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Why blogging is your business’ secret weapon by @CasiYost

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by Casi Yost | Featured Contributor

Blogging seems to have become a dirty word with business owners. That and SEO are scary things to most people. I firmly believe they are critical to growing your business and give you an edge considering your competitors don’t want to do them either.

I have a few reasons why you need to be blogging yesterday and what it actually does for your business:

  • Grows your Know / Like / Trust value with customers and peers
  • SEO: Casts a larger net to capture more keywords
  • Become an authority to help others
  • Repurpose content to use on other social media platforms
  • Helps you answer customers frequently asked questions

 

Know/Like/Trust:

 

Your customers want to know who the person is behind the website and brand. They can’t unless you’re constantly engaging them, showing them your expertise and providing new content. The way that I like to do this is create blog posts for other photographers on the gear I use, how I manage my workflow and other tips I can give to help them with their business. For couples, I have discussed how to elope in Oregon, the details of planning the timeline for your wedding, etc. These blog posts allow them to see that I care and that I know what I’m doing.

 

SEO:

 

When your customers type something into a search bar, you want to be able to rank for all of those keywords, right? Well blog post titles are exactly what should pop up on those searches. So when you make your blog posts, they should be targeted to answer questions that they might pose. All the questions. Take time to research what they are searching for, and answer those questions in posts. It will cast a huge keyword net and capture more people that way.

 

Become an Authority:

 

When you blog, you allow people to see you are an expert in your field. Your peers as well as customers will come to you for answers and as a result, you increase your brand loyalty. We all want that right? Well you have to give your customers, peers and everyone else reasons why they should trust you. Being consistent and giving good content is the way to do that.

 

Repurpose Content:

 

Ever feel like you are fighting an uphill battle when it comes to creating good content for all the platforms? Well when you create a blog post, you can use that in your emails, direct people to your website by linking it on facebook, etc. Pinterest is huge and having your blog posts constantly looping in Pinterest is a great way to repurpose content, especially what I call “evergreen” content. Evergreen content is content that can be useful no matter how old it is. Things like “what photography gear I use for weddings” is an example because this probably won’t change from year to year, and it’s helpful for new photographers. Repurposing content and recycling won’t make your viewers and clients get annoyed, because most likely they may not see the post, they might have forgotten, or you have a large number of new customers that haven’t seen it.

 

Helps to FAQ’s from customers and peers:

 

I get about six or seven DM’s a day from other photographers asking about my gear, or what I have done to grow my business, and this is great! However, my answers never change. If they do, I update my blog post. I want to give the same consistent, and well thought answer to everyone. So what I can do is direct them to that blog post and they can re-read it as much as they want. Plus it has pretty pictures and links to other resources, but that’s beside the point. Why is this critical? It saves you time and allows you to maintain a great relationship by giving them a good answer.

How to get people to read your post?  Use social media! As soon as I make a new blog post, I:

 

  • Put a link to my post on my personal and business Facebook page
  • Put a link on LinkedIn. It’s algorithm is super user friendly and similar to what Facebook and Instagram were like five years ago
  • Talk about it in your Instagram stories while you’re at it
  • Put the link in your bio on your Instagram page
  • Send the new blog post out to your email list
  • Share the post with people you think would be interested

 

So save yourself time, invest in blogging because it will do more for your business than you realize. If you don’t feel like you’re a great writer, have someone proofread. As long as what you are delivering is good content and not fluff, you will see how it helps you and your customers.

 

Let me know what you think! Share this and message me with questions on all my social media accounts!

 

XO,

Casi

Why investing in SEO is worth it by @CasiYost

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by Casi Yost | Featured Contributor

Let me start by saying SEO is not as scary as you think. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is only ambiguous because there isn’t an exact formula or clear cut answer as to how to do it. Why? Because SEO is essentially about making your website easier to find on google searches, but doing it with the client or customer in mind. 

Why is it worth it? Well, when you want to find a new Thai restaurant, or reviews for a product, or even how to make something, where do you typically go? To the internet. So do your customers and clients! More and more people are searching for local vendors and local businesses. You want your business to pop up in a search, right? I started this summer knowing zero about how to make SEO work for me, and now (six months later) I am ranking on page one for “McMinnville Wedding Photographer.”

So what are the main reasons you would want to take the plunge? What makes it worth it for you?

 

1) Competitive Edge: Many of your competitors aren’t investing time into it because they don’t think they need to, and they don’t want to learn. This is pretty true for my niche, wedding photography. There aren’t many solo photographers spending the time on this, so it makes it super easy for me to get to the top.

 

2) Visibility for your brand: Organic search is probably the number one way that drives traffic websites. This is higher than referral traffic (where social media or other sites refer people to your website). So wouldn’t you want to pop up in a search to make it easier on your customers to find what they’re looking for?

 

3) Customers are looking locally: You know how you type in, “coffee shops near me?” well your customers are doing that too. If you can get your name on google and have your local customers see you in a search, you have a higher chance of converting them to paying customers. The best tip I have for this is to set up your “Google My Business” account. Then ask customers to give you reviews to help build credibility!

 

4) SEO is pretty cheap: Monetarily its cheap, but it takes time to get the hang of it. One of the best ways to get your website to work for you and get noticed in the black hole of the internet is to use SEO as a beacon of light to attract your customers. It costs nearly nothing but your time and I consider it probably the only way to get your website to rank when customers search for your kind of products or services.

 

5) Your business needs to adapt or be left behind: It isn’t a matter of if your business will fall behind without SEO, but when. Customers rely heavily on search engines to find solutions and products. This will only increase, so you should do yourself a solid and get on the train. It isn’t as scary as you think.

 

I personally had the best mentor with this. Catalina Jean over at SEO is Fun walked me through how to apply SEO specifically to my website. There isn’t a one size fits all because everyone has different search terms and issues with optimizing their sites, but she spends time and will analyze your business and what you need to do. Head over to SEOisFun.co to see what she does!

 

You can also go to MOZ.com and they give amazing free education on the topic. They also have the capacity to work with you and your company on SEO. I reference them when I want to learn something new on my own.

 

What are some next steps for you?

  • Make sure you have your website built. If you don’t, you might want to talk with an SEO expert first. It is best to build your website with SEO in mind.
  • Start to invest time into learning about SEO and how to optimize your website so it will show up for your ideal customer.

 

Keep going friends! I know you can do this!

Best,

Casi

3 Easy Ways to Improve Your SEO by @danafiddler

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As an online business owner or blogger, SEO is likely something you’ve heard about. Maybe you’ve tried to implement some simple strategies on your own but maybe, like many others, you’ve just felt confused and out of your element.

SEO, when done properly, is a fairly straightforward process! Today we are going to talk about 3 easy areas you can improve your SEO.

1. Use Longtail Keywords

Keywords are the basis to search engine optimization. A keyword is essentially a word or topic that defines what your content is about. If you are writing about food, your keyword might be “bagels” or “vanilla cake”.

Keywords that are less than two words are classified as short tail keywords. These types of keywords are incredibly hard to rank for because:

  1. Short tail keywords often yield a high volume of searches each months
  2. The websites ranking in the number one place are often big websites (like Wikipedia).

In other words, competition is fierce for the majority of short tail high-volume keywords.

If you want to rank on the first page, you’re going to need to use long tail keywords.

A longtail keyword is more or less a string of short tail keywords that forms a phrase. If we revisit our example on food, we can create a long tail keyword from the word “bagel” by turning it into something like “easy rainbow bagel recipe” or “homemade vanilla cake without eggs”.

The more specific you make your keywords, the easier they will be to rank for on the first page!

When creating your content, try to think of ways you can incorporate long tail keywords in.

2. Create Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is content that will always be relevant and doesn’t have an “expiration” date. If you want your SEO efforts to go further, creating evergreen content is key.

By creating content that is always relevant you are ensuring your website will stay up longer in the search results.

For example, you could write a blog post titled “Best Restaurants in Austin, Texas in 2018” but by the time 2019 rolls around, your content will be outdated!

Evergreen content will not only rank longer in the search results, but benefits of evergreen content include (https://www.internetmarketinginc.com/blog/6-benefits-evergreen-content/):

  • New leads
  • Brings in new clients
  • Creates less work
  • Generates backlinks

3. Keep Your Site Running Fast

Google and other search engines don’t like including slow websites in the search results. A slow website leads to poor user experience, so make sure your website is running quickly! Not to mention, most visitors will leave a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

First, test your website’s current speed with a tool like GTMetrix by adding your site URL and clicking “Analyze”.

You can keep your site running fast by:

  • Using a caching plugin
  • Ensuring your photos are compressed
  • Having your web developer get rid of any excess code that your website doesn’t need

In Conclusion

The first step to understanding SEO is to take time to get familiar with key areas and build up your knowledge.

Focusing on long tail keywords, creating evergreen content and keeping a fast website will help your SEO and help you rank higher within the search results!

80/20: Why Your Content Strategy Shouldn’t Just Target Customers by @DrRKayGreen

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by Dr. R. Kay Green | Featured Contributor

The Pareto Principle states that roughly 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes. It can be applied to many scenarios, but in business, it is often taken to mean that 80 percent of your sales comes from 20 percent of your customers.

However, this concept could easily be applied to a content marketing strategy, as well. Following this principle, it stands to reason that 80 percent of your business will come from just 20 percent of your readers. This means that many of your readers — a majority of them, even — are not there looking to make a purchase from you, and indeed, many may not affect your bottom line at all.

In general, readers do not seek out blogs to make purchasing decisions. They seek them out when they are looking for an answer to a specific question, or some general insight into an industry. While this information may help them to make a purchasing decision, especially when given by a company that sells a product or service, they often do not seek out the blog with this in mind.

So when a blog or social post reads like a straight sales pitch, it comes across as mildly annoying at best, or alienating at worst. For best results, online content such as blogs should be aimed at the general public, rather than specifically at potential customers.

Some may wonder why they should bother tailoring their content to people who are not planning to buy their product. However, just because a reader is not contributing to sales figures does not mean that they are not important to a business, or that they should not be taken into account when crafting content.

For one thing, readers of your content are aware of your business. This means, when they meet someone who is in the market for your product or service, they can help to spread the word. And the more relevant and memorable your content is to this hypothetical reader, the more likely it is that they will remember you in order to recommend you. If your first piece of content alienates them by focusing more on making a sale than meeting their needs, they probably will not pass the word along.

Furthermore, today’s readers can easily become tomorrow’s customers. Even if they are not in the market for your product right now, they may need it years down the line. And if you keep posting content consistently, you stay fresh in their mind.

Finally, if someone is alienated by your content because it is too sales-oriented, they will likely click away from your site quickly. This will affect your overall dwell time and bounce rates, which will affect your SEO rankings. By making content that appeals to everyone, you keep people on your page longer, which will improve your search engine ranking.

It may be slightly discouraging to think that only 20 percent of your readers will be customers, at least at first. It may even make you wonder what the point of a blog is at all, if the number is so low. But remember, blogs are accessible by anyone in the world — a far larger number than you could ever hope to sell to. And the larger your readership is, the larger that 20 percent will be.

If you focus on making your content accessible and enjoyable to everyone, that 20 percent will be even larger than 100 percent of the people who would find your original, more sales-oriented content.

———————————————————————-

Dr. R. Kay Green – Marketing Expert from RKG Marketing Solutions Inc. from Atlanta, GA.

Dr. KayDr. R. Kay Green is the CEO/President of RKG Marketing Solutions Inc. With over 190,000+ Twitter followers, 35,000+ Facebook Likes, and the Top 1% LinkedIn profile designation, Dr. Kay, a self-motivated trailblazer, is the Quintessential “New-Age” Professional Woman, and PhD Marketing Pro. She earned a Doctorate of Business Administration in Marketing, and has completed PhD coursework in Leadership and Organization Change. She also holds a Master of Business Administration in Marketing and Management, a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing, and an Associate of Arts in Marketing Management.

She is affiliated with several prestigious universities and has instructed over 350 courses online. A popular speaker on Marketing and Business topics, Dr. Green is currently featured on Huffington Post, Black Enterprise, Black News, The Network Journal, Business Review USA, Digital Journal, College View, Business New Hampshire Magazine, Bay State Banner, Reader’s Circle, North Dallas Gazette, Harlem News, Top News Today, One News Page, NE Informer, Women in Business PR News, Consumer News Today, Women PR News, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, Chicago Daily Herald, The Miami Herald, and Book News Articles.

Twitter – Facebook – LinkedIn

How To Design Your Own Happy by Renee Pedro of @crashpaddesigns

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by Renee Pedro | Featured Contributor

Are you happy? That shouldn’t be hard to answer, but for some of us of it is. Many of us measure our happiness based on outside factors. where we are getting it wrong. Our distorted views of happiness are influenced by what society says happiness is.

This isn’t new. It’s the story of” Keeping up with the Joneses.” A comic strip created by Arthur R. Momand in 1916. It was about the McGinis family and their struggle to keep up with their neighbors the Joneses. Today the Joneses are not only the people across the street. They are your friends and the friends of your friends in your social media news feed. Why are we wasting our lives comparing ourselves to other people? I know women are especially guilty of this. We compare ourselves to other women all the time. How are you ever going to keep up with those countless images of “Perfection” in your Instagram feed? Why do you want to?

When you scroll by a picture of a friend in her perfect living room, with her perfectly coifed toddlers, do you think, darn why can’t we take a family photo like that? What you don’t know is, on her dining room table are stacks of clean laundry, that she hasn’t put away yet. Or that two minutes before the photo the toddlers were covered in chocolate. She’s not Mrs. Jones, either. Like you, she’s trying to keep up. I’m not saying I want to see everyone’s dirty laundry in my social media feed. I just want more people to be real. I “ll go first. There’s an overflowing laundry basket in my bedroom, there are dishes in the sink, dust bunnies in the dining room, and my desk is a mess. There that feels better. I’ll let you in on a secret, perfection doesn’t exist, despite what Instagram tells you.

A long time ago, I made a decision not to be Mrs. McGinis anymore. I don’t want to keep up with Joneses. When I was comparing myself to other people, I wasn’t appreciating who I am and what I have. This is a self-defeating habit. Once we stop striving for an Instagram worthy life we can have a really happy life. On your own terms. Teddy Roosevelt, said “Comparison is the thief of joy”

Once you realize you don’t have to be better than she is. Nor do you have to be thinner, taller, smarter or richer. You can start being happy. If you are being who you want to be, how can anyone tell you, you’re doing it wrong. The only thing you have to be is your best you. To be comfortable in your own skin means being happy to let people know who you really are. I spent my twenties believing that life was a competition, it’s not. There’s no finish line and there is no finite amount of success, money or happiness. There is enough to go around. When it comes to happiness, one size doesn’t fit all. Your happy isn’t the same as my happy. Happiness is personal, and you have to design YOUR happy.

Have you ever heard anyone say, “She marches to the beat of her own drum”? It’s not usually meant as a compliment. When someone says that, people hear, she’s quirky, she doesn’t quite fit in, she likes to do things her own way. It should be a compliment, because being you, and living life on your own terms is tremendous. If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re building your brand you need to march to the beat of your own drum. You’ll never have great happiness living by someone else’s standards. You didn’t start your business to do the same things the same way they have always been done. Why bother?

The first step should be to figure out what your happiness looks like. With all the challenges of running your own business, you should at least be doing it in a way that makes you happy? Everything about your business should reflect who you are and your personality. A few months ago I reconnected with a friend I hadn’t talk to in over fifteen years. We were very close in our twenties, then she moved back to the west coast and after a few years, we lost contact. She searched for me online and found my business Crash Pad Designs. She emailed me and said, “Pedro,(she’s always called me by my last name) as soon as I saw your website I knew it was you.” I was very happy to hear from my old friend. I was also happy and proud, to hear that my business was a reflection of my personality. What a compliment, I was marching to the beat of my own drum.

Here’s a question. What comes first success or happiness?

Every business owner wants to be successful, but if you’re not happy are you really successful? If you’ve already made the decision to be your own boss, don’t hold back now. Whatever your business, you can, of course, find inspiration from other people. Inspiration is awesome but, imitating someone else is stressful and unfulfilling. Running your own business is hard enough, no need to make it harder. So take that inspiration and do it your way. Then one day someone will find inspiration in you.

The moral of the comic strip was, the McGinnis family could never keep up with the Jones. Even back in 1916, the goal post was always moving. Trying to live a life based on other people’s standards of success and happiness, means you will always be chasing a moving goal post.

I am still active on social media and I still count how many people like my post. But I am not chasing that moving goal post. I have dirty clothes on the floor, dust bunnies, and my favorite jeans are getting tight, but I’m really happy.

So what does your happy look like?

The Blog Features You Need to Have To Increase Traffic by @dailydream360

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by Sharon Mendelaoui | Featured Contributor 

I am amazed at how many bloggers and website owners have not set up simple things on their website which help with increasing site traffic and exposure. I’m not talking about doing an SEO overhaul here, but straightforward stuff like adding sharing buttons to your posts. If you have added a sharing button, have you ever clicked on it to see if it is working correctly? In this post, I take a look at some essential elements every website or blog should have to increase traffic.

Necessary Information and Ease of Navigation

The ease of getting around your website is the number one thing you should be analyzing. Remember people don’t always come to your site from your homepage. In fact, more often than not, people are searching for something particular and entering your site from a post they found in Google, a pin they saw on Pinterest or a social media post they read.

Look at your site homepage and one inside post and see if it has:

  • Links to your social media channels
  • Easy to find contact link to the contact page
  • Clear about you information or a link to your about page
  • Easy categories and menu navigation to get around your site

Putting these items in your main menus or in widgets on your sidebar are the best way to ensure that no matter which post or page people come to they can get around your site easily.

Social Media Sharing Buttons

Why You Need Them?

The number one reason is you want to encourage people to share your post on their social media channels. The more people that see the link to your post the more opportunities you have that they will click on that link and visit you.

Make Sure They Are Set Up Properly

It amazes me that when I go to share someone’s post on social media using one of their blog sharing buttons that they don’t have them set up properly. It is one thing to allow people to share your posts but if they don’t tag or mention you in that share well you lose the ability to show your reach on that social media channel.

The most common error I see is when I go to tweet something I read. It shares the tweet but it does not include a “via @yoursocialhandle” mention in the tweet. How will you know that someone tweeted your post? How will you engage that person on Twitter if you don’t get a notification they shared your post. This is a missed opportunity.

The second error is that the link does not shorten. Make sure that your social sharing buttons allow for using Bitly or another way to shorten your link. Otherwise, just your tweet e a long ugly URL to the post. Not something people will want to share.

If your social sharing plug-in or theme’s feature doesn’t allow you to add these two elements – find one that does so that you can ensure to act on a tweet or share if it happens.

Pin Images in Your Post

I have already talked about why you need to be using Pinterest for your blog or business in this post. Having a pinnable image in each post on your blog is paramount to using Pinterest to increase traffic. For one it will make you pin that image to your own boards and increase the chance that your Pin will be pinned by other people. The result is another opportunity to bring people back to your own website.

Adding a pin button to your horizontal images or a pin share button at the top and bottom of your post is not enough. You actually have to create a long vertical image with a 2:3 ratio or approximately 600 x 900 pixels. Don’t try to make them extra long as Pinterest is now cropping long images that go beyond the 2:3 ratio.

Ask Someone to Review Your Site

Sometimes we are blind to the most common things on our own websites. Ask a friend to take a look at your site, to share your posts and really dig deep into your site’s features. You can also hire people to do a detailed site review where they can help you see how a stranger interacts on your site. Site reviews don’t have to be expensive and can really help give your site a leg up on the competition. Contact me here if you are interested in a site review or audit for some graphic tips, feature suggestions or general feedback on your site.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Guest Posting for SEO by @_lauramclo

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by Laura McLoughlin | Featured Contributor 

Guest posting is a common strategy for businesses hoping to boost their website’s authority. The backlinks you gain from other websites lend authority to your own, and help it to rise to the top of Google’s search results page, which, of course, leads to more traffic and more leads.

Seems like a pretty simple process, right? Get a few links, and you’ll get to the top of Google.

Unfortunately, SEO is a fickle discipline and one which is constantly evolving. Worse still is that lots of businesses try to beat the system with sneaky shortcuts and low quality or duplicated content, leaving themselves open for a hit from digital karma: a Google penalty.

If you want to do your guest posting right, it can take time and effort, but is ultimately worthwhile. Check out the top do’s and don’ts to consider when putting together your strategy:

DO provide quality content

Web editors are looking for interesting stories to tell and new information to share. Offer them that and you’ll find your strategy is much more successful than if you try to spin them the same top 10 tips articles.

You can typically judge how good your content is by how unique it is. For example, new research or survey results can be very attractive to both web editors and their readers. If you don’t have the resources to pull together however, don’t worry. Unique perspectives of contemporary or evergreen topics can be desirable, too.

Google will reward your quality content, too.

DO NOT send duplicates

Duplicating is likely to pass little value when it comes to your SEO, so if you’re planning on sending identical guest posts to ten different publishers, think again. Not only that, but if your business is caught flooding the web with identical articles, you’re unlikely to land future placements with the same ticked off editors.

Make your content as unique as possible, which should come naturally if you are considering the individual audiences and tones of different websites. Even similarly themed websites can have completely different vibes once you read them. Just have a look at this music website compared to this one.

Another thing you should approach with as much authenticity as possible is your anchor text. There are plenty of articles around the web which will inform you of the best ways to manipulate this for your SEO gain, but more recently, Google has been trying to clamp down on this kind of activity. If you really want to get this right, just be natural.

DO make sure the website is relevant to your business

Macaroni and cheese, tea and biscuits, pancakes and syrup: some things just go together.

Your pet collar business and a recycling treatment plant’s blog? Not so much.

You might be under the impression that a link is a link and that’s enough to boost your authority, but the truth is that if you are gaining links from websites that have nothing to do with your business, you risk appearing spammy to Google. And if you look spammy to Google, don’t count on your authority improving any time soon.

Don’t force your content into places it simply does not fit, and instead seek out quality, relevant blogs which will benefit from it. These relationships are a much more natural fit, and as Google continues to crack down on its user experience and weeding out the irrelevant, your hard work will have paid off.

DO NOT keyword dump

If you are going to put keywords in your article, do not put so many keywords in it that people start to notice the keywords, because if you have too many keywords, it can be distracting. Keywords.

This kind of writing is entirely off-putting for an actual human reader, so when it comes to guest posting, the most important thing is to be natural. After all, if you’re trying to rank for a keyword like breakfast recipes or car insurance, you’re likely to use those words or some variation of them in the body of your blog anyway. You don’t have to stuff them in.


Ultimately, guest posting shouldn’t be about attempting to trick Google. It should be about good content and natural relationships, which better connects your business to potential customers, already searching for your products and services.

Google itself states in its quality guidelines “Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines”. If you align your strategy with that instruction, you should start to see steady lift in your page rankings without damaging your reputation or risking penalties – and people might actually like your content, too.

When did Owning a Website Become So Complicated? by @DreamTravelMag

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by Sharon Mendelaoui | Featured Contributor 

Recently on one of my Facebook networking groups, someone posted a photo gif about her frustrating day. Then she said, “how do you all feel?” The result was hundreds of comments filled with animated gifs featuring people banging their heads against a wall, falling, crashing into things, rolling eyes and screaming. We were all feeling the same thing: FRUSTRATION. It made me relieved and sad at the same time. I’m not, alone in how I think about my websites, but why were we all feeling like this? When did owning a site become so complicated?

The Website Difficulties On Our Minds

There was a time when we would code a website with HTML and then it would go live, and we didn’t have to think about it for years. Those days are gone. Websites need constant review and updating. From the WordPress platforms, we built them on, to our themes, plug-ins and even our posts. It is a continuous battle to keep things running smoothly.

When I think about the topics of discussion on my blogging groups, it is no wonder how frustrated we all are. Most of us run blogs alone, some of us run multiple sites targeting different niches. So as solo entrepreneurs we put a lot on our plates. When I think about all the things I have to know about the web, Google, social media and what’s under the hood of my blog – it’s no wonder my brain hasn’t exploded.

Will We Ever Understand Google?

When you own a website, it all comes down to Google. Where does your post rank? How do you make it rank on Google’s first page? How do I get more traffic? These are the standard things all bloggers obsess about. But I’m surprised by how many bloggers don’t know any of those things.

There are Google Guidelines?

Did you know Google has rules? Basic rules like your sites need a privacy policy, security certificates, accelerated mobile pages and a cookie disclaimer to let your website viewers know that your site (like pretty much every site on the web) uses cookies. If you have ads or Amazon links you have to have disclosures and disclaimers for this too. Sigh, they probably just changed the rules or added new ones and I haven’t even finished writing this post!

How many bloggers sit at our computer looking at Google analytics? Who is viewing our pages, which pages, how did they get there? Which leads to my next nightmare – SEO.

SEO and Why I have Nightmares About it

Search engine optimization or SEO has to be on the top of your list if you are a website owner. SEO is one of the keys to getting traffic to your site. People search a topic and find you and visit your site. There have been hundreds of articles written about SEO and techniques to mastering it. The hardest thing to master, how to insert all these keywords in your posts and not sound like a robot.

Internal and External Links Oh My

SEO is only part of the Google search ranking game, another thing you have to consider are links to your site and links pointing to other pages within your site. This is a dangerous game because adding too many links from other people’s site to your site, or links Google doesn’t like, and they penalize you.  Google states these inbound links need to be natural, but bloggers are always trying to game this with guest posting and link swapping.

Internal links are the links within the pages of our sites. It is a constant battle as you add new content to link readers to older posts that are similar in an attempt to keep them on the site. If you like this article, consider this one too. Or for more on this topic visit this post. Then you have to go to the old posts and link the new content you just wrote.

Social Media Strategy

As if that wasn’t enough, we also have to consider our social media strategies. Which channels are we using, are we sharing all our posts on these channels regularly, engaging in conversations and encouraging people to like and share our articles? Each channel has its strategy, but the one I’m going to talk about now is Pinterest.

When it comes to driving traffic to your site the one channel you need to focus on is Pinterest. What makes it so frustrating is that on our sites most of us post horizontal images, but on Pinterest the photos are vertical. Which means for every post on your site you need at least one vertical image optimized for Pinterest. That’s just another thing you have to do. Then you have to pin it, share it in Pin Group Boards, your boards and hope it gets re-pinned.

Focus too much time on Pinterest – where you will see significant results, and the other channel referrals and engagement will drop. Hence the importance of a social media strategy.

Website Monthly Checkups

The last thing that swirls through my head with all the above includes how the site is running. Things that Google also tracks and uses to measure where it puts you in their search results. How fast is the site loading when someone comes to it? What is my Domain and Page authority? Are there any broken links on my site?

These mechanics of my blog the updating of software, themes and plugins, the inner workings of everything are as crucial as getting regular oil changes and checkups for my car. Just another thing to add to the list of things I need to be aware of when it comes to my website.

My animated gif right now is someone frantically typing on her computer right before her head explodes. Why? Because as if all this above is not enough, I have to process images from a recent press trip, optimize them for the web and write a new post to schedule on my site.

I’m also thinking about all the things I didn’t write above that you are all going to write about in the comments now! Happy Blogging everyone!

5 Ways Positive Customer Reviews Affect Your Website’s SEO by @donnaamos

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by Donna Amos | Featured Contributor 

As a business owner, you must know how important customer reviews are to your company. In fact, by the time an internet user has begun scanning reviews, their purchasing decision has already been made. They are simply selecting which business will best fulfill their needs or wants. That gap between deciding to buy and choosing from whom to buy is relatively small, so a customer review is often the single item that makes the sale – or loses it.

For those who ask, “How many consumers actually read online reviews?” check out the following statistics:

  • 85% of consumers read online reviews
  • Approximately 67% of consumers will read 6 reviews or less before forming an opinion
  • 90% of respondents in another survey said positive online reviews influences their buying decisions
  • 86% of respondents in the same survey said negative reviews impact their buying decisions

While it’s a no-brainer that positive customer reviews help potential customers make purchasing decisions, you may be surprised to learn that those same reviews can positively affect your search rankings. According to Moz’s 2017 Local Search Ranking Factors Survey, online reviews are believed to contribute as much as 13% to the local pack ranking and 7% to localized organic rankings.

“Local search engines love online reviews for one primary reason, consumers love online reviews.” Bottom line – search engines exist to provide internet users the best information possible to help them make decisions. User-generated reviews are the most accurate and relevant information they could provide.

Here are 5 ways positive customer reviews can help your website’s SEO:

Customer Reviews Attract More Organic Search Traffic

Every good customer review provides natural long-tail keywords in the consumer’s own language that creates content. Customer reviews frequently use the same words and phrases internet users employ when conducting online searches for products or services. For example, if a product page gathers lots of reviews saying, “high quality boots,” or “best prices,” search engines will index these long-tail keywords for when other consumers perform searches for similar products. Over time, the search engines begin associating your website with those search terms and phrases, thereby attracting more long-tail search traffic.

Star Ratings in Search Results Get More Clicks

Everyone looks for proof of quality, and a high starred rating is an immediate indicator of customer satisfaction. Multiple star ratings beside your website listing in search results attract more attention to your listing and can help pull a much higher click-through rate. Such starred ratings are real-world proof of satisfied customers. Bottom line – building a five-star rating to show up next to your links in search engine results helps customers make purchasing decisions.

Customer Reviews Lead to Improved Product Page Rankings

E-commerce websites with hundreds or even thousands of products depend on reviews to help their product pages rank higher in search engine results pages. You should be sure to allow reviews for every product to provide more opportunities for customers to leave reviews. Consumers will often begin their search phase by searching for positive reviews. Building a positive online presence that includes starred reviews on multiple product pages is a great way to beat out competitors.

Using User-Generated Content for Social Sharing

While your website copy can be expected to paint your products and/or services in a positive light, user generated content that gives a positive review is unbiased content. These real-world opinions present your business in a raw and revealing manner. Capitalize on these reviews by using them as fodder for your social media marketing campaigns. Posting your best customer reviews to your social media profiles make them stand out. Personal accounts and reviews literally beg to be read. They present a hard selling component to your marketing that doesn’t come from you. These posts will also contain the afore-mentioned long-tail keywords with links back to your site, which enhances your website’s SEO.

High Customer Review Ratings and Volume Give Your Website Authority

Another important SEO ranking factor influenced by customer reviews is website authority. Google and other search engines recognize that websites which consistently garner positive reviews are valuable search results links for internet searchers. Such high-ranking websites are the leading companies in their industry, and such sites carry weight, or authority. When consumers seek products or services in various industries, those with the most positive reviews will show up at the top of search listings.

How Can I Begin Boosting My Website’s Positive Customer Reviews?

Here are some tips for how to begin:

  • Develop a process that gathers and promotes your best customer reviews on your website, third-party review sites, and social media.
  • Create and promote your company’s profile on third-party review sites important to your industry. Search engines pull these ratings to feed their results pages.
  • Create and promote your company’s pages on social media networks where consumers turn for reviews and suggestions before buying.
  • Respond to the best and worst reviews in a way that demonstrates the value you place on customer satisfaction.

How do you currently leverage customer reviews to boost your website’s SEO? We’d love for you to share your ideas and practices with us in the comments below. Thanks for sharing!

Why SEO and Social Media Need To Be Part Of The Same Team by @christellemacri

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Why SEO and Social Media Need To Be Part Of The Same Team

by Christelle Macri

The link between search engine optimization and social media can be somewhat confusing. For years, many marketers believed that social media signals like Facebook ‘likes’ and Twitter ‘follows’ influenced search rankings, but in 2014, Google’s Matt Cutts released a YouTube video, where he confirmed this was not the case.

Nevertheless, most SEO consultants still consider the relationship between SEO and social media to be extremely strong. Indeed, there is a convincing argument that search marketing and social media marketing should be handled by the same team. So what exactly is the link between the two and why do they go hand-in-hand?

1. Search Engines and Social Media
Generally speaking, Matt Cutts is right to say Google discounts social media signals as a ranking factor. Some of the confusion stems from the fact that Google treats social media posts like individual web pages. Yet, its algorithms recognise that social media links are easy to manipulate, so social links do not usually carry ‘authority’.

However, it is important to recognize that this does not mean search engines do not use social media at all, or that the two things cannot work together. For example, social media profiles show in search results and if you search for any major business, you will likely see their Facebook page, Twitter account and/or Instagram account on page one. When a company ‘owns’ the first page of Google search results for their brand related searches thanks to their website, blog, social media profiles being listed, this amounts to a very important part of branding real estate that cannot be ignored. Not only this will reinforce the brand, but it will also drive traffic to all the company’s platforms, which becomes an integral part of a digital marketing and reputation management strategies.

Despite Google’s stance on social links, some social media posts do occasionally seem to influence rankings, and Bing have been clear in stating that their search engine algorithms do pay attention to social media signals, with the ‘social authority’ of a user adding weight to listings.

2. The Indirect Connections
Social media also has some indirect SEO implications, which still very much link the two marketing strategies. For example, while sharing a piece of content on Facebook might not improve your search rankings directly, the users who follow the link and read the piece might impact upon ranking factors like your bounce rate. Furthermore, Facebook can act as a valuable metric, allowing you to see what content appeals most to your target audience.

In addition, social media can increase exposure, improving the chances of other websites linking to your content, which will then have SEO effects. Moreover, Google and Bing do occasionally show Twitter posts in their SERPs. An expert or SEO company could use this to their advantage, increasing a business’ overall online presence.

“While social posts showing up in search results don’t impact your site’s SEO, it can improve brand awareness,” says Nate Dame from Marketo. “Factors such as how many retweets, how many people tweeted the content, and the time frame of when the content was shared are all taken into consideration,” adds Kristina Cisnero from Hootsuite.

3. Social Media as a Search Engine
Finally, one of the most important reasons for SEO and social media to be part of the same team is that social networks are search engines. Although Google is still king, internet users are increasingly using social media to search for content. Twitter handles more than five times the number of monthly search queries that Bing does.

“Nowadays, people don’t just go to Google and Bing to look stuff up; they also use social media channels to find what they’re looking for,” says Chloe Mason Gray, a digital marketing specialist writing for Kissmetrics. “If someone wants to check out your company, they’re likely to open Twitter and Facebook and do a quick search.”

Therefore, SEO principles apply to social media too. This connection means search engine optimizers should also have a role in social media marketing, and social media marketers should have an input into SEO strategies. At the very least, this requires close collaboration between the teams, but it makes even more sense to have one team working together.

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Christelle MacriChristelle has worked in the Internet advertising and search industry for over 17 years, and she has a real passion for digital marketing. She is the founder of ebizpromotion, a consultancy advising on marketing strategies and implementing integrated campaigns for direct clients and agencies within a variety of sectors, including B2B.pioneering pay for performance advertising networks, she is an expert at turning her clients’ websites into consistent revenue streams, using a variety of digital channels.