Resty

Infopics: Like Infographics, but better...surely?

2014-11-23T13:39:00.000-08:00

I was thinking of a way to combine content marketing and my passion for drawing.

Infographics are great for getting across complex information quickly, simply and are more fun to view. However, they can be expensive to do well and I wanted to great something more organic and quirky.

Hence my new infopicture:

There is definitely room for improvement, but I am happy with the start I have made. I hope to make a few more of these over the next few weeks.

Please let me know what you think?

Don't be shy, I need the input.

Many thanks for looking.

Simple Tips to Perfect Content Writing - Back to School Basics!

2013-07-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

You may have the best content in the world but in order to engage readers you must encapsulate it in a simple clear structure. Accessible to all.

Here are 4 simple tips to apply to your blog post writing skills to ensure your message is heard and understood.

Think like your reader and get to know them. What do you want your reader to think, feel and do? What is the key message you wish to your reader to take away? There should on be 1 clear message.

If there seems to be more than 1, think about breaking it up into separate blog posts. You could write a mini-series and promote this as a free e-book.

Structure. In the first paragraph state what you plan to achieve in the blog. Make the reader know exactly what they will be getting from the blog post.

In the main body of the blog post list points if possible and separate into short paragraphs. Make it easy to read and easy to reference should the reader wish to come back later.

Finally, add a brief conclusion. Make it clear what the reader should have got out of the blog. Offer a call to action, be polite and not too pushy- offering to follow your social media network is always a good one.

Passive vs Active. Engage with your reader, Use I and you where possible, not the customer or them. Rather than saying Resty values reader's loyalty, I could say I value your loyalty. See how it it active (I) and shorter.

Be friendly and approachable. Use simple words that most people are likely to understand and don't use jargon. However, keep your sentences short and to-the-point to come across as professional and reassuringly expert.

Making it short & simple. Reread your post and take out any words that don't add anything to the sentence. You'll be surprised at what you can take out. An example is, He made a decision to go running can be shortened to He decided to go running. As a rule of thumb, write it as you would say it. Read your blog post aloud as if explaining it to someone over the telephone. If it sounds strange, change it to what makes more sense.

I was going to write a little about punctuation and grammar, but decided to save you and me from that.

I hope you found the above useful. No, it's not revolutionary, but it's what will stand you above other bloggers in the same niche, all else being equal.

If you found this blog post useful, please tweet or share it or follow my facebook page at www.facebook.com/restyfree.

6 Effective Tips for Building Great Links to your Blog

2013-06-18T15:54:00.000-07:00

With Google changing up their algorithms (Penguin & Panda), to encourage well written fresh content, and other Search Engines following suit, it may be well assumed that SEO is dead in the water. However, one part of SEO that I think will always be important is link building. Since it began there has always been the saying, ‘Why link to it?’ Like good quality content, a good quality link can really make the difference.

While I have mentioned building links in a previous post, I thought I would revisit these tips with only the tips I have found most effective. So here are my top link building tips for when you are starting out on your blogging journey.

1. Link Out. I assume, like myself, most bloggers do a bit of research about the subject they plan writing about. Also, if you are passionate about what you blog about, the chances are you spend a good chunk of your time reading articles or blogs about it, viewing videos or listening to it. If you do, link to these sources in your blog post. The owners of the content will notice the links and check out your site, if for no other reason to check it is a legitimate blog. If they like it, they may reciprocate your link or follow you on one or more social media sites.

2. Interlink pages. This creates a little bit of SEO juice, but its main benefit is that it can keep readers on your blog. Getting people to view other posts you have written will strengthen your reputation and encourage them to promote you in their own online communities.

3. Social Bookmarking. One of the best sources for my traffic is from Stumble Upon. I dismissed it for a considerable time, but have found by submitting my post directly to it, I am getting good traffic. Using other sites like delicious or Digg can have a similar effect. Please view my post on Promoting on Social Bookmarking Sites.

4. Guest Posting. This can be time consuming, but is definitely worth it. It requires a bit or research into who are the best blogs to be aiming for. Put simply, if your new to blogging, don’t aim at the highly popular blogs and sites. They will be receiving constant guest posting requests from more reputable bloggers or writers. See my simple guide on Guest Posting to get started.

5. Blog Commenting. Being the first or even second or third person to comment on an article can really give you a spike in traffic, especially if it is on a popular site like Mashable or Huffington Post. See my guide on effective blog commenting.

6. Answer Question on Q&A sites. This is more of a slow burner, but these sites are well thought of by the search engines and so answering people’s questions on these sites offer you a chance to get a good link back to your blog while enhancing your reputation at the same time. Feel free to have a read of my guide to answering questions on these sites.

Please note this is not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination, rather the tactics I use to generate links. These can be implemented quickly (maybe not Guest Posting so much) and return results which should pleasantly surprise you.

As always people let me know what you think by commenting below or liking or tweeting this blog post.

Effective Content Curation: Weekly Roundup

2013-06-14T14:43:00.002-07:00

New to Resty this week is the start of the weekly roundup. A list of the best articles I have read throughout the week. It also offers a less formal approach to my blogging style which I hope will balance with the guides I also offer on this blog. So to kick things off I've gone for Content Curation. Something I think will emerge as a dominant force in building reputations across the online world over the next 12-18 months.

Content Curation - A paper.li newspaper about content curation. If you fancy spending some quality time getting into content curation, there are many valuable articles here to let you do just that.

6 Top Tips to Building Your Online Reputation Fast - My latest post about content curation. Offers good simple tips on how to get on the content curation bandwagon and using it to drive traffic to your blog and help your reputation.

Steps to More Effective Content Curation - This is a 6 step plan to understand and make sense of content curation, before you actually do any curating. Important part before jumping in.

55 Content Curation Tools to Discover & Share Digital Content - Here is a list with links to all types of tools for content curation. You may not use them all, but this is a great page to bookmark should you require a curation tool to solve a specific problem. Please do check some of them out!

So there it is! I do hope you find the links useful and I would love to here any comments on what you think of the articles I share on my blog.

Content Curation: 6 Top Tips to Building Your Online Reputation Fast.

2013-06-10T15:46:00.002-07:00

With all the talk about 2013 being the year of Content Marketing, I thought I’d push the boat out a little further and talk about content curation. Good content curation is the ability to organise the vast, unending amount of information and advice now available online into good quality bitesize chunks for your readers to enjoy. Picking the right articles enhances your reputation and ensures readers will come back to your blog for helpful information.

Read blogs and sites. Set up Google Alerts to find up to date content on your subject. Use the Search function on Twitter to search tweeted articles or try Topsy Social Search. Browse the headlines and pick the ones that sound the most interesting, they normally are.
If the articles or blog posts are good quality (see my post on writing a good quality post) then add the blog or site to your RSS feed (if the blog site allows) and hopefully other posts or articles they write will be just as good.
Use an application like Hootsuite or Buffer to send these quickly and easily to your social media platforms (most commonly Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn).
I would recommend submitting these at least a few times throughout the day for maximum exposure, on Twitter at least. Alternatively, use an application like Tweriod to find out when your followers are active on Twitter.
Don’t just submit the article on Buffer or Hootsuite as it is. Add an audience-engaging line, e.g. In your status update ask a question: What ways do you enhance your Reputation?
Offer a round up blog post at the end of the week. Pick the top 4 or 5 articles or blog posts you have read and write a little blurb for each explaining why you thought they were such a good read. Promote this like your regular blogs.

Curating content shows you have an eye for quality content and will, therefore, build your reputation as an expert in your field. Reading blog posts and articles is a lot quicker than writing a blog post from scratch, so can build your reputation that much quicker. Obviously, a balance of writing and curation is recommended.

Do you have any other ways you develop your reputation amongst the blogging community? Please let me know in the comment box below.

6 Great Tips to Engage Reader & Get People Talking About Your Blog

2013-05-26T15:12:00.002-07:00

So you create a lot of content, but are not getting any comments and are not sure if people are really reading your content. Well here are 5 tips to ensure that the content you write will stand out from the crowded blogosphere and leave people wanting more.

Great Content.

It’s been said a million times and now seems so obvious. But there really are no shortcuts anymore. You have to put in the work. Create helpful, relevant, up to date content.

Make it clear and to the point, don’t whittle on or try and spread one point across a 500 word blog – your wasting your readers time and they won’t read anything else you have to say.

Influential.

This one is both difficult and highly beneficial for the same reason. You need to show you know what you are talking about.

This is about building a reputation online through other blog posts, answering questions on question and answer sites (Quora & Yahoo Answers), curating great content, commenting on other blogs and forums.

Simple & Efficient.

As mentioned above - Get to the point. Ideally you want to be able to help people quickly and cheaply.

Nobody wants a post which rattles on about how you can spend £50,000 on marketing.

Offer simple steps or cheap (even free) alternatives to a product in your subject area. Don’t bang on about them, just a brief promotional blurb, say 20-30 words, with a link to the product site.

Additionally, don’t use industry jargon or technical words, keep it simple. If your out to help people it is unlikely they will know all the lingo.

Controversial or Thought-provoking Content.

Try to offer a different angle on a subject and bend people’s beliefs and challenge the norm. Bring something new to the table.

This will wake the reader up and make them think rather than read you post on autopilot and not take anything in.

Think small changes, as you are more likely to have some examples of why it will work.

Storytelling.

Everybody loves a story. We grow up with stories from a very young age, both true stories and made up ones.

In terms of making a point, they offer examples and challenges you have overcome (if a true story). I’ll be honest, this is an important step I fall short on in my blogs, but one I am well aware of and working on.

Questions.

Ask a question at the start of a post to get readers thinking. Then proceed to answer the question in the blog post.

It makes it clear what your post its trying to achieve, so you will hopefully get more targeted traffic to your post. It keeps the reader engaged and the answer starts to unravel and they agree/disagree with the points you make. It can also offer a debate, preferably in the comments section. Which more readers may be inclined to join.

I believe making use of these tips along with the tips I gave about writing a great article will ensure you always have success blog posts.

Please leave a comment in the box below, if you have any thoughts. Both positive and negative graciously accepted. If you have found this article useful please tweet, like or +1 it.

7 Straightforward Tips on How to Approach a Blog Owner to Get Your Guest Post Published

2013-05-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

Guest blogging is often seen as a crucial part of promoting your own blog. However, while many blog posts say do it, there are very few that explain how to approach another blogger or site. Here I offer 7 straightforward tips with examples on how to approach a site or blog to publish a blog post.

Search Alexa.com for blogs and sites in the same niche or subject area as you. Don’t jump in for the highest ranking blogs, they will be looking for people with a good reputation and experience in guest posting. Go for lower ranked blogs and slowly aim higher as you get more experience.
Select a few and make sure they accept guest posts. They should have a page you can go to, or check out other blog posts and see if their written by different people.
If they have guest post guidelines, follow these. If not, try the below:
Most blogs and sites seem to prefer to receive an email with a blog post title rather than a full blog post, so just offer 1 or 2 titles, don’t send them a whole blog post right away. They may pick one for you to do or ask you to write two blog posts.
Don’t put this in the subject line of the email. Instead write something like: Guest post request for enter subject. The subject would be related to your subject area, so for me it might be blogging tips or content writing tips.
Keep the email short and to the point, but be gracious and say things like ‘Thank you for your time’. I quick mention of one of their blog posts may also be helpful, so:

Hello Name

I recently read your blog post about subject. I also write about subject in my blog and it gave me the idea to write about more specific subject. I was wondering if you would be happy to publish it on your blog as a guest post. The proposed title is:

Title of Blog Post

Please let me know what your think when you are able.

Many thanks for you time

Kind Regards

Your Name

If you do not receive a response after two weeks, give the blogger a gentle nudge by resending the email, asking if they have had a chance to read it. Be polite and understanding that they are busy.

In time, you may guest post regularly for a few blogs and even get requests from others. This can be the point when blogging gets serious, so be prepared to get writing.

Sorry this blog post was published later than the last few. I had just ran a half marathon and did not have the energy to complete it on the Sunday evening like I normally would.

As always please like, tweet or +1 this post if it has helped you. If you have any other tips on approaching a blog or site owner, please let me know in the comments section, I would love to hear what people think.

4 Simple Tips to Generating Traffic to Your New Blog Post

2013-05-06T08:30:00.000-07:00

If there is one thing every blogger or content marketer seems to be short of it is time. There are so many social media sites, forums, directories, etc. to promote your blog posts. Not to mention reputation building and networking. This post aims to point out the best ways to maximize traffic without taking forever to accomplish.

Please note that these tips should be used as part of a marketing strategy which also involves promoting your reputation as a writer and your blog as a whole. Hopefully I’ll get round to writing a post about this side of promotion shortly.

Create a winning blog post. If you have looked into promoting your blog then you must be sick of reading about this, but people write about it because it is true. Ensure you have a Competitor Smashing headline with keywords in; follow this up with quality content. Make it clear in the first paragraph what your blog post will achieve.

Promote on Social Media sites. Use buffer, hootsuite and onlywire or similar online tools to promote on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious, etc. At this stage you are only looking at promoting the new blog post. However, this should be intertwined with promoting other articles and blog posts which you have read from the same niche subject. Which is part of Reputation Management.

Comment on Similar Blog posts. Use keywords to search on blogger, wordpress or other blogging platforms for new blog posts. While your searching remember to follow and helpful blogs, as they may provide helpful information in the future.

Another way to find new blog posts and articles is to set up Google Alerts using the same keywords as in your post for a couple of days. These come through your email inbox each day so can really provide you fresh blog posts to comment on. Getting a comment in early can really improve your traffic to you blog.

Submit to Blog Carnival. This is new to me, but the premise seems to be that like paper.li, you can submit articles that you like or find helpful into what they call a carnival (much like a newspaper or magazine), which people then read. Maybe I will write a post on this in the future as it seems a potential traffic generator.

I hope the above helps give some quick tips on promoting you new blog posts. As I mentioned earlier this needs to be used along with a larger, ongoing promotion of your blog as a whole. But if your short on time like me, they are good basic tips to keep your blog traffic trundling along.

If you like this post please tweet or like my Facebook page. Please also let me know what you think in the comments box below.

Many thanks for reading.

Content: Creation, Curation & Engaging. The Life Cycle to Being a Successful Blogger

2013-04-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Whilst reading an article on Search Engine Watch by Brad Miller about Marketing Guru Guy Kawasaki, I started thinking about how we promote through content. While just writing content and blog posts may bring a trickle of traffic, it will never bring the targeted traffic that popular blogs and expert-written content do and we crave.

If you think about it, just writing content shows nothing of yourself to any readers who may stumble by. They need to know that you know your stuff. This is done through hard work (multiple blog posts), curating content and engaging on social media sites (including blog sites and forums).

Create

This is the creation of content. Writing content gives you something physical to promote. It is your product to sell to the world. See my article on writing the perfect article to create your sellable product. This content will show your knowledge and expertise. However, without the below, readers just cannot be sure about its value.

Curate

This is finding articles to promote of social media sites. You can link to other articles on your blog, various social media sites, forums or in comments you leave on other blog posts or articles. This shows you are reading articles, learning and keeping up to date with events on your chosen niche subject. The quality of these articles will develop your reputation on the places where you post.

Engage

To get high quality, high volume traffic to your posts you can’t just post out, you have to reach out and find other people who are interested in your niche. This can be done by promoting on social media sites. You have to make people take notice of you by leaving comments, getting into conversations. The skill to this is not getting in their face, but by getting them interested in you.

I hope this post gives you some ideas and motivation as well as a clear guide on the life cycle of blogging. At least in a basic form. I predict that while content creation is a big thing now. Content curation and building a reputation based on your curated content will be the next big thing in Content Marketing. Please like or tweet my post if it has helped you or comment in the box below if you have any other blogging tips you would like to share.

The Quick Guide to Writing a Blog: The Why, What, Who, How & When

2013-04-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

I decided to take a step back and look at the basic questions someone might ask themselves when looking at writing a blog, before guest posting, promoting on media sites and building links all get in the way.

Using my experience and knowledge from reading other people’s blogs I have put together some tips which should answer these questions and help develop your blog to not only generate good traffic, but for you to enjoy at the same time.

Why should I blog?

It’s fun. Or at least it should be. It can also relieve tension as you leave your normal day behind and talk about what YOU want to talk about.

It’s free. If you want to do it professionally, many people will say its best to pay for your hosting and buy a domain name. But in the first instance, if not for the longer haul, you should start up a free account, give it a good go and see what happens.

You can genuinely help people. It gives me such a buzz that people read my blog posts and occasionally comment on them. So far the comments have always been positive, but even negative ones would help me develop. Hopefully, people will use the information on my blog to develop themselves.

What should I Blog about?

Whatever you enjoy is best. At the end of the day, you will be writing several posts a week, so it’s best that you enjoy and are enthusiastic about the topic. It’ll show through in your writing and make viewers want to engage with you.

Going down the money route is not recommended as your content is likely to lack any enthusiasm and unless you are an expert in the topic you are unlikely to make any money as there will be many more people blogging on that subject. Trust me; blogging about free online marketing is difficult enough.

Who should I aim my blog to?

Develop a ‘perfect reader’. What is the ideal person you would like to be viewing your blog – age, location, salary, social standing (student, professional, etc). For example, my perfect viewer would be an amateur or student blogger.

This also depends on your subject. Another example is if your blog is about cooking. Are you appealing to the would-be professional chefs who are looking for challenging, time-consuming recipes, or the busy, want a healthy, fast, fuss free meal type of reader.

Find similar blogs through Keyword Searches on Blog Websites and see who their followers are. Similarly, search on Twitter and follow people who you would like to be viewing your blog.

How much should I blog?

This depends on your situation. If you are a frequent blogger then smaller posts will be fine. But if you’re only going to post once a week then make it look like you’ve been working at it for a week.

Beware though, too short and you might not look like a serious blogger and even spammy, especially if you cram your posts with links. Too long and the reader will lose interest. Try around 500 words. This also depends what you blog about. More technical subjects require more explanation and so longer posts.

How often should I blog?

Again, this is down to your situation. Most would say that once a week is the minimum, if you want to be considered a serious blogger. However, most serious bloggers would post articles 3-5 times a week. Don’t worry if that seems too much, as long as you offer unique, quality, engaging content, about once a week would be a good start.

Your first few blog posts will take time as you find your style and flow, plus developing a good ideas list to base blog posts on. Eventually, you’ll get quicker.

When should I blog?

The key to generating good quality traffic is consistency. Pick a day or couple of days in the week to post and stick to them. You don’t have to publish a blog as soon as it is written. It is nice to have a few on standby ready to be quickly published if you struggle to find time to write a new one.

From recent studies, Monday, Friday and Saturday mornings between 8am-11am are popular time to read blogs. Remember this is the time for your readers, not for you.

I hope my quick blogging guide has helped get you enthusiastic and ready to start blogging. Please like or tweet my post if it has helped you or comment in the box below if you have any other blogging tips you would like to share.

Top 5 Free Blogging Tools to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

2013-04-10T14:16:00.000-07:00

There are lots of free tools out there to help you with writing or promoting your blog posts. These are the top 5 tools which I use to help me get the most out of my blog posts – and their all absolutely free!

Onlywire – This offers a free trial version, which is good enough to get you started. The software allows you to bookmark blog posts and articles onto several different bookmarking sites. You can use it to bookmark other blog posts and articles as well as your own, thus building up a good reputation on the various social bookmarking sites as well as creating decent traffic for your own blog.

Hootsuite – view your social activity on twitter, facebook and linkedin as well as being able to schedule tweets and status updates. This also includes a little app to shrink your links. Really your all-in-one shop for your social media promotional campaign. Assuming your only promoting on facebook, twitter and linkedin. Note: it does offer a few other social sites to promote on, but none that I am on so I couldn't comment on these.

Google Alerts – This application allows you to find current blog post and articles about your chosen topic. Simply sign up via Google, type in a couple of keywords and they will automatically send you emails everyday containing blog post and articles about your chosen subject. This helps you see what is trending in your subject area as well as being an excellent learning tool. It may also give you a few ideas on potential new blog posts. As the blog posts and articles are from that day, if you are quick you can read then comment on them to get additional traffic to your blog.

Traffic Travis – This free and simple SEO tool allows you to put keywords in and then searches you blog pages. It will then show you the results and how to improve it to make the pages more optimized for that particular keyword.

Tweriod – This application takes your tweet and follower information and calculates the best time to tweet to optimize viewing potential by your followers. This can then be scheduled in Hootsuite to maximize you tweeting power. Meaning you can tweet at anytime and still get maximum exposure.

I hope you will try some of these tools as they can really help drive traffic and a targeted audience to your blog. Please tweet or like this page if you found it useful. If you use any other free tools I would love to know about them so please comment below.

4 Great Tips on How to Save Time and Still Drive Traffic

2013-04-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

Most Bloggers have a full time job, family commitments or other aspects of their life which give them little opportunity to write and promote their blog posts and articles. By following the tips below you will be able to maximize your time without giving up traffic to your blog or website.

1. Cull your social media. Focus on the sites which attract most traffic and more importantly the ones you enjoy most. I have an account on pretty much every social media site going. However, I rarely use anything other than Facebook and Twitter. These are my main promotion social media channels, as I know I’ll use them. However, if a social media site offers me good traffic for relatively little effort I’ll be happy to give it a go and see what happens. I seem to be getting a little interest from StumbleUpon at the moment so I may choose to investigate that. It is whatever time you have available. Try to master one at a time rather than all in one go. I've found it to be a fairly natural process as some social media sites just don’t hold my interest, either they’re too difficult to navigate or have no real value at this time for me.

2. Concentrate on topics which get the most traffic. If you are getting steady traffic to your blog or website, look at your posts or pages and see which one have the highest amount of visits. Go to Quora or Yahoo Answers and see what questions are being asked about this niche topic. Answer one or more of those questions in a new blog post or article. Alternatively, if you are new to blogging, have a look what your competitors are blogging about or use Google Trends to get emails about articles which are currently popular.

3. Focus on only the best sources of information. Always look for new sources if they offer a different angle or new information, but if it isn't working don't push it. Keep your RSS reader up to date and never have more than maybe 10-15 blogs and websites to follow. If you find an exceptional blog, look to remove one where the information is not too useful for you or not that regularly updated.

4. Be very clear what topic you are writing about. If you find your topic is too broad for you to learn and become and expert in, look at what part of this topic you enjoy most. When I first started my web site I wanted to write about both developing and promoting a web site. Pretty quickly I realized just how broad a subject this is. I cut out the development side as my real interest was in SEO, social media, content marketing, etc. Again, I realized pretty soon, that web promotion, even of the free kind was a massive topic. With little time left after work and family I had to cut it down again. I chose to stop writing about social media as there are just so many platforms out there now, from Twitter and Facebook, to the relatively new Pinterest and Slideshare, not to mention all manner of social bookmarking sites. I decided content marketing with a bit of SEO was the way to go.

I hope this post has given you lots of ideas on how to get the most out of the time you have available. Please like or tweet this page. Alternatively, I would love to hear about any other time saving tips you have and what you think of the current tips I have offered.

5 Tips for an Endless Supply of New Blog Post Ideas

2013-03-25T15:40:00.002-07:00

Having spent a couple of years (on and off) blogging, I have learnt (through personal experience and what I have read) that finding new ideas or topics to write about is probably the main reason that people struggle to write blog posts or even worse stop their blog altogether. If you feel like this, then please read the 5 tips below and you will have a potentially endless supply of ideas to write about.

Use the formula: What, When, Who, Where, Why, How – put these words in front of your topic or sub-topic, e.g. for me it would be either content marketing or blogging. Your already halfway there, just fill in the gaps.

Who … content marketing/blogging

What … content marketing/blogging

When … content marketing/blogging

Where…content marketing/blogging

Why … content marketing/blogging

How … content marketing/blogging

Look at what your competitors are blogging about. Follow similar blogs to yours on your chosen blog platform (Blogger or Wordpress) or do a Keyword Search on Google. Although this could be seen as being a bit slow out of the blocks, you could always make a counter argument with whatever they are saying (this could be controversial and generate a lot of debate) or expand, simplify (if it’s a bit jargon heavy) or come at it from a different angle. I find just looking at two aspects of a topic is a good way making a new post, e.g. Blogger or Wordpress, the do’s and do not’s of article submission, etc.
Use Google Trends and search your topic to get regular updates about what people are blogging about in your niche. Once you have set this up you will get daily emails from Google with fresh articles that have matched your Keyword Search. For me, I search Content marketing and Blogging or Blog marketing.
Review Things. Web sites, tools, applications, software programs, films, games, music, etc. You have to be give a balanced view. May be worth reading a few reputable review blogs and try to breakdown how they write a review. Certainly, have a structured approach to your review which you follow for each item reviewed. This offers returning readers reference points as well as some comfort when reading your reviews, e.g. state the functionality of the product before writing the positives, followed by the negatives, then the conclusion plus any score.
Search Q&A sites like Quora and Yahoo Answers. Use their search function and find questions about your topic. This is what I found after a 10 minute search:

What are the best content marketing blogs?

What is the difference between content marketing & content strategy?

Do you believe the hype in content marketing?

What is a Successful approach to content marketing?

What are the best (free) tools for content marketing?

What is the perfect blog post length?

Best Free Blog Platform: Blogger vs Wordpress

I hope this post has given you lots of ideas to write more of your own post on your chosen subject. Please like or tweet this page. Alternatively, I would love to hear about any other tips you have to get more writing ideas and what you think of the current tip I have offered.

Content Writing: Am I good enough to make a living?

2013-03-19T16:18:00.000-07:00

Do you want to start a blog but wonder if anybody will read it? or maybe you have already started a blog and wish to write guest posts on other blogs to build your reputation and traffic to your site? Ultimately, you may wish to make a living writing on your own or other people’s blogs and web site?

By following the points below you can see where you currently are and how far you have to go to develop.

Of course, you could jump in at the deep end and try and pitch yourself for freelance writing jobs, but like any topic to be good at it you need to practice.

1. Start with your own blog. Follow good practices - see my article on writing good content - and develop your writing skills and knowledge of your area. Putting a time to be competent on this is difficult as writers will be at different levels from the start and some may write 5 post a week, while other may struggle to write 1. I would try and write at least 30-40 good posts before moving to the next stage.

2. Write guest posts. Use a site like myblogguest or find smaller blogs who accept guest posts in your area. See if they will accept what you write and don’t lose faith if they initially reject your blog posts or articles. They may just not be looking for that topic at that time. Once you have been accepted to a few smaller blogs, you can then step this up to larger more popular blogs once you reputation has grown and you have perfected the art of a good guest blog post.

3. Earn money by writing for sites that pay for accepted articles or blog posts. Here is a list to get you started but I am sure there are plenty more for all manner of topics. Also content websites may pay to list your article - e.g. Huffingtonpost, refinery 29, etc.

4. Start writing for individual companies. Maybe even creating and maintaining a whole blog for them. This would involve promoting yourself to them and possibly pitching your ideas on how your content would drive traffic and sales on their web site. But hopefully by this point you would be a well honed content writer and experienced to the plights and perils of what makes a good article or blog post.

Hopefully, by following this path you will be able to earn a good income and become a reputable content writer. Maybe to the point where sites are asking you to write for them.

If you have found this article useful, please tweet it or like it on facebook. Alternatively, if you have any other ideas about writing content for money or thoughts about what I have written please let me know by commenting below or contacting us via the Contact Us page above.

6 Tips to the Perfect Answer on Question & Answer Websites (Yahoo Answers & Quora)

2013-03-11T15:52:00.000-07:00

These Q&A sites are increasing in popularity and are a great way to build your reputation in your chosen subject. But how do you get noticed on these Q&A sites and grow you reputation. Read the tips below to get people listening to you.

Have a good bio. When opening an account make sure you complete as much as this as possible. Give your self a good bio which clearly describes who you are and gets keywords into the mix. Make sure you link to your site or blog. Also make sure you get a good, clear picture of yourself in this bio, so that you are not some anonymous ghost writer. People do not engage with them.
Stay within your expert area. As the people you will want to attract will be in this area, there is no point trying to answer questions on other subjects. This will not help your reputation either, if you offer bad advice or just get it wrong.
Search recently added and unanswered questions. Answering a question that has already been answered 20 times over, is not going to attract any attention and your answer is unlikely to add anything new or worthwhile. However being the first to answer a question, if done well, can get you seen by many and so your reputation grows.
Add a well-thought-out and helpful answer. Don’t be worried about writing a good chunk of text. This is a Question & Answer site not a blog post with comments or facebook status update. Add your own opinion and say what you would do in that situation. Just make sure it is of high quality though. In some cases you may be able to help the person asking the question by giving a link to your site or blog.
Follow people. As with all social media, follow people with similar interests and they will follow back. When you answer questions they can see these answers and so your reputation builds with them and they may be more inclined to visit your site or blog to learn more about you or gain more information as you are obviously so knowledgeable about your subject.
Answer a lot of Questions. Like blogging and other social media platforms, constantly updating and showing you are active is key. The more questions you answer the bigger the net you are throwing for potential engagement and new followers. It also builds your reputation as it shows you are willing to use your expertise, experience and knowledge to help people for free.

I hope you feel motivated to get on these sites and answers question. Once you answer a few questions you will find it quite addictive. If you need me to explain any areas in more details, please leave a comment or contact me at via our website.

The Perfect Call to Action - Build a Community

2012-09-25T14:34:00.000-07:00

A Call to Action (CTA) is the term that bloggers and online marketers use to describe what action they wish their audience to take upon reading their article or visiting their web site.

For businesses with products to sell this would be turning readers into customers and actually buying their products. For bloggers it can be a little more difficult. An outcome of a call to action maybe to visit another website, buy into an idea or simply click on the advertising banners surrounding the content (for example, this blog).

However, on researching Calls to Action, I have noticed there is an additional and achievable step to achieving this. That is to build a community around your blog, which should involve trust and reputation building.

Here are 4 simple tips on how to make get readers following your call to action:

1. Be honest, knowledgeable and above all helpful. Offering great content in every blog post that you do will build your reputation. Once readers trust you, they will be more willing to follow CTAs or try out any recommendations you make. I follow a blog called Smart Passive Income, which is very helpful and transparent on how he makes money through blogging and niche websites.

2. Don’t be afraid to ask, but be tactful. Most bloggers may put a few banner ads on their blog posts and hope readers click on them to make a little income. However, if people are not clicking on your ads, don’t push them through a bad CTA. At this stage it is about building trust and community, income will come naturally through this. When writing a call to action it may be better to offer a way to contact you for further debate, give feedback or like, tweet or stumble the post. This will build your readership if the content is good. This in turn will hopefully lead to click-throughs and income.

3. Place Calls to Action at the end of the post. Once they have read your post, they may ask what should I do next, or be motivated to take some action. Take this opportunity to ask them to take the required action. Asking too early in the post may make them ask the question ‘why?’.

4. Keep it simple. For Blog readers nothing more than clicking on a link or liking the post should be required as a call to action. Anything that requires instructions or numbered bullet points is far to complex and even if your content is amazing, readers are unlikely to follows such a complex CTA.

I hope you found the post useful. Here is my call to action: Please tweet, like or stumble this article below or give me feedback by contacting me using the contact form or comment box.

Getting Connected - 12 Link Building Tips

2012-09-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

Having a good link strategy is probably the largest and most important part of SEO, if not online marketing as a whole. What you should be looking for is plenty of good quality links. A good quality link is a link that points to your site from either a reputable site (e.g. a .gov or .edu site) or one which heavily relates to your chosen subject. Here is a list of tips to get you going on building links. These are what I consider the easiest to obtain, before going for the more difficult links. If you are hungry for more, check out Jon Cooper’s link building list which is about the most exhaustive available online.

1. Ask People you know for a link.

Ask friends with Blogs or people on your personal social media accounts. Maybe even ask people to put a link to your site in their profile, if the social media site permits it (ie. LinkedIn) and they’re not promoting another site. Maybe offer them a favour in return.

2. Link Out.

Link to other people’s blogs and articles. If possible let them know you’ve done this and explain your reason for linking to them. This can be done via commenting on the post (you can add your site in the comments and get another link) or by emailing them (this would be more personal, so may mean more to some webmasters). If the person who controls the site you link out to analyses their site, then they are sure to see you as a back link, and may reciprocate this.

3. Interlink to pages in your site.

Remember Search Engines crawl web pages not web sites. Each page is ranked on it individual merits. Use keywords in the linking text. Site Navigation is a perfect example of this, but also get links in your main content as well.

4. Research Competitors Links.

This first means finding out who your competitors are. This can be solved by typing in similar keywords to your own on a search engine. Another method is to find sites you have visited due to a mutual interest (obviously related to your blog). If you want to find out who is linking to your competitors use a tool like Link Popularity. Simply type in the URL address and click on either Google, Bing or Yahoo and voila! The next step is to find sites that could possible link to your blog as well and make a list. Not every link a competitor site has will be obtainable, e.g. a random mention in another article.

5. Submit your blog to ezine sites, web directories and Blog Directories.

This is time consuming, but worth it. Check out this site to find relevant web directories and type in your URL in the space provided (this is normally your homepage but if you feel it’s more relevant it can be a specific page on your site). Some may ask for a link back and I suggest you oblige for courtesy sake. The link can be put somewhere obscure, normally at the bottom of a web page in your blog.

6. Signing up to Social Media Sites & Bookmarking.

Links from your profile are beneficial and getting links on bookmarking sites not only improves SEO but can really give your site of blog a spike in traffic. View my guides on getting started with Social Media and Social Bookmarking.

7. Press Release Submission.

A press release is a written statement to the media announcing something new or changed in your business area, e.g. launch of new website, event you are putting on, etc. Make the headline as short and as interesting as possible, the value to the reader should be in the headline. Put a summary at the top, even bullet points if possible. Make the content clear, concise and jargon free (little or no technical terms). Make it no more than 250 words. Ensure you have at least 1 link back to your site or blog (the higher up the press release the better). Make sure you add contact details (a telephone number as well as an email address). Once the Press Release is ready, submit it to as many as these sites as possible.

8. Guest Posting.

This is great for SEO and can also create a good spike in traffic. Write content for another website or blog, include links to you site (not necessarily just your homepage) and post it. This promotes your site or blog to a new audience and also gives the site / blog owner new content that they don’t need to write themselves. So a win-win situation. Please note that you will almost certainly need to write fresh content and not just copy and paste your old content. Good guest posting can lead to further requests and build your reputation, which in turn will build you site traffic. Offer your services to some of the sites in this list.

9. Blog commenting.

Leaving a link on a blog can generate traffic and help SEO. It can also build your reputation, depending what you write on the blog comment. To do this, see my guide for commenting on blogs.

10. Post on Forums or Q&A sites (e.g. Yahoo Answers).

Similar to commenting on blogs, but in this case you will normally be helping someone. In return they tend to be happy to check out your site and link back to it from their site. To do this, see my guide for posting on forums or view thee list for Q&A sites.

11. Reciprocal links.

This seems to be a bit of a lost art as it can be time consuming and produce only a few links. Basically, writing a well thought out and well pitched email for a single link, just doesn’t seem worth it to some people. However, I disagree and a more personal approach and lead to a good relationship with someone who will be more willing to generate more links or traffic to your site. To write a winning ‘link request’ email, see my guide on this (not yet available).

12. Join Blog Groups on LinkedIn.

Check out members blogs and comment, sign up to their RSS feeds, see point 2 (Linking out). Just network, it’s what LinkedIn is there for.

This is just a part of the linking opportunities out there. I would love to hear other people’s experiences of getting a ‘killer’ link. I hope you found this guide interesting and please tweet, like or stumble this article below or give me feedback by contacting me using the contact form.

Write the Perfect Article - 7 Great Tips

2012-09-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

When writing blog posts or articles for a web site, online professionals always say there are two people you are writing for, the reader and the search engine. Ideally, they should be one of the same and as the likes of Google and Bing improve and develop their algorithms this should hopefully be the case. I am a firm believer in writing for the reader first, then the search engine (if at all!). See my tips on mass article submission to see what I mean.

Hopefully, the tips below will give you the tools to creating great content in every post that you do.

1. Know your Audience. If you know your audience, not only will you know what to write about but also how to write about it. Things to know are age, occupation, earnings, gender and location. Further information on knowing your customer is available in my recent blog post.

2. Pick a Subject. You should be writing about something you are interested or well experienced in. Break it down into small chunks and this will give you a few posts to start with. Popular blog posts are either up to date, humorous, controversial or helpful. So writing something funny about a subject you have experience in could be a winner. Please just write appropriately.

3. Keyword Research. Yes, this sounds like your writing for a search engine. But do this right and these words and phrases will be what your target audience are using to find content just like yours. You should also find the words and phrases you find are similar to that you are using when writing without any Keyword Research. I have a good guide on how to carry out Keyword Research.

4. Eye-Catching Heading. This is the first -and possible only- thing a potential reader will read, so they need to know they will get what they want from the article. Using words like Tips and Guides are good, however, if you are looking for pure entertainment, think newspaper headlines, maybe go and browse some of the tabloid newspapers and see how they do it. Make sure you get your main Keyword or Keyphrase into this.

5. First Paragraph Summary. The first paragraph should tell the reader what they will get out of reading the whole post. Offer the problem they are likely to have and the solution the post will give them. Also fill this with good quality Keywords and Keyphrases.

6. Gripping Main Content. If possible put your content into lists. If not possible, use short paragraphs. This makes it easy to read and easy to come back to a point made in your article. Use short sentences and don’t move off topic. Articles should be relatively short and attention grabbing. Get keywords into the text and if appropriate highlight them in bold. This adds a little extra SEO juice. Most importantly, check spelling and grammer. This makes it easier to read and looks more professional.

7. Offer a way to contact or debate an issue. Most blog sites (e.g. Blogger & Wordpress) offer comments after a blog post (this can be switched off). However, offering an email address or a contact form to respond to gives the opportunity for a more personal conversation and actively encourages people to communicate to you.

I hope this post is helpful and has made you more motivated to get writing. Just go for it. The more you write the better and easier it will be. Please let me know your thoughts by either commenting below or emailing me at unshackled22@gmail.com. Alternatively, submit via my contact page. JUAYY63WSHF2

How to get to know your Target Audience

2012-08-30T15:12:00.000-07:00

This should be the first thing you do when looking to promote a product or service over the web. By knowing your audience you will find it easier to pick keywords. Finding the right keywords will help when writing content both as part of your blog and if you plan to market articles. It also helps when locating fans and followers on social media sites, see my guide on Keyword Research.

Brainstorm. Step away from the day to day toil of your blog and think about:

Who would be the perfect reader of your blog?

Who would get the most out of it and would sing it's praises to other people?

I aimed my site initially at small companies, webmasters and bloggers. I soon released that most small companies would probably outsource online marketing activity as and when they needed it and webmasters are likely to look at doing it themselves. Although I do still go one some web development forums and offer advice (and a link to my site of course) occasionally my target audience are bloggers. I aimed at this area, as my service is to offer concise, jargon free guides on online marketing. Therefore, the difference in my service is in the simplicity of its delivery, not cutting edge online marketing ideas.

Find Stats about your chosen target audience. Get statistics to build a picture of the perfect user. This can be as simple as typing 'facts about (your subject/potential audience)' into Google. For example, I found from doing this that most bloggers have busy lives outside of blogging (about 50% earn $75,000 or more and are married with kids), therefore, the information given has to be to-the-point and extremely clear. I can't move off point. Spelling and grammar is also important here.

Some attributes you may like to find out is:

a. are the majority male or female?

b. what is the age range?

c. what are their jobs/habits/annual salary?

d. where are they located?

I will explain these in more detail in a later guide.

Write content in a style and format they’ll understand. Once you have a grasp of your target audience you can then adjust what you write about, how you write about it, the look of your blog, etc. If you are appealing to a younger generation, something less formal is required, maybe even the odd bit of slang or even mild swear word to force a point. Likewise, if you are appealing to an older generation they will expect a formal layout and proper English (if that’s your language of choice).

Adapt the look of your blog or web site. If people are looking for information quickly, plain text on a white background is most likely what they'll want to see. Younger audiences may be more interested in pictures or videos or any cools games or apps available on your site - the wackier the blog site the better. Also think of colours, if it is mostly men who will view sites, then 1 or 2 bold colours work better, if women are more likely to view it, think more of pastel colours.

Look at who your competitors are marketing to. Check their social media fan pages and blogs. See whether it largely companies or individuals, male or female, location of their fans. Look at the names of pictures for this. Even sign up to their newsletters to assess any keywords used in their articles or what they are promoting. Like link building you can also check their links to see where their audience is coming from. Link Popularity is a good tool for this.

Analyse and assess your service. This goes back to the first point and who your perfect user is. For example, if you were offering a free, easy to use service, you would expect the users to be individuals who do not wish to spend money on that subject, but wish to get basic information. For my service that would be students and amateur/novice bloggers. Alternatively, if you offer in depth up to the minute information, you would expect businesses or individuals who are willing to pay for that information. In which case, the information you provide would have to be accurate and verified.

Calls to action. Getting people to view your blog is great, but you'll want them to do something like, sign up to a newsletter, buy a product or click on the advertising banners. Think about how different users will react to different requests, younger people may be more easily sold with all the 'coolness' of getting information or the product, also they are more likely to sign up to your newsletter, especially if you offer them something for doing it, but may never actually read it. Older people are much more difficult to entice, but if they do sign up they are more likely to read what you have to say or buy into your service or product (although this does mean they’ll tend to have higher expectations as well).

I hope you found this guide interesting and please tweet, like or stumble this article below or give me feedback by contacting me using the contact form.

The Why and Why Not’s of Mass Article Submission

2012-08-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

Mass Article Submission can be seen as either cheating the search engine into thinking you have lots of relevant content pointing to your site (and therefore your site must be important), or a great way to get helpful information to many different segments of an audience. Think if you would view it as a negative if someone was promoting a cure for cancer!

What is Mass Article Submission?

This is when you write a single article and then use an article spinner program like Spinnerchief to make numerous copies of this article. Some people claim to be able to make up to 200 different versions of the same article. The last few versions must look a bit ropey to say the least!

You can then post a different version of this article on to lots of blog sites, articles sites or any other sites which are happy to take articles without checking to see if content is duplicated. This content should contain at least one link, though probably several, back to your site.

Furthermore, you can link to these spun blog posts and articles from social bookmarking sites. You can set up an account of many social bookmarking sites and mass bookmark these articles with applications like Onlywire or SocialPoster to create secondary links.

Why do this?

Makes content on you site look very popular and therefore relevant and important
Saves a lot of time spinning articles compared to writing new content
Bookmarking spun articles gives them added important which I turn gives your site even more relevance and importance
You content (regardless of quality) is more likely to be seen by your target audience

Why not do this?

If your target audience get wind you are doing this (unless maybe you do offer a cure for cancer) they will be likely to stop reading your articles (no one likes to read an article written by a robot). Your site’s reputation may be irrecoverable.
Articles produced on articles spinners are generally appalling. Having tried a few times I can vouch for that!
If Google picks up on this, your site may be heavily penalised or worse still kicked off Google’s index.
It is pretty boring, tedious and not at all creative. If you run a site or blog I assume you have a certain amount of creativity inside you, so Mass Submission is just not right for you.

What should I do?

Put simply, rewrite articles, but do it manually. You can use an article spinner program to help change a sentence or use it as a thesaurus. Put a different spin on an old article to create something different. Pick a few blog sites or article sites and submit to them. Don’t use mass submission software.

Do this and you will keep your reputation intact, site in Google’s index, audience happy and not get bored looking at the same text.

For further tips on FREE online marketing please have a browse of my site. Please also leave comments or contact me with any issues you would like to discuss.

Making a Splash on Twitter

2012-07-14T15:55:00.006-07:00

Getting people to read your Tweets is firstly about getting your tweets seen. Know when your followers are on Twitter, develop relationships and have conversations. Having said that, what you are puting in your tweets is the most essential aspect and what benefits you are providing to your followers. The more you offer the more you will get back.

1. Keep Tweeting.

A good estimate is about 2 to 3 times a day. You will look desperate if you tweet too much and followers will get sick of you. If you hardly tweet at all followers will wonder what the point I following you is. Not every tweet needs a link to a helpful article and not every Tweet needs to have a human, personal touch. Mix it up a bit. Try and build a positive picture of you in the minds of your followers.

2. Find out when your followers are on Twitter

Use a great tool like Tweriod to find out when the majority of your followers are online, then simply tweet at that time. Tweriod sends a report to your email address showing the top times when your followers are on Twitter. Using a top program like Hootsuite helps if you are unable to get on Twitter when your followers are. Hootsuite allows you to schedule Tweets (amongst other things) to be posted in the future.

3. Use @connect to develop relationships.

By retweeting tweets and replying to other peoples interesting tweets you can connect and start conversations. You can quickly browse through tweets of people you follow and pick out ones you genuinely find interesting. Respond to the tweets by opening up a debate, adding a additional point to what they have said or just add your opinion. Alternatively add something humorous (just be careful with this). Saying ‘great tweet’ will get you nowhere.

4. Write Amazing tweets

The main goal is to submit attention grabbing tweets which link to great, relevant content, which can either open up a debate on a subject or provide your follower with vital information on your niche. Here are the 3 stages to creating the ultimate tweet:

a. Great headline. Look at newspaper for ideas. Your followers want to know what’s in it for them, Copyblogger offers a great article on Twitter Headlines.

b. Think out of the box. This can be tough. Offer another angle on what you are selling or promoting. An option is make it humane or personal in some way or offer out a small aspect of your service for free or answer a query.

c. Give as much information about the article you are linking to as is possible in a Tweet. E.g. Find out how to … Alternatively, give your opinion on the topic, and offer a link to the article showing the full debate –your followers will be encouraged to offer their own opinion.

5. Begin or join a twitter chat

This is #(twitterchat). Most subject matters will have one. People on twitter who are interested in your subject will be able to communicate with you and other twitter users. Tom Treanor explains twitter chats excellently in his Right Mix blog.

Please tweet, like or stumble this article below or give me feedback below. View more guides and up to date articles about about free online marketing.

SEO Content - Content is King

2012-03-28T14:42:00.003-07:00

Following on from my last post, SEO Content Management highlights on-page SEO and is likely to be more familiar to anyone who has dabbled in on-page promotion or any online marketing.

You will, however, need to see the web page source code. This can be done by opening you web page in MS notepad or by using a program like Dreamweaver or Frontpage. For those looking to improve your SEO on blogs, please refer to your blog provider e.g. blogger, Wordpress, etc. These will have a way to see the source code.

I have tried to list the tips as though someone is writing the web page in a top-to-bottom order, Meta tags then headings then content, etc.

Put Keywords in Title Tags. That is between <title></title>. These tags will be at the top of the page in the first few lines under the <head> tag. If you do not have a list of Keywords to use, please view my post on Keyword Research to find out how to obtain some. This can just be a list, but I prefer to make some sense. At Resty, I use <title>Free Web Promotion tutorials & tips articles - Resty</title>. Notice how I’ve put Resty at the back and not the front. This is because people are more likely to search terms like Free Web Promotion Tutorials and not Resty.
Put Keywords in Meta Tags. They are <meta name="keywords" content="keywords go here” /> and <meta name="description" content="description of page filled with keywords go here" />. This is classic SEO, but still valid. These tags should already be present with a good website template and on blogging site templates. If not, just copy and paste them directly under the Title Tags. Once you have found them put all keywords relating to that page into the space. Separate with a comma and space (, ). Don’t use all keywords on all pages as this will broaden your page parameters and in the end no one will find the page. I use about 4-5 general terms, like the website name (Resty) and another 5-6 terms specific to the page.
Put Keywords in Header Tags. They are <h1></h1>, <h2></h2>, <h3></h3>, etc. These are the headings to your pages which the users will see. Make sure that you write for the user first and then the Search Engine. Putting headings in bold also gives a little extra SEO juice.
As mentioned above, putting keywords in bold within the content helps. Try and be a little clever about this and don’t just put every keyword in bold. It will look obvious to users and possibly a little confusing.
When thinking of a subject to write about bear in mind that the most popular topics tend to be breaking news, controversial or humorous. These can be difficult to get into certain types of blogs / websites, so ensure that at least the content is original, honest and informative (helpful).
Put Keywords in the body of the content. While they should be placed throughout the content, nearer the top is better. Therefore, ensure more keywords or the more important keywords (the ones you want to use, so people will find your site / blog) are within the first few lines.
Following on from the previous point. Give a summary of the content / article after the header and before the main content. This willvgive you a good excuse to cram in lots of important keywords and also encourages the user to continue to read.
Along with point 5. when writing, you should also ensure that it is easy to read. Try turning content into a guide or lists. If this is not possible, break the content down into small paragraphs and headings. Again heading can be put in header tags and written in bold.
Check grammar and spelling. Sounds simple, but many people who overlook it. It will help build your reputation if you consistently produce perfectly written content. Especially if your looking to write on other peoples blogs or websites. It also means keywords will be spelt correctly.
Link out to other pieces of work. This can be your own work on the same blog / website. Not only does it show the relevance of your content, it gives users and search engine web crawlers the chance to read more of your work. You should also link out to other people’s work were necessary. Maybe making them aware of the fact may see them linking back to some of your work.

Please note I cover link building separately, so not too much has been mentioned about that here. As long as you are producing good quality content and building a marketing strategy around that, e.g. link building, social media, etc, you are sure to see traffic improve. Remember the well known SEO phrase: ‘Content is King’.

Technical SEO - Clean up your Site and Drive Traffic

2012-03-15T16:10:00.000-07:00

Most of SEO requires looking at basic web site code from meta tags to building links. While technical SEO can be more complex I have tried to keep it at a basic level so that all bloggers and web site owners will be able to implement these tips. Well implemented, this can have a surprising improvement on your search engine results and help drive traffic.

With most of my guides I have listed points in a logical order (one step following the next), however, these tips can be carried out in any order.

Site Speed. Google has come out and said they take this seriously. In order to see the loading time of your web site go to webpagetest.org. To get an idea of whether your site loads in an acceptable time would be to input some of your competitor’s web sites or popular sites (e.g. amazon, play, facebook, etc.). An obvious benefit to this is that people don’t want to wait for websites to load, along with better Search Engine rankings. Ways to do this are:

Specify image sizes. That is the width and height. When inserting a picture into your blog/site, check the html code within the <img src= there should be the words width= and height=. If you don’t, the browser has to calculate this itself which can take vital seconds.
Minifying CSS. Go into the CSS file (normally called ‘Styles.css’) and delete code and spaces where it is not needed. Browsers don’t read files in the same way humans do and do not need spaces to read appropriately. However, if you do need to change the file at a later date, it may be difficult to find particular aspects. Regarding deleting unused code, this can be a bit of trial and error and I recommend saving various versions of your CSS file so that you do not lose vital code.

Site Navigation. Make it easy for Search Engines to crawl your site.

The best way to do this is to create a Site Map. This can be done blindly quickly at xml-sitemaps.com. Just follow their simple steps. If you have a Google account, once you have uploaded your site map, go to Google Webmaster Tools, click on your website or blog (you may need to click ‘Add a Site’ first) and click on ‘Submit a Site Map’, then finally input the URL (normally sitemap.xml).
Additionally, ensure that all linked text, as in your main navigation menu or any other linked words within the content, are keywords.

Do not put content in javascript. While it can look nice, browsers still struggle to read content within javascipt. Instead keep javascript to a minimum and only for content which you are not looking for search engines to pick up on, e.g. generic images.
Keep URL clean and clear. Where possible get Keywords into your URL. The best way to do this is have an actual name for each page, and not generate dynamic pages on-the-fly. This is what generates session IDs and those horrible long numbers. For example, a website about food should have a URL like www.buckleyfoods.co.uk/recipes rather than www.buckleyfoods.co.uk/8334654.
Using the rel=canonical tag. This will not be required for all web sites as it isn’t for mine (at the moment at least). Basically, it asks Search Engines to prioritise one link over another, where the two different links go to the same page. That is the link URL is different, e.g. www,buckleyfoods.co.uk/recipies is different to www.buckleyfoods.co.uk/recipies1, but they may go to the same page or different pages with very similar content. Without the rel=canonical tag Search Engines would see duplicate content and downgrade the quality of that link or split the link authority. By putting the tag in the <head> part of the web site code, Google will only follow the preferred link. For example add a piece of code like below the page with the link which you don’t want Google to follow:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.buckleyfoods.co.uk/recipies1>

I hope I haven’t confused you too much and hope to refine some of the points made in later blog posts. The main tasks are to keep your site as small in bytes as possible and help Search Engines to crawl it nice and easily. If you have any further questions please comment and I’ll try to help.

P.S. Sorry for the long blog.

Drive Traffic by Commenting on Blogs

2012-02-19T15:57:00.000-08:00

Posting comments on blogs can improve your reputation and drive traffic. However, you need to be careful when you comment and what you say.

1. First find blogs your target market is likely to read. Basically, if you find the blog interesting so will your target audience. You can search for blogs in Blogger (google’s blogger website) or Wordpress.
2. It may be worth getting about 15-20 blogs that you find interesting. Try making a list in Word, or an Excel spreadsheet, with a links to them.
3. If they have the option, subscribe to their RSS feed or newsletter. One of the most important aspects of promoting on blogs is to get your comments (and therefore site link/reference) seen by everyone who reads the blog. Most people will only read the first few comments. So getting there first is mightily important. This is especially difficult, but rewarding if you follow a popular blog. Within hours a popular blog may have tens if not hundreds of comments, but getting yours in, say, the first ten could really drive traffic to your site (of course depending on what you have written).
4. Make sure you read the blogs. Separate your list, so that you read maybe 10 blogs the first week then the other 10 the next week. This gives you a bit more time to do other things, but also means your not constantly commenting on the same blogs each week – which could look spammy. Also reading the blogs, means you can provide a better comment, which does wonders for your reputation in the community and means people are more likely to go to your site.
5. Leave a well-thought-out and meaningful/helpful comment, don’t just write ‘great blog – see mine at ……’ Nobody knows what your blog is about of if it’s any good. It also looks very spammy and means you haven’t actually read or understood the blog. Instead, pick up on points that you agree with in the blog and say why. Add your own opinion to points made in the blog and say why you agree or disagree with them. In some cases you may be able to help the blogger, which gives a perfect opportunity to reference or link to your site/blog.
6. If you comment a lot on a blog, don’t link to your site each time. Remember, this is as much about Reputation Management as it is promotion and link baiting.

I hope this helps you to drive more of your target audience to your site/blog. I also plan to provide more details on how to write a perfect comment on a blog in the next instalment.

Forums - Promote and Drive Traffic to your Site

2012-02-12T15:58:00.000-08:00

Forums are a great place for people to get their questions answered. In effect they are getting a bespoke answer to their immediate concern, without having to read endless articles on how to do something.

Therefore, giving good advice in a Forum can really enhance your reputation and improve traffic to your site (presuming you add a link to your site/blog in your comment on the forum).

First find several forums that your target market is likely to read. For example, I post comments on forums that help bloggers and individual web developers. If your site/blog is about food or sells food, then forums where people are asking for recipes or ‘how to bake’ may be a good place to start.
Make sure they are still active. There is no point leaving a post responding to a question that was asked 2-3 years ago. The person will unlikely to still be looking for the answer. However, if the rest of the forum is active, you could still answer the question in the hope the thread becomes active again.
Look through the thread topics and find one which you think you can answer. As you are looking to promote your site/blog, don’t be scared to be a little bit cheeky and turn the question around in your favour. For example, a question was asked, ‘What do you think of my blog? What else could I do to improve it?’, so I said in order to get people reading it they should promote it online and put a link to my site, resty.co.uk, to help them. They came back with more questions about promoting there blog, which enable me to put a link in my post to my blog. This dramatically increased my traffic for the following few days.
Answer the questions honestly and clearly. Don’t just say, ‘Try this –‘and put a link to your site. It just looks like your pushing your site and its more effort for the readers. Answer the question in the post, but say if you want more info please visit my site. This shows you know your stuff, but that maybe there is more to it then can be put in the post.
Ensure that you do link to your site/blog. Otherwise the whole exercise has been pointless. A link generates traffic to your site/blog and can also count towards SEO. Please note some forums won’t let you add links straight away, but don’t be afraid to type your site URL and continue to add posts. If your answers are good, people will visit your site.
Respond to further posts. If someone replies to your post, sometimes with further questions, do keep the conversation going. It shows that they are interested and is an opportunity to further enhance your reputation. It also gives you a chance to add another link, if necessary.