Archive for November, 2008

Eric Brantner
SEO Writer

The blogosphere can be a lonely place if no one is reading your blog. It makes you ask the question “is this even worth it?” Yes, blogging is worth it. You just need to make some adjustments so that your blog has more online visibility.
The first step to increasing your web presence is understanding why no one is currently reading your blog. Here are 5 reasons your blog is dead.
1. It Isn’t Optimized- If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times—the search engines love fresh content. That’s why it’s so important that you optimize your blog posts. By including relevant keywords in your titles and content, you increase your chances of ranking well in the search engines. High organic search rankings will earn you a steady flow of traffic.

2. You Aren’t Marketing It- A blog is like any other property—you have to market it if you want people to see it. Beyond optimizing your posts, you need to push your content on the social media sites. While you might say “But I already submit all my posts to Digg and other sites.” Social media marketing is about more thank clicking submit. It takes time and a commitment to the community to learn how to properly market content through social media.

3. Your Titles are Boring-The internet is overflowing with blogs. Recent estimates put the total number of blogs well in excess of 100 million. With so many posts pulling at online users’ attention, it’s crucial that you give people a reason to click on your blog. How can you do this? The best way is by creating compelling titles that force people to click. Ask yourself, “if I saw this title, would I click on it?” If not, you need to change it.

4. You Don’t Offer Anything New- What do you offer users that they can’t find anywhere else? If you’re just another “me too” blogger, you don’t give readers an incentive to follow your blog. It’s the same old content that’s been done a thousand times before. Offer something new. Just give your true pinion, and that will help separate you from the pack.

5. The Content Isn’t Scannable- There’s nothing wrong with having a lot to say. Just make sure you don’t present your content in a format that scares readers away. Long blocks of text with no whitespace will cause visitors to click “back” immediately. Break it up into short passages with bold headings so that it’s easier to scan.
What tips would you add to this list? Tell me about them in the replies!

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Another week is coming to a close in which numerous great posts about internet marketing were written. In case you missed any of them, here are 5 useful posts to further your online marketing education. Enjoy!

1. One of the most important questions you need to think about is—what value are you adding? Whether you’re a blogger, affiliate marketer, or SEO, you need to identify what you offer that sets you apart. Stop relying on shortcuts, and actually figure out how to be a valuable member of the online community.

2. In the ideal world, SEO and usability go hand in hand. But sometimes, people take SEO too far and SEO ends up ruining their site’s usability. In this blog post at ReveNews, several examples of over-optimization are discussed. Avoid these mistakes to make certain your website remains user-friendly.

3. SEO tools can make your life a lot easier and your site a lot more effective. This list of 5 free SEO tools you’re probably not using yet are highly useful to helping you achieve your ultimate goals. Take a look at them to see if there are any you can take advantage of.

4. Social media marketing is becoming more popular by the day. This blog discusses social media vs. niche social media and the future of both. This blogger believes niche social media sites will rise in popularity over the coming years, helping to drive targeted traffic through social media marketing.

5. The battle between average web designers and SEOs can be an ugly one. In this post entitled 10 Ways to Piss Off an SEO, common web designer oversights that drive SEOs crazy are discussed. It’s a great checklist for web designers, and it’s pretty darn funny too.

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by Herb Firestone
Marketing Coordinator

Creating an XML Sitemap has been a piece of cake for quite some time now. Most everyone knows by now that all you have to do is go to XML-Sitemaps, enter your full URL in the box, and follow the instructions that appear on the page.

Upon completion, upload your XML Sitemap to the root directory on your server.

The next steps, however are not quite as obvious. You need to make Google, Yahoo, and MSN aware that your XML Sitemap exists.

To submit your XML Sitemap to Google first go to Google Webmaster Tools and follow the site verification instructions,

To submit your XML sitemap to Yahoo, go to Yahoo Site Explorer, log into your Yahoo account, and repeat the verification process.

And finally, to submit your XML Sitemap to MSN, go to MSN Webmaster Tools, log in and repeat the verification process again.

It goes without saying that if you don’t already have an account for any one of the three, you’ll need to sign up for one in order to be able to log in to submit your XML Sitemap.

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Eric Brantner
SEO Writer

I realize I’m running the risk of sounding cut-throat, but one of the keys to managing a successful business is to take advantage of your competition’s shortcomings. By figuring out the areas in which they’re lacking, you can hit them where it hurts, taking market share from them.
How does this relate to internet marketing? It’s simple. Study the online marketing techniques of your main competitors to determine which areas they need to improve on. Then, simply outperform them in those areas.

Copywriting

For example, you can begin by viewing the copy of their website. One of the biggest mistakes companies make on their websites is to talk only about themselves. Their copy is filled with “we” and “our company” while rarely mentioning how it affects “you.” Customers don’t care about your company. All they want to know is what’s in it for you. If you can connect with consumers better than your competitors, you’ll stand a great chance of nabbing potential customers.

Keywords

Unless your competition has been following an active SEO strategy for several years, chances are they’re missing out on some quality keywords. Analyze the sites of your 3 main competitors to figure out which key phrases they are targeting and, more importantly, which ones they aren’t. Now, you want to make sure the phrases they’re missing are worth targeting and that they aren’t cheap keywords. The key is to find key phrases with decent search volume that others are missing out on.

Social Media

Has your competition jumped aboard the social media bandwagon yet? Or are they waiting to see if Twitter is a fad or blogging is a waste of time? The web is an interactive platform. Regardless of whether or not your competition is involved with social media, your company needs to be. You can connect with potential clients, existing customers, and important industry leaders. If you’re lucky, your competition hasn’t gotten wise to social media marketing, and you can exploit their oversight by establishing a strong social web presence.

There are several more ways to take advantage of the competition’s shortcomings. PPC, off-site article promotion, and link building are just a few of them. What tips would you add to this list?

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Eric Brantner
SEO Content Writer
In the quest to further your Internet marketing education, I’m including links to what I believe are the top 5 Internet marketing blog posts of the week. Enjoy!

1. Google’s SEO Starter Guide- While most of the information in here is aimed at beginners, I feel this is an important post because it gives SEO advice straight from the leaders at Google. These aren’t the opinions of some random so-called SEO expert; these are guidelines straight from the horse’s, I mean Google’s, mouth.

2. Branding 101: How to Promote Your Blog Like the Big Guys- This is an excellent overview of how to use your blog to build your brand. It includes tips on everything you need to get started with business blogging. A great resource for new bloggers.

3. 9 Ways to Keep Visitors Around Longer- Are you having a difficult time managing that bounce rate? Do people tend to leave your site the minute they land on it? This post gives you 9 effective tips for making visitors stick around a little longer. Sticky traffic leads to higher conversions.

4. Why Should Anyone Read Your Blog? - There are well over 130 million blogs on the internet. Every day, hundreds of thousands of posts are created. The question you need to ask yourself is—why should anyone read my blog? Answer that question, and you’ll be on your way to having a successful blog.

5. Link Building Tutorial- This is an excellent post for those new to the idea of link building. It covers everything from why link building is important to proven strategies for gaining quality inbound links. It’s a great post that we can all learn from.

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Social media marketing is one of the most effective ways to connect with consumers, to build online visibility, and to generate more traffic to your website. But to be successful with social media marketing, you have to understand how to write content that social media users will want to share with others.

 
Start with the Headline

Perhaps the most crucial part of social media content writing is the title. Without a compelling headline, you have virtually no chance of creating an article that will go hot. Social media sites are crowded with thousands of new articles each day. How do users decide which content they should read? By viewing the headline. If the headline demands their attention, they’ll read on. List headlines tend to be among the most effective headline formats.

Understand Your Audience

One of the biggest mistakes people make when writing content for social media marketing is to not understand their target audience. Each social media site has its own unique community. What works on Digg might not work on ReddIt. Likewise, what goes popular on Sphinn might not go hot on Design Float.
In order to give yourself the best chance of creating hot content, you need to take the time to understand the community you’re targeting. Figure out the types of stories that work on each network, and write for those unique requirements. Give the people what they want.

Don’t Advertise

Even though the ultimate goal of social media marketing is to promote your brand, you don’t want to come across like a salesperson. Your content should add something of value to the community. It shouldn’t be a sales pitch for your products. The most successful social media content offers useful information that has no underlying promotional motives.

Show Your Personality

The Internet is a social medium. Social media is all about connecting with others. The only way you can truly connect with other people is to show them your personality. By being personable, you set yourself apart from others, and you build quality relationships that keep people coming back. No one wants to read stiff, robotic articles that offer no unique insight. They want something fresh; so, just converse with your readers like you would in real life.

Keep it Scanner-Friendly

In the past, we’ve talked about the importance of creating content that can be scanned easily. Online readers tend to scan content rather than reading it. This is an important part of social media content writing. Make sure your content can be scanned easily so that people won’t click “back” whenever they land on your article. Of course, it’s important that you never sacrifice quality for scannability. You can be engaging, informative, and scanner-friendly all at once.

 
What tips would you add to this list? Tell us about them in the replies.

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