Archive for Content Marketing – Page 3

SEO and Content Marketing: A Love Story

Once upon a time, SEO met up with Content Marketing, fell in love, and vowed to never separate, to always work together in harmony.

Anyone who’s been around the ‘Net a while understands a little about optimizing content so that the search engines can index it according to topic and relevance to readers. About ten years ago, someone decided to give a name to the type of marketing that occurs that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire and retain customers: Content Marketing. How do the two differ and how are they alike?

This week, I invited Jack Dawson of webfia.com. to share his insights on working with SEO and CM together instead of separately.

Where and How They Met

There are many techniques that make up internet marketing, two of which include search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing. SEO has been around for quite some time, more than a decade at least, while content marketing has only gained popularity in the last few years. Read More→

4 Reasons to Publish on a LinkedIn Blog

LIBloggingDo you know about LinkedIn blogs? And are you blogging yet on LinkedIn? I’m not yet, but I will be right after I write this blog post!

Since early 2014, LinkedIn opened its publishing platform to its 300+ million users. Here is your chance to show your expertise in your professional life and without character restrictions! The importance of using a LinkedIn blog is that it will add dimension and help in building a well-documented profile.

According to Business 2 Community, in-depth content works best, don’t hesitate to write very detailed and specific posts about your industry. Contrary to what you are being told for traditional blog posts, the ones being picked up by Pulse (LinkedIn’s app to shed some lights on the best contributions) are pretty wordy with almost no visual. Indeed, you should opt for a newspaper-like kind of formatting. Black text on a white background.

  1. Here’s the real upside, once you publish, all of your contacts will be notified of your posting and again, remind your connections that you are indeed an expert in your field.
  2. Recruiters will notice you as well. Now, that may not seem like a big deal if you already have a job, but, recruiters are looking for more than potential employees. Let’s say, for instance, you are a career coach or a leadership development consultant. You may be writing a post about the benefits of hiring an expert, such as yourself and a recruiter happens to read your blog post, this could lead to consulting work for you within that company that the recruiter works for.There’s not a lot of folks blogging yet on LinkedIn, yet. It’s still a fairly open marketplace for your expertise. Publishing on LinkedIn will give you a real edge, and you should start now while there isn’t much competition.
  3. LinkedIn is not just about your expertise (although we’d like to think that some times), but it’s about others as well. Here is a golden opportunity for you to get new business contacts, build meaningful relationships and so on. If you’re writing on a regular basis and your writing is of value, even 3rd degree connections may possibly invite you to connect. The possibilities can be endless with just one simple blog post.
  4. Just think of all of those comments! Just think of all of those conversations you can start and get involved in. Besides, that is what “social media” is all about. We forget that sometimes. It’s about the conversation, it’s about being social.

Guest Author: Christine Buffaloe is a social media wizard for authors, coaches, speakers and consultants. Her company SerenityVA will help you succeed with social media and LinkedIn, including what you need to know about posting to your LinkedIn blog. You can also connect with her on Facebook, Twitter and of course, LinkedIn.

Secrets of Busy Bloggers:
4 Social Media Time Savers

Social Media BloggingMany of my readers are busy professionals who don’t have a lot of time for blogging or social media. But marketing is vital, especially if you’re growing a business, want to get found, get known, and get clients.

For those of you who have the bare minimum of time, and still want to get results, here are a few social media tips and tricks I’ve used. I must be doing something right: these tips have resulted in new clients directly from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

1. Use social media.

Read More→

Don’t Fall Prey to Auto-Feeds:
Your Blog Posts Deserve a Personal Introduction

Social MediaMany people who fell prey to the Auto-feed short-cut introduced by Facebook found that it did much more harm than good. And it’s understandable why they did it: how can you have time for social media, when you struggle with creating consistent, relevant blog content?

While it may have saved time initially, there were costs in the long run. The same is true for auto-feeds to LinkedIn, Twitter, and all the other social media sites. Although this seems like a good idea, it may do you more harm than good.

Here are 4 reasons why you should NOT automatically feed your blog posts into these social media sites: Read More→

5 Best Business Blog Goals for 2015-
And 5 Steps to Get You There

Achieve the BestWhat goals have you identified for your blog and website for 2015? Have you created a map to help you reach your goals?

It’s true, I don’t believe in making new year’s resolutions.  But after 15+ years working with executive coaches and consultants, I know that having clearly defined goals and expectations for a business blog or website is critical to help you get found, get known, and get clients; it will improve how you show up on the Web.

I’ve found that many professionals are vague when it comes to setting their business blog goals. They haven’t clearly identified their expectations, or what they want their blog to do for their business. If you fall into that category, and you haven’t identified your goals (or you want to refine the goals you’ve set), consider this checklist: Read More→

10 Great Things for 2014:
My Business Blog Gratitude List

thank youYou may have heard me say it before – my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving.  It’ a fairly big holiday in the U.S., and a great way to celebrate gratitude. This year, I updated my gratitude list, and perhaps you can relate and it will inspire you to make up your own list.

I’m grateful for (in no particular order):

  1. Business blogs that make it easy to stay informed and connect with others
  2. LinkedIN, Twitter and Facebook that make it easy AND fun to build communities!
  3. Shopping cart systems like Kick Start Cart that make it easy to build a database list that’s easy to segment, broadcast messages, and seamlessly process registrations and purchases
  4. Google that makes it easy to do research and locate information and people
  5. SEO tools like Scribe, that make it easier to optimize blog posts for better search engine results
  6. Smart Internet marketers who by their clever ideas light the way and show us what’s possible
  7. Stupid Internet marketers who show us what not to do
  8. The 2.8 billion people connected to the Internet world-wide, some of whom participate and contribute
  9. All the geeks behind the scenes who continue to develop software and hardware for the rest of us
  10. All of our clients who have invested their confidence and time with us to learn better online marketing. Thanks so much for reading. Thanks for subscribing. Thanks for the occasional comments, tweets and re-tweets. You make my life so much more interesting. It’s a privilege to write here for you. You keep me on my toes, reading, learning, writing.

I wish you the best for Thanksgiving and for the end-of-the-year festivities in your own countries!

 

Should You Send Holiday Newsletters?

eNewsletter

Shortcuts to Newsletters

Are you sending holiday newsletters for your business? Even though you may be tempted to put all your time and energy into maintaining your business blog, a newsletter is still a vital, viable way to stay connected to clients and prospects. Holiday newsletters are a great opportunity.

Don’t take my word for it. Ask other professionals if they’re getting results from sending out an emailed newsletter, for the holidays, or any time of year, and then judge for yourself if it’s worth the time and effort (and money).

Here’s a great example of what I hear: Read More→

Your Business Blog Sweet Spot:
How to Find It and Keep It

Business Blog Sweet SpotHave you found your business blog sweet spot? In previous posts I shared how storytelling and personalization are key to creating a blog with personality, and that the biggest mistake business bloggers make is ego-centric blog posts.  So how do you find that sweet spot, just between the two?

First and foremost, you must clarify your topic, and keep the readers’ needs in mind as you write each post.

One way to understand their needs to is to know their online habits and interests. This will allow you to create blog posts that area engaging, and you can focus your content on the keywords your readers, and prospects, are likely to use in searches.

You can’t do that without asking them what their interests are. Yet how many of us post on a blog or upload a video to YouTube without taking time to survey what are our target audience‘s interests, wants and needs?

Here’s a quick list of survey questions to ask your target audience to help define what they want to read: Read More→

The Scariest Blog: No Personality

Scariest Blog PostWhat’s the scariest blog post you have ever read?  For me it’s a blog or website without any personality.

Storytelling and personalization is the key piece in content marketing as I see it. People are good at writing about what they know. They aren’t as good about expressing who they are and why they do what they do.

If you’re not writing real stories, your content – on your blog, in your newsletter, on your web pages – runs the risk of being boring. You may be excited about what you do as a professional, but your clients will get bored or overwhelmed if you just throw information at them.

What’s your back-story? Read More→

Top 5 Content Marketing Blog Aggregators

5 Best BlogsHave you created a list of your top 10 blogs?  If not, you’re missing out on opportunity to improve your search rankings.  It’s easy, smart and can help your business blog get inbound links.

I’ve talked about creating your own Top 10 lists before, and it still makes sense, even more so given the way SEO works today. Besides providing valuable, relevant information for your readers, you also: Read More→