Archive for blog marketing

Better Business Blogs:
Correct Those Broken Links

business-blogsAre you keeping your business blog fresh? If you’re like me, and you’ve been blogging for a number of years, chances are some of your links may no longer work. This guest post, from Susan Boggs, offers tips for successful bloggers and blogs on how to find and correct broken links.

In a perfect world, we would always know exactly what the Big Search Engines want from us and our business blogs, always and without a doubt. We would engrave them into stone and follow them judiciously. Our blogs would rank high for our keywords, and life would be wonderful.

Ah, yes, nirvana.

Unfortunately, in this world we call the Internet, blogging is not always quite that simple. The good news?

Life is still wonderful. Read More→

How to Make Money Blogging:
Yes – You Can Still Make Money Blogging!

Profitable BlogCan you still make money blogging? Or is it too late to get in to the game? As I shared in my last post, the blogging has rapidly changed, but it’s not too late to start a blog, or turn your existing blog in to a source of income.

The first step is to identify your blog goals – you’ll want to keep these in mind as you consider the ways you can earn money directly with a blog.

There are two primary methods:

  1. Directly
  2. Indirectly

How to Make Money Directly from a Business Blog Read More→

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→

Blogging Tips: Unique Ideas to Boost Your Blog

Ideas to Boost Your BlogI feel like we hear a lot of the same blogging tips over and over again. While it is definitely useful to know your blogging basics and how to boost readership, how about we change it up a little and offer some ideas on how to boost your blog in ways that you’ve maybe not thought about before?

Here are a few ways that you can get new (and old) eyes on your blog and keep them engaged. Read More→

Simplify Your Blog Writing:
Shortcuts to Publishing a Leadership Blog

mazeHow’s your blog writing going? Snap, crackle and publish? Or are you a little blocked, maybe even constipated?

Do you feel dread and overwhelm when it’s time to post on your blog?

You may offer great solutions and services for your clients, but if you don’t simplify your blog writing tasks and publish frequent, compelling content, you won’t get great content marketing results.

In a blog post last week I shared that the two most common statements I hear about blogging are: Read More→

Your Business Blog Year 10: Is It Still Worth It?

Business-bloggingDoes blogging still make sense for your business? Is a business blog worth the time you need to research, write, format and publish quality content?

Some busy professionals ask me if it’s worth it to blog or would keeping in touch with people through social media sites work just as well? It’s a good question, particularly for small businesses, coaches and consultants who don’t have staff and a lot of time.

Publishing a quality blog requires time and effort. The average person needs at least two hours to complete all the tasks necessary for one blog post, and should be publishing 2-3 times a week.

Ten years ago, when I first started blogging I declared a blog to be “The best darn marketing tool on the planet!” It was if someone had handed me a microphone and people across the globe started hearing what I had to say. I started getting found online and boosted my business revenues exponentially.

But ten years later, there are a lot of ways to spread your word and publish quality content online. Communication is possible everywhere. Clients can be reached through Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter – the list goes on. Read More→

A Checklist for a Good Blog

Blog-checklistAfter I got home from our Publishing at Sea cruise, I checked out the good blogs of our amazing group of authors, including those of our experts, like Judith Briles! Of course, as writers, they all had important things to say on their blogs. But some weren’t really optimized for best results.

Here’s what I look for in an optimized, good blog (one that gets Google search and reader results):

  1. A good blog title with a tag line that says what people will find on this blog (benefits to reader)
  2. An email subscription sign up button such as an RSS icon
  3. A good blog post title that makes me want to read the full post
  4. A compelling image with each post
  5. Hyperlinks – at least one per 120 words so that posts are identifiable to search engines.
  6. Recent posts or no date on them: If posts aren’t at least once a week (twice is better) then I don’t want to see a date on the posts -which alerts me to the fact you haven’t posted in a month … or six! Read More→

How to Blog without Boring Readers in the Holiday Season

HoidaySeasonsHow do you blog about the Holiday Season – without boring your readers?

It’s no secret that the holidays are upon us! With one less week between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year and Hanukkah already in full swing, the holidays have arrived.

So what does the holiday season mean for your blog? Several things! The holiday season provides a lot of opportunity for keyword-rich blogging.

  • Put your own spin on popular topics and it will help bring traffic to your site.
  • You can use this seasonal opportunity to feature charities that you support.
  • You can expand topics beyond your core business services to what truly matters in life. Read More→

Smart Business Blog Linking:
Top 25 Content Marketing Blogs

Blog-LinkingIf your business blog needs to get inbound links, here’s a prime example of how to do it. Pay attention to this tactic, it’s easy, it’s smart blog marketing and a great way to get other blogs linking to you, thereby improving your search rankings.

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.

Recently our blog here, WritingontheWeb.com showed up on a list of the Top 25 Must-Read Content Marketing Blogs. Well, we’re listed as #24, but hey! Who cares?

Author Jennifer Barry, who writes for Hubspot as well, says on the Writtent.com blog:

“The marketing industry is diverse and ever changing, and one of the easiest ways to stay on top is to read the most relevant and pertinent blogs. There are thousands of marketing blogs out there that focus on different aspects of the marketing industry from optimization, conversion, advertising, and content.” Read More→

How to Find Great Blogs for Better Business Blogging

Reading-blogs.jpgWriting quality content is key for your business blog. Never stop focusing on  better business blogging. But what about reading great blogs yourself? It’s a great way of getting ideas and topic inspiration from other writers who have different views and perspectives.

Why do you need to find great blogs to follow? If you want to build a better business blog, this is key: you must read the other great blogs in your field, and some others as well. Why? It’s not only for inspiration.

  • You need to know what your readers might be reading.
  • What else is being published that can help solve their problems?
  • What else do your clients need to make their lives better?

When you find good info that’s helpful to your readers/clients, you’ll want to share that on your blog. In turn, this creates good blogger relations which can lead to reciprocal projects and posts.

And, this means search engine marketing linking possibilities. But you can’t reach that point if you’re not reading other great business blogs.

What kinds of blogs or other Internet publications do you read? Some of my favorites include cooking and baking blogs, and news sites like Huffington Post and Mashable and occasionally The Onion.

How do you find great blogs? Read More→