Photo Credit: Flickr/jdhancock

Do you really know your ideal customer?

More importantly, do you keep them in mind when crafting content?

If not, it’s time to create your customer avatar. Creating a customer avatar – also known as a customer profile – can help you get a more concrete vision of what makes your ideal customer tick. The more you know about your target clients, the easier it is to develop a marketing strategy that addresses the triggers that help them make buying decisions.

If you haven’t tried this, now’s the best time to start.

Check out my latest article published on the Content Forest blog – Do You Really Know Your Target Audience? – 5 Essential Tips for Crafting a Customer Profile or Avatar

Photo Credit: sxc.hu/celalteber

A content marketing strategy is just as good as the quality of the content itself. It should be well written, informative, and easy to read – while helping you accomplish your marketing goals.

Writing for the web has some distinct differences from print media, the primary difference being that you have two audiences: your readers and search engines. If you are new to the medium of publishing on the web, here are some useful tips to help please both your visitors and the search engines.

Check out my latest guest post article on Content Forest – Tips on Writing for the Web.

Photo Credit: morguefile/imelenchon

It’s no secret that crafting free reports is a great way to capture more leads.

According to Neil Patel, one report he created generated in over 8,400 email opt-ins – and email opt-ins are a great way to measure leads. In his post he describes the result (emphasis mine):

“If you want to increase your traffic, don’t focus on the same tactics everyone else is using. Spend  the time to go above and beyond by creating exceptionally good content.”

Check out my latest guest post article at Content Forest on Crafting a Free Report to Get More Leads Online.

Photo Credit: sxc.hu/brainloc

Businesses can be reluctant to harness the power of social media marketing because they are unclear about how to determine its ROI. They feel that social media, which is full of idle chatter and trivialities, is too fuzzy to use for business purposes. How do you measure the ROI of a something as ephemeral as a tweet or a Facebook post?

Check out my latest guest post article published on Content Forest on So What’s Really my ROI on Social Media.

Joomla is a comprehensive Content Management System. This tutorial covers the basics of the Joomla Article Manager in Joomla 3. To keep things simple and uncluttered in this tutorial, we are using a new Joomla installation, with the Default English (GB) Sample Data installed. However, if you wish to use an existing website with data already present, this tutorial will still work perfectly well, you will just have some extra categories and articles present.

Check out our latest guest post tutorial article at Yireo on Introducing the Joomla! Article Manager in Joomla 3.

Photo Credit: sxc.hu/svilen001

“Should I have a blog for my business?” is a common question asked by business owners who recognize the importance of having an online presence for their company. They think that perhaps they should have a blog, but are unsure about exactly why they should have one and what they should post on it.

There are many excellent reasons to create a blog for your business, but you should think about your overall marketing strategy for your business when you decide whether to have a blog.

Check out my latest guest post article published on Content Forest on Should You Have a Blog For Your Business.

Photo Credit: sxc.hu/ba1969

Inbound marketing is a strategy that is used to help customers find your business, in contrast to the traditional method of outbound marketing which uses techniques to find customers for your business.

One of the advantages of inbound marketing is the ability to spread the message about your business expediently through a range of online channels.

Check out my latest guest post article published on Content Forest on The Pieces of the Puzzle of an Inbound Marketing Strategy.

Photo Credit: sxc.hu/jaylopez

If you are thinking of beginning a blog, getting started can be an exciting but daunting adventure. Some scary thoughts that might cross your mind as you contemplate stepping into the blogosphere are – what you are going to write about and will anyone want to read what you have written?

Here are some tips to help make sure that you are one of the few bloggers that make it past the three month mark online, and succeed with your blog in the long term:

If you are thinking of beginning a blog, getting started can be an exciting but daunting adventure. Some scary thoughts that might cross your mind as you contemplate stepping into the blogosphere are – what you are going to write about and will anyone want to read what you have written?

Here are some tips to help make sure that you are one of the few bloggers that make it past the three month mark online, and succeed with your blog in the long term:

Focus on a Topic

Find a topic for your blog and stick to it. Nothing is worse than creating a blog about a specific theme, than straying and writing about other irrelevant stuff.  Keep things to the point – try not to ramble on too much – and make sure that you write about meaningful topics to capture your readers’ attention.

Find Your Passion

The issue of blogging about something that you are passionate about has been beaten to death over recent years – but nonetheless it’s worthy of mention again because it’s so true.  If you are not really interested in your blog’s theme, it’s tough to write for months on end about the same topic, and it will show in your writing.

About Page

Have an about page so that new readers can easily and quickly find out what your blog’s theme is.  Try to select a topic with a broad enough scope, so that you don’t run out of things to write about in just a few months.

Conversational Voice

You aren’t writing a school essay or an academic paper, so blog using an appropriate style.  Many blogs are written using a conversational voice. Treat it like a casual conversation you might have with a friend over lunch and coffee at your local cafe.  After launching your blog and writing the first ten or so posts, you will start to find your own unique writing style.  If you are stuck for ideas on how to write a blog post, read some prominent blogs in your chosen topic and get a feel for how to put a blog post together.

Be Creative

Be creative with your blog posts and use different formats.  Examples of this include how to posts, list posts, top things to do type posts, and blog posts that specifically ask for readers’ feedback.  Use catchy headlines to grab your readers’ attention.

Once you have your reader’s attention, you have to hold on to it – so as well as using a catchy heading, you will need to write some good content at the beginning and in the main part of your blog to keep their attention. Put your best stuff first and foremost.

Short and Sweet

The length of an average blog post is around 300 to 600 words.  As a general rule, try to keep you posts brief and to the point.  In today’s low attention span world, it’s hard to grab someone’s attention for more than a few minutes.  However, there may be occasions that call for writing longer posts on your blog –  examples of such occasions include writing a comprehensive blog post series or reviewing a product.

Remember, we are all just ordinary people, but we all have the potential in us to become extraordinary bloggers.

Photo Credit: sxc.hu/budadams

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website’s rankings in search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing,  in order to drive more organic traffic (visitors that you get for free) to your website. SEO can involve both on site optimization and off site optimization.  On site optimization refers to the techniques that are applied to your website to make it more SEO friendly, including such techniques as using appropriate keywords for your content or installing SEO friendly plug ins which make your site easier for search engines to index. Off site optimization is the process of improving the ranking of your website by raising your website’s profile on other people’s websites.

This particular article will focus on the different approaches that you can take to improve your off site optimization.  Here are some popular methods to increase traffic to your website:

Blog commenting

Blog commenting is a popular approach for improving SEO.  It involves finding relevant blogs in your niche topic and making comments on these blogs, including a link to your website.  Important points to take note of with this technique is to find relevant blogs in your niche and to find blogs that have a high page rank authority (which is Google’s measure of the importance of the site).  When you make a comment about a blog post on another website, take the time to read the blog post and try to write something that will add value to the conversation, and which will allow other readers to realize you have expertise in the topic, increasing the likelihood that they might follow the link to your site for more information. Comments like “interesting post” or “I like your article” don’t achieve either of these goals, and should be avoided.

Contributing to Forums

Contributing to forums is also another good method of getting some link love from the search engines.  Similar in approach to blog commenting, you will need to find relevant forums in your niche, preferably those with a lot of activity and conversation.  You will also need to find forums which allow you to add a forum signature with a link to your website.  It is important to read the forum guidelines to find out the types of links that you are allowed to add to your forum signature – some forums allow links to affiliate products and websites of a commercial nature, whereas others don’t.

Again, take care to add value to the conversations in the forum, get to know other forum members, and allow them to slowly get to know you as an expert in the niche.  It’s not all about joining a forum, immediately claiming to be a guru, and then trying to sell people your product – it’s about building a reputation on the forum as a valued, well liked expert who other members will naturally turn to for help and advice. This takes a little time, but once you achieve this, it is much easier to use the forum as a method to attract traffic to your own site, and your chances of making a sale from these visitors who already know you and like you is much better.

Social Bookmarking Sites

Improving the visibility of your website through adding it to social bookmarking sites is also another great way of driving traffic.  There are a great number of social bookmarking sites to choose from including popular ones like StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious and Technorati.

These sites allow people to share and rate content from anywhere on the web.  This content  may be in any form such as a newsworthy article, video, funny story or photos. Users of these sites can then vote on whether they like or dislike such content. If you have a popular newsworthy article which is featured on the front page of a social bookmarking site because it has achieved a high number of votes, it can go “viral” and send massive amounts of traffic to your website just from this one article alone.

Guest Posts

Guests posts on other people’s blogs are another good way to improve the visibility of your blog.  Try to develop long term relationships with bloggers in your niche area.  Bloggers are always looking for good content to provide to their readers and many are happy to use guest authors.  Make contact with the bloggers you would like to write a guest post for and introduce yourself.  Tell them a little bit about your blog, the type of readers that you have, and the niche area of your blog.  Take the time to form  relationships with bloggers and get to know them before you even think about asking them whether or not you can guest post on their blog.  Remember that it needs to be a mutually beneficial situation for both of you – they need a great post from you, and you want a highly visible link back to your blog or website.

Hope this article has provided you with some useful ideas on off site SEO techniques to drive traffic to your website.

Photo Credit: sxc.hu/Cieleke

The upside of social media is that it is fun to use. We can get connected with other people in seconds, and meet people from all around the world.  We can get our message out on the internet to thousands, and have it go viral in a matter of hours.  The use of social media is an addiction that is truly here to stay.  And as we speak, innovative companies are creating new and unique products so that we can extend our social networking one step further.

The downside with social media is that it can consume a lot of your precious time for little return.  Apart from having made a few more new online friends for the day or laughed at someone’s funny comment or spoof, you spend the whole day online but have nothing to show for it.

Don’t Spend All Day Chatting

Select a few social media outlets that you like and leave the rest –  they will still be there waiting for you if you need them. You might even notch things up and shut off any social media distractions for the day – that way, you won’t be tempted to find out who did what and what happened next.

Use It To Your Advantage

Make a list of ways in which you are going to use social media to better your cause.  If you have a blog, brainstorm ideas on how you are promote your blog via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Digg.

For example, if you have been working feverishly on a new ebook, tapping into social media networks is a great way of getting the word out about the launch of your ebook. Social media allows you to enlist the members of your online network to help build the momentum of your launch and spread the word much faster than you could do all by yourself.

Find your Tribe

Like will gravitate to like. If you haven’t got around to setting up a Twitter account, set one up and start tweeting. You will be surprised at the number of followers you can attract, regardless of the topic you write about!  Take a look at your followers and start to make contact with those who you feel that you have some synergies with. It’s easier than you think to build up a group of followers in your area of interest.

Save Time

Save time and automate your broadcasts using tools that automate your Facebook, Twitter and Linked in updates. TweetDeck is useful for scheduling tweets ahead of time and for monitoring activity with your Twitter account. Set up different Twitter accounts for different blogs – you will have a different voice or purpose for each of your blogs, so it is a good idea to separate your followers for each blog.

You can also save time and use a service that distributes your messages across the multiple social bookmarking sites. Onlywire.com syndicates your content to the Internet’s top social bookmarking sites at the touch of a button – very handy!

Social media networking is one of the fastest growing aspects of the Internet – so get onboard and start enjoying the benefits of social media in your online projects.