1. Know your “schtick.”

There’s a ton of content being created, and you need to find your own way to stand out. Don’t try to be all things to all people. Find your own unique angle and value proposition, and use that as your center point from which all your content ideas come from.

Learn more: 5 Essential Qualities of Growing Your Blog Quickly in a Crowded Niche

2. Spend 80% of your time crafting your title and 20% of your time on the rest of your content.

To suggest that 80% of the success of your content relies just on the title is a bold claim, right? SEOmoz suggests that you focus much of your effort on this area, concentrating your attention to 7 key qualities: curiosity, benefit, emotion, tangible, appearance, sound and expectation.

Learn more: Are Your Titles Irresistibly Click-Worthy?

3. Remember – search engines find you valuable when readers find you valuable.

Many people think that SEO is the number one reason for creating content – but SEO is best achieved when you provide value to humans and get them to share that content. Putting other goals like understanding customer concerns and developing new business ideas through content will help you create content that is valuable to readers and hence is valuable to search engines.

Learn more: 10 Content Marketing Goals Worth Pursuing

4. Get over it – you’re in the content business.

No matter what industry you’re in, you have to create owned media. With the may that consumers buy nowadays and the way that search engines work, everyone is a content creator.

Learn more: Get Content-Centric, or Get Disrupted in Search and Social

5. Write like a teacher, and consider what types of learners your readers are.

There are four different kinds of learners: Analytical, commonsense, dynamic and innovative.

• Analytic: Like facts and will evaluate how your information compares to other facts and competing claims. 20% of people are analytic.
• Commonsense: Practical and want to know how things work. 20% of people are commonsense learners.
• Dynamic: Look for interesting information, but are more gut learners and teachers. They want this information for themselves and for others. 25% of people are dynamic learners.
• Innovative: Demand reasons why they should learn something. They look for the personal benefit in content. Innovative learners make up the most of people at 35%.

Learn about the different reasons that people process information, how how they process that information. It will help you deliver it more effectively.

Learn more: Develop Irresistible Content With This Four-Point Formula

What interesting content did you read this week? How will you put those lessons into practice? Let us know in the comments.

Want these content lessons delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for Shareaholic to get our weekly email newsletter.

More than 200,000 visits a month? Not too shabby, Fred.

Wilson’s analysis of his own traffic concluded that his regular traffic is mostly regular visitors (Feedburner and direct) and then about 40% social (startup people love to Tweet) and 10% search. He wondered if there was a broader study about web traffic trends.

Well, don’t mind if we do:

Our findings based on aggregate data for 2012 so far for more than 200,000 publishers who reach more than 260 unique monthly visitors each month. It shows that the majority of total blog traffic comes from search. Search accounts for 64% of overall traffic, while social media accounts for 11%. Direct traffic comes in third at 24%, and a combination of other traffic accounts for 1%. This accounts for the top 10 traffic sources.

Although search is still king, we think it’s important to note that social is the number two source and it plays a strong role in search traffic and direct traffic. Google+ shares are taken into account in search results, and building a social media community is how you build a loyal following of regular readers who become that direct traffic. Fred Wilson has more than 200,000 followers on Twitter, but his blog content makes him an interesting guy to follow. These things go hand in hand, which is why creating high quality, interesting, shareable content is the name of the game.

You can learn about your own traffic sources in Google Analytics by looking under Traffic Sources/All Traffic.

Bonus tip: A really good report to check will be your Overview report. See what keywords are sending you traffic in the organic tab. Are they the ones you want to rank for? No? Improve your copy and focus on the terms you want to rank for and check back on your progress next month.

What trends have you noticed in your blog traffic trends? Let us know in the comments!

Want more blog traffic? Get more shares on your content and more readers with Shareaholic share buttons on your posts.

SEO

1. Raven Tools – Raven Tools is a complete set of internet marketing tools that offers keyword and competitor research so you know what to target in your blog posts. You can also manage your social media accounts using Raven Tools. They offer a free 30-day trial (no credit card!) and two pricing plans for $99/month and $249/month.

2. Zemanta – Get suggestions for articles to link to and photos to add. Enhance your article with other people’s content. (Sound smarter!) Or, sign up to have others link to you.

3. Google Analytics – Google offers free analytics to track your visitors and traffic sources to your content.

4. Google Keyword Research Tool- Discover the competition for the keywords you want to rank for, and find new variations of those search terms to include in your blog posts.

5. Google Insights for Search – Compare the popularity of each search term so you can prioritize which ones you will target in your blog posts. For example, here are the results for red ballet flat versus black ballet flat.

6. Feedburner – Increase the traffic to your blog by allowing your readers to subscribe by RSS or by email with Feedburner.

Photos

7. Flickr Creative Commons – Flickr’s Creative Commons provides “free” stock photos.

8. Shutterstock – Shuttershock offers high quality and inexpensive stock photos.

9. Instagram -  Snap and edit photos you take with your iPhone for great images on your blog.

Idea Generation and Productivity

10. Tweetdeck – Follow hashtags and search terms relevant to your space to get ideas for more shareable blog posts. Bookmark blog posts that inspire you. Or, if you find consistent questions pertaining to your business or industry, answer them with your content.

11. Your customers – What do you use for customer support? Assist.ly? Get Satisfaction? Zendesk? If you’re blogging for your business, communicate with your customer support team and learn about the common questions asked over there.

12. Wordtracker Keyword Questions - Enter a keyword into this free tool and it will show you common questions associated with that search term. The common questions are great blog post material. Here is the result for “cupcakes.”

13. Egg Timer – Absolutely have to get a blog post done? Timebox your work and get it done in a definitive amount of time with this tool. Ready? Set? Go!

14. Google Docs – Use a Google spreadsheet to keep track of an editorial calendar. Plan out your content, down to which topics, keywords and CTAs you will cover. The nice thing about Google docs is that they are highly collaborative. You can share them with freelancers and guest bloggers so that everyone is in the loop.

15. Backupify – If you are going to use Google Docs and Gmail to communicate blog post ideas or work on actual content, you want to make sure that you back up your work! For just $3 per user per month, Backupify will back up your Google apps. They also offer social media backup.

All of these tools pair well with your Shareaholic website profiles and share buttons, helping you get the most shares out of the content that you create.

What tools help you create shareable content? Let us know in the comments!

You headline is your first impression. Here are 10 examples of highly shareable headlines.

Why use extensions? For those who aren’t familiar, extensions super-power your browsing experience. Extensions help you share and discover new things without ever having to leave the page you’re checking out. There’s an extension for just about anything. There are extensions that let you check up on the news, manage your to-do list, or even take a screenshot of the page you’re checking out. Shareaholic offers extensions that help you share. Here are three Chrome extensions to try:

1. Facebook Chrome Extension by Shareaholic

With the Shareaholic for Facebook Chrome extension, you can share exclusively to Facebook right from your Chrome browser.

2. Twitter Chrome Extension by Shareaholic

Use the Shareaholic Twitter Chrome extension to send Tweets of your favorite links to your followers.

3. Pinterest Chrome Extension by Shareaholic

Are you pinning yet? Join social media’s latest trend and pin the most interesting photos you find on the internet with the Shareaholic Pinterest Chrome extension.

4. BONUS! Shareaholic for Chrome

Want to be able to share to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and more than 200 other social networks with one icon? The Shareaholic for Chrome extension is just the ticket. You can manage the networks you share by logging into Shareaholic and going to Accounts/Services.

Chrome offers a myriad of settings and tricks worth exploring. In addition to extensions, there’s a “searchable” address bar and fun themes to make your internet surfing a true experience.

What Chrome extension can you not live without? Let us know in the comments!

Want to share to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and more all with one extension? Get Shareaholic for Chrome.

20 Blog Post Ideas

Teach Your Readers

1. Show your readers how to do something with step by step instructions.

2. Point out common mistakes for your industry and compile them in a list of things to avoid.

3. Relate your how-to content to a current event or a celebrity. Example: “What the 2012 Election Teaches Us About ____” or “5 _____ Lessons from Kim Kardashian.”

4. Write an in-depth how-to article and refer to it as the “Beginner’s Guide to ____”.

Use Your Data

5. Let keyword research inspire you. Check out your top referring keywords for traffic in Google Analytics. Enhance your success with a blog post that targets that search term. Also dig in with Google’s free Keyword Research Tool to find new keywords you want to rank for. Use that search term as a starting point for your content.

6. Your products, customers and services generate an amazing amount of data. What trends or findings can you derive from your data? Share it on your blog.

Multi-media and Visuals

7. Use screenshots or photos to illustrate each step of a “how-to” article. You can also use a video or screencast to demonstrate each step. For free screencasts, try Screenr.

8. Share a cartoon or create an original one. This type of visual content is particularly shareable on Google+ or Pinterest.

9. Illustrate tips or common mistakes with slides. Again, visual content is very “shareable.”

Pull From Existing Content

10.  Take a stand. Find an industry-relevant article or study that you agree or disagree with. Introduce your blog post by stating what you agree or disagree with, and support your argument with a few concise points throughout the blog post copy.

11. Create a round-up of links from other resources in your industry. It provides great content to your readers while making a connection with others in your space by linking to their blogs.

12. Share conference, panel or event takeaways. Let your readers who couldn’t be there in person benefit from your takeaways.

Research

13. Do a survey and reveal the findings on your blog. You can use Twtpoll for a Twitter survey, or share a Survey Monkey questionnaire with your audience.

14. Offer examples of how to do things the right way. Do an in-depth case study on one company, or create a round-up of 5 or more companies to use as a positive example.

Be a Thought Leader

15. Leverage the knowledge of others and feature a guest post from someone in your industry.

16. Show off your knowledge and submit a guest post to an industry blog. Create your own PR and enhance your link-building efforts.

17. Do a Q&A with an industry expert. Get experts to offer a tip and do a round-up of their recommendations.

18. Compare and contrast: Different products, different approaches, different companies, different people, different places, etc.

19. De-bunk common myths.

Have Fun!

20. Incorporate the current holiday or season. February includes several fun holidays: Groundhog’s day, Valentine’s Day, Single’s Awareness Day (supposedly the day after Valentine’s Day), President’s Day and (for this year) Leap Day! There’s tons of inspiration from these special occasions.

Time to get writing! Don’t forget to track the impact of your efforts by checking out your social shares on your Shareaholic website profile.

What blog posts do you plan on publishing this month? Let us know in the comments!

Make your blog posts extra shareable with a great headline. Get 10 great blog post headline ideas here.

The report doesn’t show all referral sources – there are hundreds of thousands – but it does shed some light on where some of the most talked about websites stand.

Key Takeaways:

• Pinterest grew from 2.5% of referral traffic in December to 3.6% of the referrals in January. That’s impressive growth from just owning .17% of the traffic back in July.
• Referral traffic from Google+ dropped slightly in January, although Google’s product set (Google news, Google images, Gmail) continues to be a top referral source. Google continues to integrate Google+ into its offering more and more, so it will be an interesting trend to watch.
• Eyeing its IPO this week, Facebook continues to dominate referral traffic, with mobile traffic alone accounting for 4.3% of overall referrals. Referral traffic grew by about 1% in January, making it the second fastest-growing site for referral traffic after Pinterest.
• Although Pinterest did beat out YouTube in referral traffic, YouTube’s referrals grew by .07% in January. It’s got to be the Sh*t Girls Say meme. Definitely.
• It’s important to note StumbleUpon’s position as the number two referral source. It seems like most people don’t talk or think about it nearly as much as top-of-mind Pinterest and Google+, but it continues its stronghold owning 5.07% of referrals in January. Similar bookmarking site Reddit also ranked as a top source of referral traffic, with both Stumbleupon and Reddit significantly beating out Delicious and Digg.
• Lastly, it’s always interesting to check in with the once-powerful MySpace. It continues to linger as a small source of referral traffic with no sign of growth this month.

It’s the end of the month and the perfect time to dig into your analytics and measure the effectiveness of your content efforts so far this year. You may notice new trends in keywords or traffic sources, or get validation on a current content strategy you have to drive traffic. Learn about where your content gets shared the most with your Shareaholic website profile, and find out which of those sources drives referrals under Traffic Sources/Sources/Referrals in Google Analytics. These are great general findings, but it is most important to learn about your audience and your website. Figure out what’s working and what isn’t, and alter your approach accordingly so you make your content even more successful as the year progresses.

Are you seeing referral traffic from Pinterest? Learn how to leverage that audience for content marketing with our free guide.

1. Approach each social media platform individually.

To grow your brand’s reach, you want your target audience to follow you on different social media platforms. But if you offer the same old content (or not content at all!) on every single platform, what’s the point? You’ve got to offer a different value prop for each social network.

Read more: A Peek Under the Hood: How We Manage the SEOmoz Community

2. A content creation schedule must be a part of your overall marketing plan.

To grow an audience that shares your content, you have to create a sense of reliability with consistent content. Planning out daily, monthly and annual content is a great way to re-ignite your commitment to content marketing.

Read more: Creating Consistent Content – A Content Marketing Plan

3. Use Pinterest for content marketing.

The visual nature of Pinterest lends itself to the fashion brand’s content strategy. Their Pinterest content strategy means curating content from other fashion sites and mixing it in with features of their own products.

Read more: Thematic Curation: A Look at Kate Spade’s Content Strategy

4. Optimize your blog posts with a call to action.

If you optimize your blog posts for SEO, your post could be the first touchpoint for a potential customer searching on that keyword. Take a tip from Birchbox – keep that person involved in your content with a call-to-action to read a related blog post or check out a product relevant to your content.

Read more: 7 Startups Who Do Blogging Right

5. Make sure your blog posts are “anatomically correct.”

Remember each area of your blog post that can be improved from an SEO perspective – your in-text links, page titles and more.

Read more: 26 Tips for Writing Great Blog Posts

6. Hey students: Blog even if you haven’t graduated yet.

Blogging is a great way to demonstrate your interest in a topic, establish your online presence and collect your portfolio of accomplishments in one place online.

Read more: 8 Reasons Why Students Should Blog

7. Before you hit publish, think to yourself: Would I share this blog post?

Give your readers something to react to! Take a stand, share your findings or share your opinion. Give them a reason to share.

Read more: 6 Ways to Make Your Content More Shareable

8. Improve the click-through rate on your social shares with a great meta description.

Make your meta description a keyword-rich portrayal of what your blog post offers. When it’s shared on Facebook or turns up in Google results, these few sentences show up to potential readers. Make it count.

Read more: Meta Description Magic: Think Less about SEO & More about Click-Throughs

9. Get readers to spend more time on your site by inter-linking to old blog posts.

Keep your audience engaged with your content by linking keywords to your previous content on a subject or keyword.

Read more: 7 Simple Ways to Get Your Readers to Spend More Time on Your Blog

10. Drive more blog traffic by targeting topics your readers want to share.

Measure what blog posts get the most shares to uncover what attracts your most engaged readers. You can do this for your blog by checking out your website profile with Shareaholic. Here’s an example for popular cooking blog Smitten Kitchen.

Apparently people loved the Buckwheat Baby with caramel recipe. And can you blame them?

Read more: 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic

What were some of your favorite lessons from the blog posts you read this week? Let us know in the comments.

Want to get a free roundup of posts like these delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for Shareaholic to get our community newsletter.

For more blogging tips and musings, follow Shareaholic on Pinterest!

In the world of blogging, a lot of recent attention has been paid to Google + and Search Plus – Google’s effort to integrate Google + into search results. But with all the hoopla over Google +, content marketers can’t forget about Pinterest, a new kid in town that’s driving traffic and taking names. In fact, Experian’s Hitwise report  just listed Pinterest as the #7 social network, beating out Google+ for share of visits.

Pinterest is a site where you can organize and share images that you find interesting. Images shared on Pinterest are known as pins. Users arrange their pins on boards, customized collections of the pins that often have themes. From wedding inspiration ideas to favorite recipes, you can create a board to collect ideas and images for just about anything.

Pinterest is still invite-only, but if you know any Pinners (chances are you do!) you can snag an invite from them.

You can now add Pinterest as a sharing option on your Shareaholic social media toolset. If you’re a WordPress user, you’ll want to edit your settings on the Shareaholic Bookmarks plugin in your WordPress dashboard. We also recently launched Shareaholic’s Pinterest Extension for Chrome. This means that with a simple Chrome extension, you can collect your favorite findings into a Pinterest Board. If you’re not a Chrome user, you can login to your Shareaholic account and add Pinterest as a service for your current Shareaholic plugin.

The Basics of “Pinning”

To get started with Pinterest, created an account on Pinterest.com. Next, add Shareaholic’s Pinterest Extension for Chrome or add it as a service to your Shareaholic browser plugin. Next time to see a photo you love, click on your Pinterest icon in your browser.

Next, select the image you want to Pin, create a new board, and pin the image to your board.

Continue collecting your favorite images to your board until your digital collage is complete. You can use photos you find from individual websites. Or, you can follow other users with similar interests and “re-pin” the images they post. Doing the later is a great way to create relationships with your blog’s target audience.

How to Use Pinterest for Content Marketing

Like just about any social network, your involvement will come off as much more genuine if you participate first. It may seem like fluffy advice to promote others before you promote yourself. However, few brands have such strong positioning that they will generate a following just by showing up to a new social network. Participating first is how you establish your presence. 

So, if you run a recipe blog, participate by pinning photos of delicious meals shared by others. If your blog is about interior design, show off your taste and curate photos of great design by collecting those shared by others first. Admittedly, because of the visual nature of Pinterest, it naturally lends itself to lifestyle blogs. However, B2B companies or business-oriented personal blogs can drive traffic to their content if their willing to get creative.

• Curate infographics relevant to your industry.
• Collect charts to share statistics for your industry.
• Create more visual content for your followers to share: Don’t list your tips – put them on a visually-appealing slide with a short phrase.
• Include a photo with each blog post – give your readers something to pin.

Surely you want to optimize your blog for sharing and cater to all readers by offering their favorite social networks in your social media buttons. But if you try to be everything to everybody, you could clutter your site with too many choices.

How to Select the Right Social Networks

There are two ways you can be sure to select the social networks that matter most to your site. First, you can check out where your readers are already sharing your content the most with Shareaholic’s website profiles.

This breakdown for the NY Times shows that Facebook is the most popular site to share to.

Next, in your Google Analytics, check out which sites send you the most referral traffic and generate pageviews. Click on the Traffic Sources drop down menu to see a list of your referral sites.

Takeaway? Nevermind the endless infographics and reports that tell you what the most popular social networks. You know your readers. Include the buttons that are right for them.

The Social Network Breakdown

Facebook - With more than 800 million users, Facebook is by far the most widely-used social network. The Facebook “like” button shows your readers who else from their network recommended the article and enables them to post it to their Facebook profile. The Facebook “send” button helps readers send the article directly to a Facebook friend, several friends, or a Facebook group. If you’re going to choose either one, the Facebook “like” button is probably the one to get.

Twitter - Twitter is another highly popular site, processing more than 230 million Tweets a day! This button is a must-have, as the nature of how users get value out of Twitter lends itself to content sharing. Including this button on your blog, in combination with participating in the conversation yourself, will surely drive traffic to your posts.

LinkedIn - Professional social network LinkedIn has more than 100 million users. It features a Facebook-like newsfeed on the main page that shows the content users share. The most-shared content is curated on LinkedIn Today. If you run a B2B blog, the LinkedIn button is one you want to be sure to include.

Google+ - Google+ is a new kid on the block, but now that Google integrates Google+ shares into search results, it’s a must-have component of your social media button set.

Social Bookmarking - There are literally hundreds of sites that aggregate links for your potential readers to discover. Reddit, Stumbleupon, Digg and Delicious are among the most popular, with Reddit showing impressive growth and Stumbleupon sending more than 700 million pageviews to other sites in December 2011. Again, dig into your own analytics to find out the best site for your readers. That said, also pay attention to the mainstream trends of reading and sharing.

Pinterest – This photo story-boarding social network is yet another new kid on the block.

You may notice that you’re already getting traffic from Pinterest, especially if you run a photo-heavy lifestyle blog. Pinterest users collect photos (by “pinning” them) into online collages (called “boards.”) It is particularly popular among readers who consume lifestyle content. Think weddings, recipes, interior design, fashion, makeup etc. The Pinterest button is coming soon to Shareaholic’s button set, but in the meantime your readers can share photos from your site with our Pinterest Chrome plugin.

Think of your social media buttons as calls-to-action – if you offer too many choices, you may confuse your readers and they may not choose anything at all. Choose your buttons wisely. Like any feature on your blog, pay attention to trends, but include the ones that are the best fit for your audience.

How did you choose the buttons to put on your blog? Let us know in the comments!

Want social media buttons so your readers can share your content? Get Shareaholic for your blog!

We may be biased, so we certainly agree that social sharing buttons are key. Recommending related posts at the bottom of your post and including a comments plugin like Livefyre are also quite important. One tip I’d add is to include a call to action to subscribe to your posts, either by email or RSS. However, the infographic creator may have left that out as you can include that in your sidebar and not below each post.

Top 3 Blogging Tips

These were my favorite blogging tips and takeaways from the infographic.

1. Blog post title: It should be creative and include your main keyword or phrase

The blog post headline is one of the most important parts of your post. It’s what potential readers see as a preview to your content when it’s shared on social media, and it plays a huge part in their decision of whether to click that link or not. So make it count.

2. Body copy and opening paragraph: State your purpose and objectives. Include keywords and variations of those phrases.

There’s so much content for your readers to consume these days. If you want them to share your content, you’ve got to have a hook to keep their attention so they read your piece and pass it along – versus quickly closing the page and moving on to the next intriguing link in their newsfeeds. Stating your purpose is a great way to hook them because it’s setting the value proposition right in the beginning. Answer these questions: What will your readers learn from your post? Why are you talking about the trend, research, or tools that you are talking about?

3. Include a list.

Breaking up your content into a list format makes it easy for your audience to digest. It shows off the teachings of your post in a simpler way than long paragraphs. Bold text, headings, H2 text and bullet points also serve this purpose. Give it a try.

What blogging tips did you glean from the infographic? Let us know in the comments!

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