are some killer statistics that prove why you shouldn’t let your blog stagnate (even for a week). Why Consistent Blogging Wins Companies that blog have 97% more inbound links than those who don’t. That’s a LOT of SEO ranking juice. 92% of companies that blog more than once a day (that’s a lot of blogging) have won customers from their blog. And finally…ready for it? Marketers who use blogs generate 67% more leads than those who don’t. Why would you put all of that on hold for a month? Don’t let your online exposure and presence drop because of time off. The good news is that you don’t have to fold up that beach towel just yet. 3 Ways to Keep Your Blogging Healthy Despite the Summer Holiday Keep reading for my top three methods to have a consistent content flow to boost your online presence despite the summer vacation season. 1. Stock topics and keyword research in advance. This one’s very simple. I’ll break topic skeletons and keyword research topic searches into two points. #1: Topic skeleton fodder For the topic skeletons, all you need is Word and a couple hours of time. Come up with great blog topics by asking yourself a few questions and digging down with solid answers. It doesn’t even have to be perfect, what you write down: a professional blog writer can finalize your content to perfection and come up with headlines that will earn more clicks than your rough sketches. Here are a few questions to ask yourself. Outline your answers in a doc, which can be a rough sketch you send to your writer. Your story: Your founding story alone can make multiple great blog topics. Think of the value points of your company and why you believe in what you do. For example: “My T-shirt printing company stands out because of the ink we produce and the quality assurance we give our clients.” What are your client’s biggest pain points? Each pain point can make a new blog topic possibility. Example, “My T-shirt printing clients come to me with the problem that a lot of shirts are made cheaply. The print might come off in the wash or with use too quickly.” Aha! 7 Ways to Preserve Your T-Shirt Print-Ons, or How to Wash Your T-Shirt And Avoid Fading (Every Time). There you go – winning blog topics out of a few customer pain points. The second side of this point can garner a double list of blog topics. #2: Keyword Research For keyword research opportunities to help you come up with great SEO topics, I love SEMrush and KWFinder. It’s simple to research for your best keyword opportunities when using these tools. Check out my nutshell guide to keyword research for an in-depth guide. If keyword discovery requires too much time to figure out, check to see if the writing solution you’re using can do the keyword research for you. (We offer keyword strategy ourselves here.) 2. Invest in a blog writing service. There’s no way around this one. If you want your blog to literally run itself, you’ll need to invest in a good blog writer (or two). Here are key things to ask for when you’re reaching out to your potential blog ghostwriter so you can find a perfect fit: Writing samples: This is key. Those with experience will have a large portfolio available and diverse samples. Online & search optimization writing skills: Although the creative skills of a genius writer are at the core of successful online writing, and that should be your primary concern, you should check secondarily for a skill set in SEO content optimization skills. Make sure your writer knows how to write a unique meta description for every blog, meta title, and how to use your topical keywords naturally throughout the post. 3. Don’t just hire a writer; get a specialist who fits your industry. Have you heard of the Google E-A-T and Y-M-Y-L standards? Basically, Google looks for expertise, authoritativeness, and trust in every post going out on the web. For the intense industries, like finance or law, Google looks for even higher standards (Your Money or Your Life). You need an expert copywriter if your content falls in a high level category to get the most results out of your Google presence. To make sure your blogger can match these standards, ask for relevant samples in your industry and their real-life expertise in your niche (example, 10 years as a paralegal). Conclusion Don’t let summer get your content strategy down. With a serious, active blog strategy, your leads, online presence and revenue will stay on the rise. It’s easy to enjoy time off when you have experts keeping your blog up. Invest in your online content today & save with code summer5. Visit the Content Shop.
The Floating-By Blogger Syndrome: How Not To Be Just Another Blogger
Have you ever felt like everyone in the world has a blog? If yes, you’re actually not too far off in your thinking. 58.6 million new blog posts are being published each month on WordPress; and there are over 76 million entire blogs that exist on WordPress. There are over 288 million more bloggers on Tumblr! With this many bloggers hooked up and running online, it can be difficult to understand how you could ever stand out from the crowd. There’s a seriously overflowing river (flood) of blogs. So, how are you going to excel in the middle of all of them? Or do anything but float by? While there are truly millions of active blogs out there, I have a little secret for you: many of them are lacking in what I’m about to show you. That means you DO have a chance, if you’re prepared to put in the elbow grease, dedicate yourself, and follow my tips. Read on to learn more about how you can prevent your blog from stagnating beneath the weight of the unhealthy, unsuccessful floating-by blogger syndrome. The Curse of the Floating-By Blogger Syndrome: Identifying the Floaters Regardless of the topic, writer, or platform, most blogs are snooze-worthy. They’re just another getup, floating by on the same raft structure every blog is using. Why? This unfortunate blogging syndrome has stemmed from the fact that everyone with some kind of brand, business, or story to tell, has heard from their brother, mother, sister, neighbor, marketer, or anyone really: you need to start a blog! Those that take this advice suddenly and without another thought become one of the following floating-by bloggers: Bloggers that don’t take the time needed to master the art of blogging. I mean the art of getting down, nitty-gritty, and write to stir emotions. Create to produce helpful thoughts that will shake the Internet. As Grant Cardone puts it—work to dominate, not compete. That’s the work involved in “mastering the art” of blogging. Bloggers that–wait for it–don’t write well. Many bloggers who have hastily taken the advice of “build a blog for your business now!” are poor writers, or are simply churning out content about topics they don’t care about. If there’s one floating-by type that irks me, it’s that one. Bloggers that just follow the lead of bloggers they admire without any new insights or thoughts, which has resulted in them being unoriginal carbon copies of other writers. Nothing new to see folks, just passing by here. The rushed blogger. They haven’t dedicated the time to find their niche, audience, people–and just blog in the dark without inspiration or a mission. Hence my coined term: the “Floating-by Blogger Syndrome.” Does it make sense now? These bloggers are all just floating by, and while they may be creating content, they’re failing to create anything original, unique, or attention-grabbing. With so many blogs in the world, it’s tough to imagine that many of them are the same, but it’s true. You could skim thousands of blogs right now and find that they all look and sound exactly alike. Gosh, it’s really become a sea, hasn’t it? In addition to the fact that cookie-cutter blogs clog up the Internet, they also don’t provide readers with the value they are so desperately seeking. Let’s talk about how you can completely miss the boat and reach a mountain instead: avoid the floating-by syndrome and become a stand-out blogger. 5 Ways to Be Better Than the Floating-By Blogger I guarantee that if you follow my five steps below, you have a 100% chance of NOT becoming the next floating-by blogger. 1. Focus on your audience Your blog is not about you. It’s not about your brand. Or what you want to sell. It’s all about, can I repeat that all about, the person you’re writing to and for. Too many blogs are bogged down in the mire of old-school SEO wisdom, sales tactics, and tired conventions. While things like keywords, CTAs, and optimization are important, they’re not the whole picture and bloggers that focus on them too much risk sacrificing the human connection that makes blogging work. To avoid this, be sure that you’re focusing on your audience and your topics first, and your message and ranking (CTA or your keywords) second. Developing an audience-focused perspective is a foreign concept for many bloggers, but it’s quite easy. It starts by asking yourself a few simple questions: Who is my audience? This question can be answered by defining a target audience. While the practice may seem a bit granular to some bloggers, it’s an incredibly important step in developing a genuinely audience-centric outlook. When you know who your target audience is, what they want, how they shop, and what they’re concerned about, you can create content that caters specifically to them. How will you reach your audience? Do you know which content formats your audience prefers? Do they love image-dense websites like The Verge or would they rather interact with your content through Tweets or long-form Facebook posts? Answer this question by taking the time to determine which of your content performs the best. If you’re still having a tough time determining where your audience most wants to find you, just ask them! Sites like SurveyMonkey can help you create simple surveys that provide you with valuable perspective into your audiences’ true desires. Make your topics deep. One of the most common mistakes floating-by bloggers make is that they fail to provide in-depth topics. All too often, bloggers assume that briefer is better, and they miss out on the value of long-form content. The truth is, long-form content converts better (about 37% better) than shorter content. In light of this, don’t be afraid to develop in-depth content that your readers can use as a guide. Provide actionable tips, relatable scenarios, plenty of images or screenshots, and a decent amount of links to help your readers find the information they’re looking for. They’ll thank you, and you’ll quickly become one of their favorite blogs on the web. 2. Work hard There is NO way around this. I spend hours and hours a week to create … Read more
From Start to Finish: A Guide On Creating & Maintaining a Solid Blog
Blogging is crucial for brands and businesses. One simple reason: marketers that blog get 67% more leads than those who don’t. If you haven’t launched your blog yet, or you have one but you’re not yet serious about it, it’s time you make that commitment. And I’m here to help you. If you’re ready to write for and launch your blog, just how do you launch a successful blog? Many people experience a fear of the blank page, or let’s say blank blog, and try to think up ways to conquer the world, or make a dent when they hurry up to meet a blogging schedule or launch their new blog. Then the worst of the worst happens, in the blogger world (or blogosphere). With no definite direction, newbies risk the all-too common problem of floating by: becoming the next sub-par blogger with no audience presence and no ranking potential on Google. Don’t be that blogger; read our guide to start off strong and maintain a blog that you’re proud to show off to your friends, family, and most importantly, potential customers. Your Brief But Ultimate Guide On Creating & Maintaining a Solid Blog After years of writing and publishing blogs, and with over 300 keywords in the top 10 pages of Google, I like to think that I know how to write blogs that rank; I’ve also been the most-read guest blogger at Search Engine Journal and Content Marketing Institute. So, here’s a few thoughts from my vault. I. How to Start a Blog Without further ado, here are thirteen ways to start and maintain a solid blog: and to make it easier, I’m going to break them up into I. How to Start a Blog & II. How to Maintain a Blog. 1. Find YOUR Niche Not just a niche but your niche. The one that makes you thrilled to wake up, excited to voice your thoughts on. Yeah – if you know that feeling, and you can identify what makes you feel that, you’re golden. And narrow down here. Do you like the business niche? Okay, what kind of business? Coaching entreprenuers? OK, what age group? You like young, inspired people? Okay, that’s your blogging niche. Could you be the world’s foremost peanut butter authority or an expert on locksmith tips for an average homeowner? Hone down, my friend, hone down. Find your niche and your viewpoint on any and everything about your topic. And here’s a tip for those who have a niche that’s somewhat broad and maybe a bit unoriginal. It’s okay: businesses and people may have been ruminating on the topic for years, but as long as you’re able to follow the next few steps, you’ll find yourself running with the big dogs. 2. Develop a Unique Idea and a Point Developing a unique idea is difficult and somewhat daunting, but it’s doable. Maybe you want to explore how to write a unique post in an in depth way that few bloggers, if anyone, has explored before. The post linked to in the last sentence isn’t necessarily a unique blog topic, as many people have explored how to write a unique post before, but it is very unique in its depth and how it gives the step-by-step process the author takes to come up with an idea, writing the blog, and posting it. Although you can also develop a unique blog post by giving broad strokes, you want it to be at least somewhat focused. A successful blog post won’t be titled “5 tips on X” and ramble for 1,000 words; you’ll get very few hits. What you can do is expand your idea and tie together seemingly disparate concepts in an interesting way. Unique spins show that you’re well versed in your topic as well as gives your blog some SEO weight. 3. Analyze the Competition and Keywords Figure out what the crux of your blog is and whittle it down to a key word or phrase (one to two words in most cases). Use SEMrush (see my guide here) to take a look at how often your SEO keyword is searched. If it looks good, make sure to put it in your title, description, and metadata. Also, have some minor keywords sprinkled throughout your post. This will generate a few more hits you wouldn’t have otherwise had. After you have your unique idea and keywords, analyze what you’re up against. Search common keywords related to your topic and check out what the competition on the first page looks like. Domain authority is a big one. If you’re up against heavy hitters and massive corporations, you may want to rethink your keywords. Again, keep it natural enough that the average person will search for it, but try to avoid going up against H&R Block if you’re blogging about tax law. You’ll also want to be mindful of backlinks. This will let you know if you’re going up against blogs or posts with 54 viewers or 54k viewers. Needless to say, one is easier to knock out than the other one. Finally, take note of the age of the blog. Shoot for blogs that are older and not updated or newer. Those are the low hanging fruit you want to compete against. Older blogs that are updated frequently get an air of authority about them in the search engines. 4. Research and Find Links There are two types of links that you’ll want to use to create a successful blog: internal and external links. Internal links are links to your own site. This will generate more hits to your site and show the search engines that people are staying on your page for longer. This correlates directly to domain authority. External links should be chosen carefully and should be to high-ranking sites. These links, again, add up to domain authority, a higher ranking in the search engines, and more page views. Keep in mind that this should come naturally. Ideally, backlinks in today’s SEO era come through shares: you reach out to someone who has a great site, ask them to share your content, and if they really like it, link to … Read more
15 Tactics To Start Using Today for Better Blogging
You’ve got a blog, but where are the readers? It’s gotten to the point where you’re wondering if you’ve got something worthwhile to say. If you’ve had this thought, even though you don’t know how to put it in action yet, I have good news–you’re headed in the right direction. It’s not just about reaching a lot of people. If you can reach millions and your content is useless, your Return On Investment (ROI) will be so low it doesn’t justify the time spent writing. There are some crucial things you can start doing right now, in the fundamentals of your blog writing process itself, that will turn around and bring you more readers and more success. Get on the road to better blogging today with a few simple, but key, tips. 15 Keys to Start Using Immediately And Get on a Path of Better Blogging You’ve got to have a good mix of value and reach, but finding that mix is daunting. Following is a list of fifteen ways that have proven successful in helping blogs reach a wider audience and becoming a better blogger, overall. 1. Outrage, Uplift, Mystery: Emotions in Headlines Matter! Whatever you’re writing, it needs to catch the eye and be emotional. Upworthy established a formula proven successful in the increase of clicks. It is comprised of creating headlines that alert customers of an “outrage” they can resonate with, uplifting them with the possibility of a solution or some other fulfillment, and establishing mystery throughout. Here are examples of headlines that use this formula: You Won’t Believe The Discount Opportunities This Weekend, Or The Secret Coupons Don’t Be A Victim Of Internet Scamming Through Hidden False Flag Social Media Campaigns Is Our Government Losing Its Mind? Insider Tips On Corporate Savings Note how each of these hits the reader in a relatable way at the beginning of the headline. Then, each title gives the reader a possible “uplift” (opportunities, don’t be a victim, tips). Finally, none of these titles give away enough information to let the reader move onward without clicking. Now, one thing I’d bet we all hate is the “click-bait-that-doesn’t-deliver” title. You know, the ones that get you to do a thousand clicks through a ton of ads before you can get anywhere. Don’t be that person. You can be honestly outrageous without outing a cold lie about what your content delivers. So, a couple do’s and don’t’s here: Do: Be authoritative, challenging, fun, and even shocking in your title–as long as your content delivers on what the title actually says. (Give them those coupons and the coupon code. Give them actual examples of those bad social media campaigns. Show them a list of 10 great insider tips–not something that’s common knowledge.) Don’t: Mislead. Click-bait title with no content that actually delivers on what you’re offering in the topic. (10 Ways You Can Actually Find Your Soulmate Today, for example, is pretty hard to fulfill on.) CoSchedule has some pretty awesome headline resources. Check out their headline analyzer and read their tips on how to get more emotional with your headlines. Check out the Advanced Marketing Institute’s headline analyzer as well. We also have a free guide with over 120 power words for better headlines: get it here. Playing around with that tool and utilizing guides with power words can get you great results. I worked on the headline of this very blog for about 20 minutes to get this score from the AMI tool: 2. Is Your Blog Mobile Friendly? Simple, but key. Half of all consumers conducting a search locally on their smartphone followed their search with a visit to the store within 24 hours, while only 34% did the same on a computer tablet. As smartphones become regular features of society, blogs that are easy to navigate on them will naturally increase in readership. When writing a blog, don’t forget to keep the mobile angle in mind. 3. Utilize Good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques 3 out of 4 people (75%) who conduct a search on a search engine won’t scroll further than the first page of results. This means that if your blog doesn’t show up within that first page, it is 75% less likely to even be seen. You’ve got to have it optimized for a search engine, and SEO techniques like keyword inclusion are a great way to do that. You shouldn’t go overboard with keywords, but the right amount will very likely increase your readership. Writing a good meta description for every blog is also a key of SEO blogging. Also, beyond outrage, uplift, and mystery, have a title that is likewise optimized with your keyword. 4. Aim Your Blog At The Right Audience (Share-ability) It’s all about opportunity cost. You want the greatest opportunity for the least cost. That means you want to aim your content at an audience who’s likely to share your blog. If you give your content value and properly engage this audience, you stand to see circulation in a way that’s wider than any solo efforts could produce (Moz). 5. Do You Have Share Buttons Visible on Every Blog Post? Not only that, but share your blog on every social media platform yourself. Making sure your share buttons are visible is important to give every reader a chance to share with their network. Twitter has nearly the entire population of the United States in worldwide users monthly making posts, Facebook has about one billion users that are active, while Google+ and LinkedIn both have constituents that transcend 300 million. Between the four of them, that’s 1.871 billion potential readers—though certainly some crossover between the platforms is to be expected. The point is, you’ve got at least a billion possible readers out there through social media, just waiting to check out your blog. Increasing readership through social media is really worth your time. A lot of people in the above-listed networks share content they agree with. If you get yours trending, the potential for cost-free marketing is high. I’ll give you a secret here, too: I’ve … Read more
15 Key Steps to Run a Successful Business Blog in 2016
When a B2B marketer maintains a business blog, they get 67% more leads than marketers who don’t. What’s more, companies with blogs earn 97% more website links than those without. Convinced you need to blog? Maybe the only problem is this question. How do you become a business blogger? How do you find blogging success in boosting your company, rep, and rankings online as a brand? Get our free guide: “The Fast-Paced Business Owner’s Guide to Successful Blogging In Just 5 Minutes A Day”. The process isn’t as hard as you might think. We’ve outlined 15 key steps to get you going this 2016. Ring in the New Year the right way – with great business blog foundations! 15 Foundational Steps to A Successful Business Blog There are 15 key things you should be focusing on for blogging success—here they are. 1) Determine your niche With so many businesses online right now, it can be tough to stand out from the crowd. For this reason, it’s important to decide what it is that you can do better from anyone else. Determining your niche is the foundation of everything from your target audience to your style of content, and it can help you go far in terms of deciding exactly what and how you will write. 2) Determine your goal If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re going to have a difficult time getting there! That’s why it’s important to make a decision about the purpose of your blog at the outset. Are you trying to drive conversions? Make sales? Increase engagement? No matter what your goal is, defining it will help you reach it. 3) Decide on topics Now that you know what your blog’s goal is, which topics are you going to cover? The universe is a big place and it’s impossible to write about everything well. For this reason, it’s important to decide on which topics within your niche you’ll write about. For example, if you’re a business that specializes in inbound marketing, some of your main topics could be inbound lead generation and social media marketing. 4) Hone your point of view Nowadays, honing your business’s point of view (POV) can go a long way toward earning you readers. Today’s consumers are much more willing to connect with a person than they are a company, and when you hone your POV you personalize your company, thus gaining a direct line into the minds of consumers. 5) Learn from your peers Once you’ve decided what you want to write about and how, you’ll want to look around at what others in your industry are doing. Writing is a learned skill and if it doesn’t come naturally to you, you can learn a great deal from watching other people. Even if you are a strong writer, watching industry leaders can give you ideas for content and help you stay up to date on the hottest happenings in your industry. Tip: Use a tool like BuzzSumo to find leaders and track the most-shared content in your niche. 6) Be consistent One of the most important aspects of business blogging is remaining consistent. I almost put this as #1. Just how consistent? I’ve put out 600 blogs now between 2013 – today. 600. And 50+ website pages. Over 100 of my content pages (blogs, web pages) rank in the top 10 positions of Google. I gained that by writing and posting content at least 3x a week for over three years. Business blogs that publish content on a regular schedule gain more leads than those who don’t. Additionally, every blog you write is one more page indexed in Google, which means that blogging on a regular basis can help produce an SEO boost that can make your company more visible online. 7) Interact with readers Imagine if a band went out onstage and sang their songs but never signed autographs, gave high-fives, or took photos with their fans. Do you think they’d have fans for very long? Probably not! The same goes for your business blog. Once you’ve started to gain readers, it’s incredibly important to interact with those readers. Tip: You can do this by reading and responding to your comments and polling readers about topic ideas and what they’d like to see more of. This creates an environment in which your readers are engaged and interested, which is the perfect platform for your business blog to thrive. 8) Be ethical Your business blog isn’t going to get far if you don’t insist on ethics from the beginning. Blogging ethics can be a little complex and they go far beyond not copying other people’s work. Ethical blogging also includes things like ensuring your links are legitimate and not spamming readers or other bloggers. While building blog traffic doesn’t happen overnight, maintaining an ethical blogging practice is one of the best ways to ensure that your blog has a healthy, long lifespan. 9) Diversify your content While 44% of B2B marketers have a content strategy, only 42% feel that the strategy is effective. Many experts believe that part of the reason for this perception this is true is that business bloggers aren’t diversifying their content enough. When you use your blog to share a variety of content types, you diversify the experience for users. This can lead to more readers, more leads, and more sales. 10) Use video & good visuals in your content While it may not seem like videos have a place in a business blog, videos are some of the most popular content on the web right now. In case you needed proof, YouTube is uploading 72 new hours of video content each minute and, as a general rule, visitors spend approximately 88% more time on sites that include video. What’s more, video earns a site 3 times as much traffic as other types of content and consumers are a whopping 46% more willing to seek out additional information about a product, good, or service after being exposed to an online video. Along with that, infographics and … Read more
10 Reasons You Should Start Blogging for Your Business Today
Nowadays, it seems like everyone has a blog. But have you ever stopped to consider why? For one, many people misunderstand the purpose of blogs. Blogs go far beyond the mundane – they’re used for everything from showcasing personal writing to offering actionable tips that can help people solve problems and make their lives better, raise brand awareness, and in many cases (like ours) drive a huge percentage of online leads to their business. 10 Key Reasons to Start Blogging For Business (Now) To me, blogging is like the surety of an umbrella on a rainy day. As long as we consistently blog (along with a formula of high quality content + promotion of what we create), we keep our SEO rankings up and thriving, and our visitor numbers flourishing. No matter how “rainy” the day gets, these leads will come in. If you’ve ever considered starting a blog for your business, here are the top 10 reasons you should do it right now. Learn how to be a better blogger today with our free email course, 10 Days to a Better Blog. 1) Blogging will drive traffic to your site Blogging is HUGE, HUGE for driving traffic to your site. Not convinced by me just saying it? Okay, okay… go read two of these posts: How We Gained 300 Positions in One Day – 100% through blogging! The Power of Content Today (Case Study) – Published back in July 2015, this is still relevant to our post today. I discuss how content is the cornerstone of online marketing. Seriously, though, how do people typically find your website? If they come to it via paid aids, it’s likely that you’re spending a lot of money that you don’t have to. If this sounds like your situation, it’s probably wise for you to start dividing your time differently. Instead of spending tons of money on paid ads, you can start blogging, beefing up your social media presence, and optimizing everything you do for SEO. Here’s why it works: if you don’t blog, your website is a little stagnant. It’s likely that you don’t have a ton of pages and, of the pages you do have, very few of them are updated that often. In a setup like this, you don’t have many pages indexed in Google, which means that you’re only marginally visible to people who may be searching for a company like yours. This, in turn, means that one of the only real ways to grab traffic for your site is to pay for it. When you blog, though, all of this changes. Every time you write a new blog, you provide a new page to be indexed in Google. By creating content that your readers and customers love, you ensure that people can find your page. Plus, when you share your blogged content on social media, you create an entirely new outlet for traffic and social shares. (And content is HUGE for Google. Their recent 160-page doc, which we analyzed, discusses how their standards rely on the quality and expertise of the written content.) 2) Blogging can help you make conversions Once you’ve begun to drive traffic to your site via content, you’ll need to find a way to convert that traffic, right? Enter the power of the blog. Because every page you write is a new page that Google gets to index, every page you write is also an opportunity to create new leads and help those leads convert into subscribers, sales, or shares. Blogs work best for conversions when you focus on including a high-quality CTA at the end of every blog post. By doing this, you tell your viewers exactly what you want them to do and help ensure that nothing is lost in translation. It’s really that simple. 3) Blogging helps establish you as an authority What’s one of the most important aspects both of ranking well and drawing in new readers, done with blogging for business? If you answered “authority” you’re right on. Page authority is incredibly important and it’s not something you can buy. The only way to create authority on the web is to create content that is genuinely useful, helpful, and interesting to readers. Nowadays, the majority of people (about 81%) conduct nearly all of their product research before ever speaking to a company or its customer service representatives. One of the primary places that people turn to conduct this research is the web. When you build and maintain a business blog where you publish valuable, educational, helpful content, you can be the person who provides the answers to questions your would-be customers ask during the research process. By doing this, you establish your company as a leader in the industry, as well as helping ensure that when the customer is ready to purchase, they’ll come back to your site. 4) Blogging for business is a long-term plan There are many marketing tactics that produce short-term results. While those things can be effective to drive huge bursts of traffic, they’re seldom cut out to be a long-term solution. Blogging, on the other hand, is designed for the long-term. When you sit down to create a blog, you create a valuable piece of content that long outlives your efforts and your investment in it. By generating shares, drawing views, and producing conversions, each blog you write has the potential to draw traffic long beyond the day it is published. In fact, HubSpot reports that upwards of 70% of its monthly traffic and 90% of its overall leads come from blogs that were published in previous months, some even as long as a year ago. 5) Blogging is low-cost, high-return Have we mentioned that blogging only costs what you want to invest for writing and imagery? The ROI is way, way worth the small investments. Blogging is both one of the cheapest and one of the most effective ways to drive traffic, views, and attention to your business website and, while it has the potential to produce a huge return investment, … Read more
The Age of Visual Content: Your Guide To Placing Photos in Everything You Write
Imagery in blogs and web content: they vary from the sublime to the ridiculous (crash test dummies in love, anyone?) but they’re vitally important to your content. Research has shown that articles that feature images earn 94% more views than those that don’t. This makes sense given the fact that we live in what some have dubbed “The Visual Age.” There are currently more than 2.5 billion camera phones in existence (whoa!) and image-sharing sites like Instagram are exploding in popularity. With all of this in mind, it’s clear that images should be playing a large part in your content strategy. The Power of Visual Content According to an infographic created by Wyzowl, only 10% of people remember things that they have heard and only 20% of people remember the things they read. In contrast, though, 80% of people remember the things they do and see. This is why so many of us, myself included, categorize ourselves as “visual learners.” The human brain is wired for visuals. We process visual information 60,0000 times faster than we process textual information and 93% of all human communication is not verbal. For this reason, the addition of visual content into blogs and other content marketing materials has the power to boost views and strengthen your content. Get Your Free Copy of 13 Incredible Free Stock Photo Resources. In fact, Jeff Bullas states that the COO of Shuttlerock, Paul Bingham, has noted these changes firsthand. According to Bullas, when customers optimize visual content using Shuttlerock, their email lists grew by upwards of 44,000 subscribers and they earned 23 million new impressions via Facebook timelines. One user even experienced a 57% growth in sales and another gained over 33,000-page visits after running a photo competition. How’s that for proof? 5 Benefits of Visual Content Visual content, which includes images, videos, infographics, memes, and many others, has many benefits. These include the following: Visual content can promote sales Visual content can increase brand awareness and help consumers remember your company Visual content can promote sharing on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter Visual content can provide an SEO boost Visual content can increase reader engagement While many marketers steer away from visual content because they believe that the only option is cheesy stock photos or that they’re not qualified to create other types of visual content, like infographics, that provide marked traffic boosts, including visual content in your marketing is actually much simpler than it sounds. The 5 Main Types of Visual Content You Should Be Using There are many types of visual content, but some perform better than others. According to KISSmetrics, there are several types of visual content every marketer should be using. 1) Images You know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. But when you augment your high-quality blog posts with equally high-quality images, they can be worth a thousand views instead. Now more than ever, people don’t want to wade through dense, impenetrable content that offers no relief. For this reason, images are an important addition. There are many different types of images, varying from personal photos to high-quality stock photos and each has its own unique set of benefits. On one hand, images taken by you add a personal touch to your content and can help add value to deeply personal topics (it would be strange, for example, to purchase a stock photo for an article about your family). On the other hand, unless you’re a professional photographer it may be difficult for you to produce images that are as high-quality as they need to be in order to feature prominently in your content. In these cases, it may be a better idea to purchase images from a reputable stock photo company. You can even do something really cool and get a custom artist to illustrate for you. Like we did in the How to Tell Your Best Story post above. You can find decent $5 artists on Fiverr. To give your stock photos an extra boost, you can use a service like Canva to create unique photos via a drag-and-drop design interface. We’ve added a link in this post to a free resource we created giving you 20 awesome free stock photo resources. Just remember that if you are going to use images, you must be conscious to always purchase them from a reputable source rather than simply copying and pasting them from the web, as this can easily result in a lawsuit. 2) Videos According to Moz, posts that feature videos earn 300% more inbound links than their video-less counterparts. Videos are one of the most useful ways for marketers to present solutions, relay information, and introduce products. When done correctly, a high-quality video can boost a content campaign by providing a personal touch, giving readers an insider view of the company, or clearly showcasing a product. Videos can also be used to drive conversions. In fact, one study demonstrated that featuring a video on a landing page increases conversions by an average of 86%. There are many different types of videos, from how-to videos to interviews, to customer service and tutorial videos. What’s more, live-streaming apps like Periscope and Meerkat have ballooned recently and many marketers are using these platforms to offer behind-the-scenes footage or to promote secret sales and giveaways. 3) Infographics Infographics are the prom queen of images. By combining visual and textual content into an information-dense powerhouse, a great infographic can easily go miles in your content marketing strategy. In order for an infographic to be as effective as possible, though, there are some important things to remember. Here’s an infographic we did on the Ultimate State of Content Marketing. First of all, the layout of an infographic needs to be simple and impactful. This means using the right colors, images, and formats to convey data in a simple and easily digestible way. Additionally, the information included in an infographic must be accurate, authoritative, and relevant. Because infographics are boiled down to … Read more
7 Things You Can Do Now To Make Your Blog Traffic Start Growing
We’ve all been there. You launch a blog and create great content and then you wait anxiously, obsessively checking your blog stats and waiting to see a drastic boom in readers. This process can get tiresome. Your scenario could vary: maybe you’re dreaming of overnight fame or a life as a professional blogger. Maybe you just want someone, anyone really, to read the post you just spent four hours writing. Whatever your reasoning may be, you’re not alone if your blog traffic is less than what you hoped it would be. Many bloggers who start new sites expect a boom and get a trickle of traffic instead and, if you’re not careful, this drastic difference between expectation and reality can easily cause bloggers to become frustrated and disillusioned. Most new bloggers struggle with this issue and, fortunately, there are many effective ways to boost your blog’s traffic. Read on to learn more. What Really Brings In Blog Traffic? Blogs exist for different reasons, including but not limited to conveyance of information, building of community, encouragement of conversations and production of revenue. If your blog is getting a good deal of traffic, it’s a safe bet that your site is meeting the needs of the readers you’re targeting. The 3 Pillars of Blog Traffic People who read blogs often want the following things: 1. Interest If you want people to visit your blog, you have to provide them with something interesting, thought provoking, helpful or exciting. Nobody is going to keep coming back to a site that features dull, dry, poorly written posts. Because of this, interest is one of the primary driving factors in creating blog traffic. It doesn’t matter at all who your target readers are as long as you seek to provide them with interesting content they can relate to. 2. Value Does your content provide something of value to your readers? If not, this may be one of the reasons you’re not getting much blog traffic. Value can mean a variety of things depending upon who your readers are and what they want, but one of the easiest ways to increase blog traffic is to provide value in your content. How-to articles are valuable, VIP updates are valuable, coupons and promotions are valuable and high-quality, niche-related content is valuable. Readers who get something from a blog are far more likely to keep reading and to tell their friends about the page. 3. Consistency Would you continue to visit a page that featured the same, boring post for six weeks? Most likely, the answer is “no” and you can bet your readers feel the same way. One of the best ways to boost your readership is to maintain a consistent web presence. Aim to add a new blog post at least once a week and consider sending out automated emails to your subscriber list when you do. Striving for fresh content is a great way to keep readers interested and expand your fan base quickly. And Here Are 7 Key Steps to Boosting Your Blog Traffic 1) Create Great Content: Audit What You Have, & Ask Yourself Is it Great? Although running a successful blog is about much more than simply writing well, crafting great content is by far the most effective way to expand your reader base and garner more blog traffic. Crafting great content means using proper grammar, writing well and knowing who your audience is, but it also requires a mind for strategy. Being strategic in your blog-building efforts means that you’re seeking to meet a specific need for readers. Blogs are used by readers primarily for education and entertainment purposes and, either way, it’s important to give readers what they want. If your blog is an educational platform, check out websites like Quora to see what readers like yours are curious about and then write posts that answer their questions. If your blog is an entertainment blog, watch the social and political climate for current events worth writing about or seek to provide humorous, relatable commentary about your niche-topic, like Brittany Gibbons does on her smash-hit parenting blog, Brittany Herself. By being hilarious and empathetic, Gibbons creates content people want to share and, as such, she’s made a name for herself in the blogging world. Also, auditing what you have is a really good way your blog has what it takes to bring in traffic. It might be time to delete some fluff that may be too low quality, and could even be pushing people away. 2) Make Content Shareable Once you’ve got great content, how do you get more people to read it? The main trick is to make your content as social as possible, meaning that you need to optimize your blog content for social media sharing. When you take into account that 74% of American adults are on at least one social media site, it becomes clear why this is important. While it’s great to have a high-quality blog, a blog that isn’t shared across social media is going to have a very difficult time gaining readers simply because it’s not hanging out the same place the readers are. Although people do many different things online, 28% of most people’s daily online time is spent on social networking sites, which means you better get thee to Facebook. In order to better promote your content across social media platforms, it’s wise to take simple steps such as adding a “share” button to your blog, doing some analytics research in order to share content when your audience is most active online or adding an image to a blog post and sharing it on Twitter. Additionally, it is important to be active on a few different social media sites, such as Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. This allows your readers to find you on their favorite social media site and interact with your content in the way that is easiest for them. Additionally, once you’ve begun to garner shares on social media sites, it’s … Read more
