increase web traffic - Express Writers

How to Utilize Your Content Distribution Channels Correctly

December 31, 2020April 24, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Annie is a Content Manager at Express Writers. Content distribution channels provide a means of connecting with your audience on a number of different levels. These channels can include (but are not limited to) blogs, web page content, eBooks, whitepapers, infographics and email newsletters. They provide a method of communicating with your audience and engaging them with your message. In order for your content distribution strategy to work properly, you need to utilize your channels at maximum efficiency. But how exactly do you manage content distribution channels (correctly—without over-spamming anyone, or using one channel the wrong way)? Don’t Put All Your Eggs In One Basket This old adage works well when evaluating your content distribution channels. Because of the number of available channels that you have, you should utilize at least a handful of them to get your message out to your audience. Channels such as social media networks and guest blogging opportunities are great resources since they allow you to direct your content to focus on your target audience. This ensures that you have the maximum exposure possible for your content and raises the possibility of engagement from your audience. By delivering your content in multiple channels you allow your company to build a loyal following of customers on a number of different platforms. This gives you leverage when it comes to influencing customer decisions in the long run. Multiple channels increase the overall amount of people who are aware of your brand name and image. Once you product high-quality content consistently, you’ll be able to draw and keep an audience that agrees with your point of view and enjoys the content you create. Too Much of a Good Thing There is always the lurking problem of overreaching. Whilst trying to cover as many content channels as you possibly can is a good idea, you should be aware that when you cover more content channels the content quality you produce may drop. The happy balance you’re trying to seek is to produce enough good, high-quality content pieces to fit a measured amount of content channels so that you don’t sacrifice quality in the name of coverage. It’s much better to focus on a handful of channels and deliver high quality content than to try to cover the spectrum and fill all your channels with mediocre or low-quality content. How Can I Utilize Content Channels to Boost Blog Traffic? 5 Methods The crux of the matter is that you want to leverage your content production in order to drive traffic to your blog. Content distribution channels provide the most ideal method of directing customers to your blog through measured content that is designed to do this. When you create compelling content that makes a user want to know more, including a handy link to your blog in a call-to-action can encourage the user to visit your blog. But how does it work? Here are a handful of ways you can utilize your content channels in order to distribute content to drive your blog traffic. Guest Blogging: Guest blogging opportunities may come to you in the form of invitations to write on a topic or you can simply address the owner of the blog and ask them for a chance to guest blog for them. Guest blogging gives you a powerful method to drive traffic to your blog. It gives you ready access to an audience that is already within your niche. With the right type of compelling content and well-placed links you can direct users to read some of your own blog entries, possibly gaining new followers in the process.As a content distribution channel, guest blogging should never be discounted. It gets your message out to the people who would benefit from it the most: people within your target audience. By giving you a focused group that is already interested in your niche, it creates a simple way to distribute content efficiently and effectively to the people who would appreciate and benefit from it the most. Email Marketing: A number of marketing professionals consider email marketing to be on its last legs as a content distribution channel. I tend to disagree. Email marketing is not for the faint of heart, nor is it for someone who isn’t skilled in the area or dedicated to becoming so. Email marketing contacts your audience directly and gives them the feeling of having a direct connection to you.Email marketing is based around sharing your content through personal email addresses, inclusive of clickable links back to your blog. For many users, emails are the best way for them to keep connected to a blog that they are interested in. Many people don’t have the time to go check a blog every single day to see when updates come around. Strategic email updates to your subscribers gives them the ability to see when you’ve updated and to judge whether the content interests them enough to go read it. It’s a very efficient methodology, but requires compelling copy and high-quality content to succeed. Utilize Influencers: In any social media setting, there will obviously be a handful of individuals that are more influential than other people in the same niche. What you should be aiming to do is to get in contact with these influencers. But how do you find out which people are the ones worth contacting? Simple tools such as Followerwonk allow you to see the extent of a person’s social media outreach and allows you to target the influencers within your demographic of interest for the highest return.Utilizing influencers can be direct (emailing them or messaging them and asking them to share your content) or indirect (sharing content with them and asking their and their followers’ opinions). Both of these methods are useful in their own ways, but instead of simply leveraging the influencers, you should try to engage them. It’s much easier to get an influencer to share your content if you actually pique their interest. It’s unlikely that they’ll share content of … Read more

Are People Skipping Your Homepage? Study Says Traffic is Down 17% on Law Firm Homepages

January 1, 2021May 2, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Back in the day, your homepage was your most important asset. It was the first thing visitors saw and it was what drove traffic to your business. You spent time and a lot of money constructing that perfect homepage. But, now research is saying that homepages are becoming obsolete and that single piece on the web is doing less and less for your business. Where This is Coming From Studies have shown that homepage traffic is on a steady and dramatic decline. As an example, NYTimes.com had less than half of their visits start on their homepage. The Wall St. Journal had 40 percent. Yahoo saw a drop too, hovering at about 24 percent for 2012, according to the National Law Review. How This Impacts Businesses and Service Professionals The study was focused on law firms — a group that focuses on their homepage to bring in more traffic and define their business services. So what was the result? Only 39 percent of the traffic law firms received was from the homepage. There is a 17 percent decrease in homepage traffic from 2012. So What is Going On? While these law firms are seeing a heavy decline in the number of visits to their homepage, they are still getting a lot of page views. But, these views are coming in through sideways surfing. That means that people are finding their site via other pages on the web and visiting the law firm. The two things that are increasing the sideways surfing not just for law firms, but for all professional services are social media and content marketing. So My Homepage is Useless Then? No, never. A homepage is still important for your website and your brand. Just because the number of visitors you’re getting aren’t through the front door doesn’t mean you should throw out the homepage or ignore it all together. People who sideways surf do eventually make their way to your homepage, so you still need to put some effort into that. The homepage is also the most tracked page you’ll ever have on your website. So ignoring it means you could be missing traffic in the future. But, with these numbers on the decline, it’s time to see where all of the traffic is coming from and how using that sideways surfing to your advantage could increase your website’s traffic. It’s All About the Blog Blogs are heavy hitters when it comes to traffic these days. Every blog you post is an opportunity for someone to find your site. It acts like a landing page and when visitors see it, they can be compelled to stay on your site and learn more. Look at your blogs as landing pages. They are there to attract and convert people into customers. If you have 20 blogs posted on your site, you now have 20 landing pages that give internet users another way to find your site. If you have 200 or more, you have even more opportunities for people to find you. Imagine the possibilities! Wait, before you go out and write 200 blogs, you need to realize that a blog isn’t an automatic traffic lifter. You have to use your blog right and market it effectively to really harness the power of these potential landing pages. Create a Style and Tone That Matches Your Business The content you put on your blog ultimately determines the personality you portray to your readers. If you are a professional service provider, getting cheeky and cute in your blogs doesn’t really speak to your professionalism, now does it? But, that also doesn’t mean you need to be so technical and boring that you put the readers to sleep either. Strike a balance between what you do and your own personality. Search Engine Journal recommends really speaking to the reader as if they are a friend or family member. This technique makes it a little easier to write in a conversational style. So, if you are writing on law topics — say the effects of a DUI — discuss those effects as if you were telling your niece or brother. The audience you’re writing for is the only concern here. You know your ideal client or customer — including their age, gender, income, etc. — so you have to write something that appeals to them. Before you write any blog posts, identify your style and tone. It is crucial that you keep that same style and tone throughout your content. If you’re flopping back and forth, readers will see the inconsistencies and never know what to expect from you in the future — and that’s not a good thing. Post Consistently Now, we have told you that 200 blogs is a great way to generate more traffic, because that is 200 ways in to your website. But, don’t you dare go and post 200 blogs today. Flogging the system won’t get your blog and website anywhere. You need to set up a content schedule first. This outlines what topics you’ll cover, how you will cover them and most importantly, when you will write them. The jury is out on how many blog posts a person should release each week or month. While some say you should post consistently each day, others say a blog post per week is just fine. Daily posts do, however, help you get into the groove of writing and help set you up for a consistent routine. When you post daily, your readers know that they can log in or expect an email update from your website on a daily basis. That means your readers will keep coming back for more, because they know there is always a blog post there to see. But, daily posting also has its downsides. It is easy to burn out or run out of topics when you post 7 days a week. Also, when you post daily, your readers could burnout as well. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with a constant flow … Read more

5 Ways to Get More Success in Web Traffic Without Building Paid Links

January 1, 2021April 15, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Who’s honestly not afraid of the Penguin? In 2012, Google decided to release one of the most terrifying algorithm updates that makes us watch our backs every single time we post or update content on our website. The Penguin, Google’s radical algorithm change targeted websites that featured overly optimized anchor texts stuffed with keywords, dubious link profiles and shady link building strategies. All in all, the not so cute Penguin made us change our perception of endorsement. Penguin – The Algorithm Update That Makes Us Look at Endorsement from a Different Perspective In online environments, we are actually permitted and sometimes even encouraged to pay a popular celeb to promote our products on his/her social media channels, but we aren’t allowed to beg, pray or pay for links coming from other sources. Now does this make any sense? It does, actually. Google has always been striving to ensure a flawless web experience for all Internet users. According to Search Engine Watch, this is the main reason why it does everything in its power to sniff, signal and ban any kind of black hat strategy rolled out by webmasters whose sole purpose is to manipulate search engine results to their best advantage. To begin with, Google scared the SEO out of us with its Penguin algorithm update designed and implemented to penalize websites that promoted low-quality content. These websites did not do any favors to readers looking for quality information; they just represented a cheap and convenient moneymaking machine for most business owners who did not plan to optimize their content strategies anytime soon. Fortunately, the mighty Penguin made them reconsider. Shortly after Penguin buried many webmasters 6 feet under the ground, Google decided to focus its entire attention of manipulative, unnatural inbound links. According to Moz, the types of inbound links that can ruin your friendship with Google can be separated into different categories: Paid links Links with overly optimized anchor texts Links coming from low-quality webpages Links coming from sources that are not relevant to your business Keyword stuffed links 3 Reasons Why Paid Links Are the Forbidden Fruit That Should Be Left in the Tree If you don’t want to upset Google, it is highly recommended to invest time, money and energy in your content strategy, rather than trying to come up with a counterproductive tactic based on paid links. You may be wondering: why are paid links bad in the first place? Google doesn’t like them much for a number of reasons: 1) Paid Links Are a Form of Cheating. Basically, when you buy links, you pay to help your own page rank higher in search engine results. In other words, you defy Google’s rules and guidelines and put a certain amount of money on the table to see your website on page 1 in Google. Ultimately, you get bonus points from search engines that will consider you a relevant, popular, trustworthy source even if this is not the case. 2) Your Practice Stops Search Engines from Delivering Relevant Results. If all people were to pay to see their website occupy a privileged position in search engine results, how could Google, Bing and Yahoo manage to display relevant, quality results that users are actually interested in finding? 3) Bad Linking Strategies Don’t Help Your Readers. On the contrary, paid links that have no value whatsoever annoy and bore your readers to death, so this is one extra reason why you should avoid them. 5 Ways to Boost Your Website Traffic without Relying on Paid Links Instead of investing your resources in deceptive optimization tactics, try to stay in Google’s good graces and increase your website traffic rapidly and risk-free. Here are 5 simple ways to attain your goal without jeopardizing your relationship with Google: 1) Maximize the Satisfaction of Your Readers. Moz points out that Google may measure satisfaction every single time users click on a certain page. So the question is this: does your website have what it takes to keep your readers on your side for the longest period of time? If the answer is no, find out what you have been doing wrong this whole time and discover the simplest method to correct your mishap. Update you content, add calls to action, change you tone/writing style, cultivate the feedback of your readers and make sure the topics that you expand one actually address their needs, demands and concerns. Also, don’t neglect social media marketing opportunities. Improve your social media presence the easy way. Create and publish premium web content enabling you to interact with your fans and followers on some of the most important social media platforms. 2) Proper Video Optimization. A picture is worth a thousand words, but since the online environments have become increasingly competitive, you’ll need more than a great pic to convince users to click on your website. In this case, a video snippet could serve your best interest by stimulating the curiosity of your readers and proving that you are a first-class source of information that is counting on killer multimedia content to stay relevant. 3) Google Authorship (Plus an Awesome Photo of Yourself). Many webmasters are dealing with the same problem: they don’t know that online businesses have to establish real relationships with members of their targeted audience. Since not all the info available online is 100% accurate, users must find a way to separate quality content from written trash. To simplify their process, they take a closer look at the original source. Who is the mighty content creator? You are! In this case, highlight your authority and build credibility and trust by counting on Google Authorship. This way, a short, relevant description and a great photo of yourself will be listed at the beginning of you articles. While you’re going down this road, make sure you rely on a few basic elements guaranteeing your success: Opt for a picture revealing a real face, not a cartoon character Go for high-contrast hues that … Read more