Archive for SEO

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→

I Just Googled Your Business Name:
Do You Need to Improve Your SEO?

GoogleOh no! If I Googled your business name, what would I find? Are you easy to get found online?

It is a sinking feeling when you’ve created quality content for your site that’s been optimized for content and keywords, and it’s still not showing up on the first page (or pages!) in a search return. So what can you do?

Downshift. While search engine sites should discover and index your site automatically, if you’re not showing up, or you want to improve your search engine ranking, try manually submitting your URL. You can do this quickly through Google, here, or Bing, here. Read More→

3 Reasons Why SEO and Content
Marketing Fit Together

SEO-and-Content-MarketingA Note from Patsi: This week’s guest post is about SEO and content marketing and it’s really important. Why? Because if you write your own blog, you may think that quality content is all you need to get found online and attract clients. It’s not.

I don’t care how good your writing is or how important you are as a thought leader in your field. Your blog needs good Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. But don’t let that scare you. Here’s what you need to know, from guest author Derek Iwasiuk.

For a long time, search engine optimization was all about tricks and tactics. People used to do anything as long as their sites rank at the top and they get the much needed traffic. Some of the techniques that website owners used to get to the top were totally unethical causing outcries from various quarters. This, however, has completely changed thanks to the updates made to the major search engines. If you inquire from any SEO company, they will tell you that nowadays, it is all about content marketing. Here are some of the reasons why you should invest in lots of content so as to rank high in search results.

  1. Content marketing fulfills SEO’s demands

On its part, SEO issues demands. There are lots of things that you need in order to succeed in search engine optimization. Be it links or any other, you need to make sure that you use the ones that will actually make your site to rank high. Content marketing on the other hand fulfills those demands. It is what you use to make sure that there is enough for professional SEO services. It therefore goes without saying that at the end of the day, the two are just one. Read More→

Blogging Strategies for
End-of-Year Business Blogs

How are you doing on your business blogging strategies for 2015?  Have you been hitting the targets and benchmarks you set for yourself?

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. Setting strategies and goals will improve how you show up on the Web.

If you haven’t set any goals, or you’re just starting out, here’s how you can still get in the game and get some traction in 2015. Read More→

4 Ideas to Generate Blog Topics

Blog Blogging Communication Connect Data Social Concept

How are you doing with your 2015 blog goals? Are you publishing blog topics that include compelling, relevant content that solves the problems of your readers?

A study on B2B content marketing has shown that 70% of businesses online have more content now than they had last year, and of these, 80% are doing so through corporate blogs.

These smart professionals understand the effectiveness of blogs, but blogging is not without challenges: figuring out what blog topics to focus on, conducting appropriate research, writing great content, and ensuring it has been optimized for search engines. If you’re stumped about what to write next, try these four ideas and see how far you get.

1.  Part of your writing process should include keyword research, and nothing can help you accomplish this like Google SERP (search engine results page) analytical tools.  Many free versions are available online, including SERPs.com. 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→

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→

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→

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→