What should you write about on your blog?

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It’s not enough to just create content every week. There are over 30 million bloggers in the US alone and WordPress powers over 75 million websites. Nobody really knows how many blogs are out there but one thing is clear: you have millions of websites to compete with and thousands of direct competitors in your niche.

If you want to take blogging seriously and actually use it to get customers, it’s important to be clear on what you’re blogging about.

Create a high-quality blog that readers will adore

The blogosphere is massively oversaturated with the same old regurgitated content. How to’s, top tips and beginners guides can be found for every topic under the sun. These kinds of pieces aren’t enough if you want to really stand out.

Here’s what you need to do to create quality content.

Three Main Elements of Quality Content

There are no fixed rules for creating great blog content, but ideally, each post should be unique, valuable and written on-time.

1. Make your content unique

This is probably the biggest challenge for any blog writer. There is so much content out there that it can be hard to think of something truly unique, even if you work in the most obscure niches.

It’s probably not too late, though. By doing thorough competitive research, you can see what your top competitors are writing about and what topics to avoid. Who knows, it may even give you ideas of your own. There’s nothing wrong with tackling the same topic from a different angle or offering more depth where people have only covered something lightly.

2. Make your content valuable

One major rule of blog writing is to always keep your audience in mind and write specifically for your reader. Too often, bloggers can get caught up trying to write for Google and forget to create valuable content that readers can actually use.

Let’s look at a pretty niche situation. Say you’re a makeup artist with an audience who includes women who want to learn how to do their own makeup. You could offer tips on choosing the right makeup for their skin tone, how to apply different types of makeup properly and write reviews on the latest products. If you are a makeup artist who specializes in special effects, however, you might have a different audience. Your readers wouldn’t be interested in general tips, they’d want things specific to special effects.

Creating high-value content is the single best way to have readers coming back week in week out and to earn backlinks.

3. Up-to-date

It’s important to create a blogging schedule and stick to it. How often you blog may depend on the kind of site you have — news sites need to be updated more frequently than normal blogs — but typically once a week should suffice.

The key is to develop a content calendar, get a few weeks ahead of schedule and then to keep writing a new post every single week.

Soon you’ll have a blog readers love.

Everything you need to know about Social SEO?

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Social media marketing is a pretty common digital marketing term. It’s a great way to use social media to increase the size of your audience, engage with customers and build your brand.

Reports suggest that the vast majority of SMBs have used social media as part of their marketing strategy. If you’ve used Facebook or Twitter to try and win more buisiness, you’ve also engaged in social media marketing. It’s probably worked, too.

But what is Social SEO?

Social SEO is the combination of social media marketing with search engine optiization strategies. The idea is to use social media to influence how you rank in Google and other search engines. It’s far from that simple, however.

It’s not just about using social media to support or supplement your SEO efforts, it’s about using social media as a tool to improve your rankings, just like you use backlinks or on-page optimization.

What’s wrong with normal SEO?

Nothing is wrong with normal SEO and you can absolutely improve your rankings by using traditional tactics. There’s also nothing wrong with using normal social media marketing tactics on their own, of course they won’t help you rank.

So what’s the point then?

What are the Benefits of Social SEO?

Combining traditional SEO with social media has the potential to supercharge your ranking efforts and help you get to the top of Google faster.

This is achieved through social backlinks.

Every time you share content on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, and link back to your website, you are essentially creating backlinks. These links don’t necessarily have SEO value, but the social interaction that happens with them does.

Social signals such as likes and shares are used by search engines to guage your site’s reputation and credibility, understand if you are still an active business and identify the kind of keywords you should be ranking for.

Here are some quick tips on using social media to improve your ranking:

  • Create great content that your readers love and want to share
  • Make it as easy as possible for readers to share your content
  • Create accounts on every social media platform
  • Keep sharing content on social media

Another benefit of focusing on social SEO is that it can increase how well your social media accounts rank online, as well as your website. This can be another big boost for your brand’s reach.

With social SEO you can have all of your accounts rank when someone searches your name, meaning you essentially own the top of the search results. But that can only happen if you invest in social media and social SEO.

Even if you can’t own the search results, having a big presence on each of the social platforms can significantly increase your visibility and increase the likelihood that people find your business.

Optimizing to Avoid a Penalty

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Google has a huge amount of power over the success of your business online If it decides that it doesn’t like you, it can literally end your business.

Do SEO correctly and Google shouldn’t have a problem with your business. Do it wrong, however, and Google could slap your website with a penalty that sees it drop out of the rankings completely.


Today, we’ll look at the optimization techniques you shouldn’t be using if you don’t want a penalty.

The Main Optimization Mistakes to Avoid

1. Poor content

Content is one of the biggest factors in whether a website ranks well or not. Google is constantly updating and changing its ranking algorithm in order to promote the websites with the best content and demote the websites with poor content. That means if you have poor or thin content on your website, you risk getting punished. All of your content should be completely unique, highly detailed and not over-optimized. By that, we mean no keyword stuffing or any other unethical techniques.

2. Having way too many ads above the fold

One way that websites make money is through online ads. Sites want to encourage you to click ads where possible, which means some websites spam ads at the very top of the page so they are as noticeable as possible. Having too many ads at the very top of your page will create a poor user experience. You’ll have a high bounce rate as people will quickly leave your website and Google will punish you in the rankings as a result.

3. Hidden texts or links

This is an old school blackhat SEO technique that involves hiding keywords and other pieces of content on the page that were heavily optimized. The idea was that these wouldn’t be seen by the reader but they’d be picked up by Google’s crawler. Google is a lot smarter now and this tactic doesn’t fly at all. Hide text and you’ll get penalized.

4. Cloaking

Cloaking is another old-school SEO practice that will get you hit with a big penalty today. This is where you create two different versions of your website, one that Google sees and one that The public see. This is a way to hide your real website from Google, particularly if you are paying for PPC ads. If you cloak expect to receive a penalty.

5. Spam comments for backlinks

Comments on the bottom of blogs used to be seen as an easy way to get backlinks for your website. Unfortunately, this led to thousands of SEOs spamming the comments section of tens of thousands of websites in order to get their hands on those juicy backlinks. Many SEOs still leave unrelated comments on websites in order to get a backlink to their website but Google is now much harsher on this technique. Not only will it not help you rank, it can also get you penalized, too.

What Are Local Data Aggregators?

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85 percent of small business owners know the value of visibility on search engines, directory listings, and mobile apps. In fact, 78 percent of these businesses believed it would help them attract new customers. These were according to a 2013 poll conducted by ConstantContact.

At first glance, these numbers seem promising. Unfortunately, a good understanding of local SEO doesn’t always translate to proper implementation, let alone a successful campaign.

Nearly half of those surveyed by ConstantContact knew their directory listings were inaccurate. And yet they didn’t even update them. In 2014, Placeable published a report that shows how inaccurate listings affected customers. They found that majority of them (73%) lost trust in a brand or business due to incorrect details.

It’s a common problem for many small business owners – something which local data aggregators can help you with.

What is a local data aggregator?

A local data aggregator is a company that specializes in gathering business and consumer data. In the United States, there are only four of them:

  • Acxiom (free)
  • Factual (free)
  • Infogroup (free)
  • Localeze (paid)

What does a local data aggregator do?

Local data aggregators are responsible for gathering business data and making sure they are “clean” or accurate. These companies collect individual business information otherwise known as NAP, which include…

  • Names
  • Addresses
  • Phone Number

Local data aggregators distribute business information to marketers, publishers, and most importantly, location-based service providers – such as search engines, review sites, and social media platforms, just to name a few. NAP is extremely important for businesses that want to rank in local organic search results. It makes businesses easier to find for customers both online and offline.

The role of local data aggregators in local SEO

Search engines, local directory listings, and mobile apps source business information from local data aggregators. This explains why they are sometimes referred to as local search data providers.

As a local business, you have two options. You can either get high-quality citations by working with local data aggregators such as those mentioned above. Or, you can employ the services of a third-party citation building service.

What is a citation building service?

Most data aggregators in the U.S. are free and you can always work with them directly. Citation building services have to be paid for, although there are advantages to it.

Benefits of a citation building service

  • Single access to local data aggregators. You no longer have to get in touch with each of them individually. You just have to provide your business information once to the citation building service and they’ll take care of the rest. This includes validating, reformatting, and distributing your business information according to standards.
  • Guarantees the distribution of accurate business information. The problem with local data aggregators is they retrieve business information from various sources. While they try to be accurate, that usually isn’t the case. This is why businesses often find discrepancies online. A citation building service can help correct these inconsistencies.
  • They can provide added insight into your business. Besides the usual NAP data, a citation building service can provide local data aggregators with more business information, including:

    • Business description and tagline
    • Website address
    • Images
    • Operating hours
    • Accepted payment
    • Social media links

Not only will this help you stand out; they too can help bring traffic to your website and social media.

What You Need to Know About Google’s March Update

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On March 12, Google released a broad algorithm update, officially called the Google March 2019 Core Update. It has also been referred to as the Florida 2 Update by the SEO community.

Google was initially silent about the update, but SEO experts were quick to notice huge fluctuations in website rankings across a number of different countries. On March 13, Google confirmed everyone’s suspicions but they didn’t say much else.


Here’s a recap of what we know so far.

This update affects the world

Based on reports from search pages in different pages and in different languages, it seems that the March Update has had a global impact on rankings. Sites have reported drops in rankings for over half of all targeted keywords. Of course, some websites were impacted more than others.

Google has not confirmed that the March 2019 Core update is indeed a global update.

Keywords with commercial intent changed the most

The biggest drops in rankings were seen mostly in commercial keywords that had a high intent to purchase and high search volumes. This includes phrases like buy home insurance or 10% discount.

Sites with low E-A-T were hit hardest by Google’s March Core Update

E-A-T stands for Expertise-Authority-Trustworthiness and these are three of the major factors that Google considers when ranking websites. The latest March 2019 Core Update was pretty harsh on websites with low E-A-T, which suggests Google could have updated the way they treat backlinks in the algorithm.

If you were hit by the August 2018 Update, you were probably Impacted by this too

Reports are suggesting that websites hit by the Google Medic Update in August 2018 were also impacted by the March 2019 Core Update. A lot of the websites affected by both updates are Your Money or Your Life websites, that typically focus on the health, wealth and financial sectors.

There are a lot of spam websites in this sector, which makes sense why so many websites with low E-A-T were impacted. It looks like websites that were hard hit in the August update are showing gains while websites that survived August unscathed are now getting penalized. This suggests that Google attempted to level out the playing field after it’s latest update.

There’s no way to “fix it”

Unlike previous updates where websites could remove spammy rankings or thin content, Google has announced that there is no way to fix websites in order to reclaim lost rankings. Instead, Google recommends that people “remain focused on building great content”.

Google has reiterated that the March 2019 Update is far from the biggest they have done. But that, of course, depends on whether you got affected or not.

What impact does page speed have on SEO?

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It’s been a few years since Google first announced what kind of impact that page speed has on SEO. Even more recently, Google rolled out a Speed Update, a new algorithm update which takes into account mobile page speeds when ranking mobile sites.

The majority of web traffic now comes from smartphones. That means the way people access digital content and their expectations when it comes to page load time has changed considerably. That’s why it’s so important to understand what impact page speed has on SEO.

What is Page Speed?

Page speed is how long it takes a page to load content. You don’t have to count. There are plenty of online tools that calculate it for you. There are different ways to measure it, however.

These are the three most common.

  • Full-page loading this is the time it takes to fully load the page with all content, including images.
  • First meaningful or contextual paint is the time it take to load enough resources on the page for it to become readable.
  • Time to first byte is the time it takes the page to start loading.

Why Page Speed Matters

Google wants to give the best experience possible to its users. The search giant has never released an exact figure, but it is estimated that it receives about 2 trillion queries each day. It also has a 90% market share when it comes to search. That’s why they care so much about how quickly each website loads.

Page speed is probably the most important factor when it comes to site performance. Even if a website is trash, it is important that it loads quickly so users can see it isn’t what they are searching for. Google simply doesn’t want to serve users websites that load slowly when there are plenty of relevant websites that load quickly.

5 Tips for Boosting Page Speed

If your page isn’t loading as fast as it might, here are five ways you can improve speed.

1. Minify code

Where possible, you should minify your code to make it as small as possible. This is something Google explicitly recommends.

2. Use file compression

You can also compress your CSS, HTML, or JavaScript files to reduce their size. This is another way to give your page a much-needed boost.

3. Optimize your images

Images can have a big impact on how quickly your website loads. Large images in particular can really slow down your website. That’s why it’s important to use the right format of image (JPG for photos and PNG for graphics) and to compress those images as much as possible without reducing quality.

4. Make the most of PageSpeed Insights

This is a free tool from Google that calculates page load speeds and provides a report. You can use this report to work out what is slowing your page down and how to make it faster.

5. Set up AMPs

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. This is another tool by Google that lets you create mobile-specific pages that load very, very fast.

This is why your competitors rank higher

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Beating your competitors to the top spot on Google can be the best feeling ever for business owners. Conversely, getting beaten to it, especially when you invest in SEO, can be extremely deflating.

But why exactly are your competitors beating you?

6 Reasons Why Your Competitors Are Doing Better – and How to Beat Them

Reason #1 – Their website is better than yours

A properly optimized website is one of the key factors when it comes to SEO. But you can only do so much with a bad website. That means your competitor can have a better website that is less optimized and still beat you.

How to beat them: Improve the design, structure and usability of your website. Make the code as small and streamlined as possible so that it loads as quickly as possible.

Reason #2 – They’re mobile optimized

The majority of online traffic came from smartphones last year. Google has also introduced a mobile-first index which gives preference to mobile-responsive websites. All that’s to say that your website needs to be mobile-friendly. If it isn’t, you’re going to have a hard time ranking, especially on smartphone searches.

How to beat them: Make your website mobile friendly or build a new mobile-only website to give your customers (and Google) the best user experience possible.

Reason #3 – Customers love them and their site

If you provide a service or have a physical location, it is essential to establish a great online reputation. That means garnering great reviews on sites like Google and Yelp. More and more search engines are using these reviews to fuel online search results, especially ones with a local focus.

How to beat them: Work hard to provide a service that customers love. But don’t forget to encourage them to share their experiences through online reviews.

Reason #4 – They’ve got great links

Perhaps the most obvious reason why your competitors are ranking better than you is because they’ve got great backlinks and you haven’t.

How to beat them: Don’t try and cheat Google by buying links or building spammy blog comment links. Instead, create great content and promote it to industry influencers. Try guest blogging, too, and other well-known link building tactics.

Reason #5 – They’ve got loads of citations.

Creating lots of online citations for your website and business will give Google the impression that you are a genuine business and give them the confidence to rank you. The more instances of your name, address, and phone number you can get, the better.

How to beat them: Add your website to business listings and review websites such as Yelp, and local directories.

Reason # 6 – They’ve been at it longer than you

If your competitors have older websites, that could be the only reason they are ranking above you. Google gives more weight to older websites and they’ll have had more chane to get links.

How to beat them: Do some competitor research and use their weaknesses to your advantage. If you can’t beat them for one keyword, try targeting more.

9 Bad Links That Can Get You in Trouble

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Everybody knows that the backbone of SEO are the links that has contents in it and it still continue to be vital as it is an important factor for good ranking.

Web Stats on a Tablet

So, if you get bad links then your site will be downgraded by Google and the worst of it is a manual action. If you are interested to know the different kinds of bad links and the action you can do, read below:

Links From Press Release

  • It used to be useful a decade ago just because it is easy to write and syndicate it and release to a lot of distribution sites. The result are hundreds of links, but then, it was so abused that it is now consider a link scheme because it is too easy to operate.
  • Now, if you want a website link because you have no choice, then use the naked URLS if not the branded URLS as anchor text. Don’t forget to employ one link only that comes from the contact domain of the press release. That should keep you safe.

Forum links

  • Of course not all forum links are bad especially if it comes from a user that has good reputation then the link is not spammy. So, it is safe if you want to keep it.
  • Be wary then there are too many links coming from everywhere, it could be low-quality links and if it keeps on coming, disavow them. Remember, Google is watching you.

Foreign Guestbooks Links

  • Links like this could be scheming because it can be placed humanly if not with the help of a program. This may cause low rankings so disavow them.

NoFollow Links

  • Do not try to fool Google. Even if you use automated program, you will be caught by Google unless of course, if it is really random. You might wonder why. It is simple, nofollowing the link in itself is a footprint. If links coming from different sites are nofollowed, then Google might say it is spam.

NoFollow Social Bookmark Links

  • Google considers this to be as crafty too and doing this often will give you trouble. This is humanly done as well so it is considered spammy and Google calls this a link scheme as well.

Directory Listings

  •  This promises that you will have good Google rankings. But believing these low type directories will hurt your ranking. Of course there is exception to the rule. Just make sure you use natural links particularly the local SEO.

Blog Comments

  •  By history, blog comments were top on the list when it comes to being so abused, and the bad part is that, it does not work at all.
  • But you can handle blog comments by doing current pertinent comments on equally current pertinent sites.

 Links from Cheap Link Services

  • This is another delinquent SEO tactic and what is terrible is that its footprints and patterns are recognizable by Google’s algorithms. Be careful because you will never sure of the identities of the people in these forums.
SOURCE: (1)

4 Tips in Introducing SEO to New Customers

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Having new customers is your chance to adequately cultivate them, comprehend their business, and of course motivate them to appreciate your team. There are also privileges that can come from your distinctive approach to SEO.

2 people shaking hands

Good customer services do help in innumerable situations, and you should have definite actions you can do to make sure that your new customers stay happy from the start. You need to modify and perfect your marketing delivery to befit your company’s customs and nuances. But there is something else you can do soon as they step in.

Be excited like they are.

  • This is such a thrilling time for them. Why? Well, because of the following reasons:
    • This could be your customer’s first SEO experience.
    • They see this as having something different and exciting to look forward to.
    • Typically, they are enthusiastic about the prospects that will come their way.
  • An established SEO delivery team may see new business as just one more project and this needs a quick recognition and repair. Why not, when a new customer can provide knowledge if not add to the knowledge in a new industry, know other people, and likewise create a crucial skill sets and master SEO experience.
  • Despite the tons of work, day, time, personal situation, emotions, everybody should show their excitement in working on the campaign. A lack of it may affect an on boarding new business.

Include the customer.

  • Most of the time, we include our new customers when it comes to our output but really, we should make them a part of the collective approach to delivery, and the more you work with them the more effortless it is to easily discuss any changes.
  • Take away the obstacles in execution of items, and it does strengthen whatever it was that brought about buying. Aside from that, you will not discover how fun and innovative you could be if you don’t try, right?

Build and improve the on boarding procedure.

  • When a new SEO customer comes, a great way to start is to make everything clear.
    • Pre-selling details should be given.
    • Assigning of people to a specific task.
    • The key communication is a necessity.
    • The vital onboarding time.
    • The center delivery breakthrough.
  • Of course, everybody including the customer are all excited to do things right away. Cool down a bit; you should first look at the bigger scenario here. Despite the excitement, everything has to be considered and organized.
  • When you station technical SEO restoration and fixes, it creates a time for you to step back and really look into your customer’s necessities, desires, pain points, and goals.

Facing the customers’  needs.

  • The customer should always be taken cared of. There are things to do to ensure this such as:
    • Answering emails.
    • Making sure there is a regular communication.
    • Straightforward direction on the characteristic and kind of communication that is needed that can help in this scenario.
  • Distinction of an organization that is customer-centric are:
    • Usage of facts to establish, enhance, and more support to customers.
    • To continuously include the customers.
    • Heighten customer’s presence.
    • Putting the customer in the center of marketing and delivery focus.
    • Acknowledgement and processing of the experience of your customer.
    • Hone listening to customers.

Great Tools That Will Assist You to Write a Better Content (Part 2)

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You see, it is both skill and perseverance that will give you the right footing. But this is not everything. You still need to be well-equipped. This means you should know the tools of your trade. It can be very tricky, but when you find the right tools, you are good to go and produce phenomenal contents.

Group Of People Having A Meeting

Let us go over some that has proven its effectiveness. These will give you the different extent in all areas like research, collaboration, SEO, and analytics.

Research

  • Portent’s Content Idea Generator is capable of giving ideas in seconds. Perhaps others would find it less practical, but it’s free so it’s worth looking into.
  • Quora is a Q & A website that can identify what the public are asking. There’s a search feature and a bunch of pop ups that will give suggestions. You can use Quora to advertise your products and services by making it the best solution. Surely, it will reach countless of people.
  • Reddit, like Quora, is full of content ideas because of its millions of users. It is primarily a discussion website that has a distinct subcategory or subtopics. You can use Reddit to ask for evaluation and perception that will guide you on what to improve more.

Collaboration

  • ProofHub is a tool for collaborating with people. Its features are mainly for content development. It enables teams to do checklists, set deadlines, allow discussions, share files, and a lot more. Another very practical feature is the “Calendar” and this is used to see the progress of tasks being done by the different people.
  • Dropbox Paper is another tool to assist your team in terms of file collaboration. It enables you to add files, write new ones, and anything that a word processor can do. A great thing about Dropbox Paper is that you can ask team members to comment, edit, or even assign the document to others. It is after all a rangy and direct version of Google Docs. They are both useful tools; it is really just a matter of preference.

SEO (or Search Engine Optimization)

Now, everyone knows that there is more to writing than just words. You have to know the right way of using subheadings, keyword optimization, etc. It is important to know the tools that you need in content optimization in a heartbeat:

  • Yoast SEO is a tool to rate the readability and gauge the SEO-friendliness of what you have written. It tells you about the distinct issues you need to be aware of. For sure, you would know WordPress and if you are using it, then it is easy to add Yoast. You can use Yoast to add a keyword for your blog post. It will give you a checklist of things to do in order to enhance your content.

Analytics

  • Google Analytics is a top FREE analytics tool brought to you by Google. It can assist you in providing better content. This tool will measure vital engagement metrics like average time duration of a user, page views of particle post, and more. It can also show you the content that your existing audience likes.