Interview With an Online Marketer and Link Builder

Ready for a peek around the other side of the desk?  as a blogger you are likely approached by link builders. But what do they really do on a regular basis?  This interview will take you through the ups and downs you can expect in the position, what it takes to land the job, what you can expect to earn and more. This is a true career story told anonymously, to get you closer to the truth about this line of work.

What is your job title? How many years of experience do you have in that field?

My official job title is link builder, i.e. I optimize search engine results for different websites. I have been working as a link builder for almost one year.

Would you describe what you do on a typical day?

I work from home, so after having breakfast I log in to the main dash board where I am able to view the work plan for each site I optimize. I assign, proofread and publish articles on different online magazines. Then I search for possible link partners, and send them emails asking them to place links to my sites. [Read more]

The Right and Wrong Way to Use Social Media Marketing for Blog Growth

Earlier this week, I wrote a post that explained the differences between social media marketing and content marketing.  Bloggers can use both methods of marketing their blogs in order to drive traffic to them.  In fact, you’re probably already doing social media marketing and content marketing activities.

But what are the right and wrong ways to market your blog on the social web?

My new book, 30-Minute Social Media Marketing, will be released any day now (you can check out a free bonus chapter here), and one of the things I talk about in the book is the difference between social media marketing success and failure.  There are three primary “rights and wrongs” that you need to be aware of as you venture into the world of the social web to promote your blog, grow your audience, and reach your goals.

I call these “rights and wrongs” the 3 Cs of Social Media Marketing Success or Failure, and the chart below can help you understand what these 3 Cs are all about.

Bloggers, just like businesses, who allow the online conversation to flow and let their audience take control of that conversation and experience that content in their own ways will achieve social media marketing and content marketing success.  However, those bloggers, just like businesses, who try to control the conversation and limit the flow of content across the social web will fail.  I clarify this concept in my book by explaining,

“There’s a fine line between behaving on the social web in ways that help you build bridges and acting in ways that cause those bridges to collapse (taking your messages along with them).”

Only you can decide whether you want to fully leverage the power, reach, and influence of the social web by giving up control and releasing your content into the virtual world.  You’ve already started by publishing a blog.  The rest is the easy part.

If you remember nothing else from my posts here on Performancing.com, remember this:

There is no bigger opportunity for businesses of any size (including bloggers and online publishers) to level the playing field, build their brands, and reach their goals than the social web.  You’re already there.  Let it work for you.

So what are you waiting for?  Get out there and publish amazing, shareworthy content and let the compounding effect of blogging deliver long-term, organic and sustainable growth for your blog!

Why I Ignore Content Scrapers

Content scraping is completely out of control online.  It seems no piece of content is safe from the many sites that like to copy it and republish it with or without links back to the original source.  A popular online publisher could spend every minute of every day trying to fight the many sites that republish its content without permission.  Even a small-time online publisher could find themselves wasting hours and hours to the losing battle against content scrapers who simply don’t care that you oppose their inappropriate republishing of your content.

Several years ago, I was one of those online publishers who used to get angry when I found my content republished on another website without my permission, with or without my byline and with or without a link to the blog or website where my content was first published.

Today, not so much.

So why do I ignore content scrapers these days?

The easy answer would be that I’m lazy.  That’s probably true, but I prefer to tell myself that I started to look at the bigger picture when it comes to content scraping, and that’s when my attitude changed.

What if someone republishes your content without a byline or link to your site?

One could argue that content scraping done without your original byline is plagiarism.  That’s true.  It’s illegal to republish someone else’s content as your own.  However, unless you have enough time to police the scores of websites that are simply republishing content without permission in an effort to earn money through pay-per-click ads and the like, you’re probably fighting a losing battle.  There needs to be a larger shift in protecting copyrights in the online space and an official way to report offenses.  There is no online copyright police, and a single blogger can’t realistically fight it on a day-to-day basis.  We can only hope that someday there will be.  In the meantime, if you’re interested in learning more about plagiarism and online copyrights, Jonathan Bailey writes a great weekly post about the topic on Freelance Writing Jobs as well as on his personal blog, Plagiarism Today.

What about those content scrapers that do include your byline but no link back to your website?

Well, that stinks.  There really is no other way to describe this scenario.  If a search engine finds your name associated with the content on a spam site or a site that does not match the brand image you’ve tried to create for yourself online, and that entry appears in a Google search result for your name, then that isn’t a good thing for you.  However, you can bury that result with more great content that is SEO’d better than the content scraper’s site is.  If you can do that, then you don’t have to worry about this situation too much.  If you’re working hard to build your own site where your content is published first, then errant search engine results from content scrapers will fall to the bottom of the list.

Also, if someone finds content with your byline on a content scraper’s site that they like, they’re likely to search for your name either on that site (where they won’t find any additional results) or on Google.  That’s where they’ll find all of your great content entries from your blog and website.  In other words, publish often and publish great content on your own site, and content scrapers won’t get long-term traffic benefits from the post or article they copied from your blog.

Finally, what about the content scraper sites that do include your byline and a link back to your website?

While it’s true these more “generous” content scrapers will get some extra page views and possibly some search traffic from your scraped content, at least your link is there.  If a reader likes what he finds, he might just click the link to read more from you.

So what should you do about content scrapers?  It’s totally up to you.  Over the years, I’ve decided that for me, the time it takes to fight content scrapers is better spent in other activities that actually further build my online presence in the manner I want to build it.  I don’t think my career or business has truly suffered due to my focus on other activities. My activities and income sources are diverse enough that content scrapers don’t really hurt my ability to reach my goals.  If a call for reform against content scrapers is made, I’ll certainly support it, but I’m not able to chase scrapers down one by one.  I accept that and move on.

Now, the illegal sharing of books electronically …. that’s another story entirely!

Do you fight each and every one of the scrapers who republish your content on their sites?  Why or why not?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

The Complete Guide to Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing

Search Engine Optimization often is a difficult topic and not every blogger agrees that much time should be spend at it but too often people discussing the topic do not know what it all entails. So we sat down and created a What is SEO? infographic.

The graphic covers all basics of SEO and explains the different components of search engine optimisation: link infrastructure, keywords, social media campaigns, PPC and linkbait.

[Read more]

How to Help Your Guest Authors in Their SEO Efforts

This is a guest post is by Ann Smarty, founder of a community of guest bloggers: My Blog Guest and first contribution as part of a new My Blog Guest – Splashpress Media partnership.

The blog SEO is nothing to go mad about: essentially there are just a few tweaks needed to make sure the blog post is search-friendly enough to go live. A couple of weeks ago I shared a blog post SEO checklist – it only has 5 points in it – but if you frequently feature guest posts on your blog, it is a smart idea to engage your authors into the optimization process.

You don’t have to spend time teaching each of your new authors SEO specifics of your blog. What you need to do is to fine-tune the process once and you will notice your guest bloggers get enrolled eagerly.

1. Create a Well-Outlined SEO Basics Cheat Sheet

You blog SEO basics list shouldn’t be anything too theoretic. Just outline what you have to deal with each time you are writing or publishing a post.

What I would recommend creating is a one-page well-organized outline in PDF listing your blog SEO specifics:

• Your recommendations as to (sub)heading usage. Note, that h2 and h3 tags make your posts easier to scan; they also make your keywords more prominent.
• Your advice on using the keywords in the article copy: which tools do you use to research keywords? How do you make your copy richer (by using synonyms, keyword suggestions, etc);
• Your image optimization tactics: what I usually mention here is that:
  • The images should be no larger than 100K
  • The images should always have the ALT attribute – not just the TITLE tag like the standard WordPress editor would prompt you to.
  • You can also mention your hotlinking preferences (Would you like the images to be hosted on your blog? – which is usually preferable. Which free image hosting services would you recommend – I usually tend to stick to Flickr).
• Your internal linking requirements: make it a rule that your guest authors always link (from within the article body) to a few related posts that were previously published at your blog. Let them know the best ways to find those related posts (I for one use SITE:yourdomain.com search for that).
• Any of the SEO plugins you are using and how to apply them at the post editor level.

2. Install Some SEO WordPress Plugins

These are not actually plenty. Just a few WordPress plugins will help your authors optimize their posts:

1. Either Headspace2 or All in One SEO Pack: the choice is up to you. What’s good about both of them is that they allow to provide custom title tag, meta description and keywords – right at the post editor page:

2. Insights: This plugin makes it easy to search for the related posts right from the blog editor page and also instantly link the words right from the editor:

3. SEO Smart Links: automatic interlinking. This plugin interlinks your blog content automatically. It is rich in settings and options – so you can configure it in plenty of ways:

• Set what to interlink (posts, pages, categories and/or tags);
• Ignore words in links (like "about", "contact");
• Set the maximum number of links;

3. Equip Your Guest Bloggers with Essential Tools

Many huge multi-author blog owners prefer to buy a corporate licence of some useful SEO tools and give access to all their (guest) authors. This section looks at some free tools instead. Include the links to those tools in your SEO tutorial (see #1) and make sure your authors are using those:

1. SEO Blogger: This tool is the FireFox addon that lets the user research the related phrases in the browser sidebar. You can thus research the keywords without having to leave the blog post editor: write and format your post while researching your keywords.

2. Copyright Checker. There are actually quite a few plagiarism checkers out there (Copyscape is the most famous but paid one). This one is free and easy to use. Your authors can copy-paste their post text and run it to make sure their content is totally unique.

3. SEO Analysis Tool: Suggest your authors run the tool immediately after the post is published. The tool is great at reporting prominent keywords in:

• Link text;
• Image alt attributes;
• Heading and phrase elements.

This way the bloggers may quickly estimate if they are on the right path:

Relying on guest blogging and user-generated content to let your resource grow is a great tactic. The only thing is that at least some effort is required to put your readers on the right path. Do you help your guest bloggers to optimize their content?

This is a guest post by Ann Smarty, an SEO Consultant and (guest) blogger. If you accept guest articles at your blog or (plan to) guest post, join Ann’s community of guest bloggers – My Blog Guest.

The Secret to Creating Shareworthy Content

I often refer to the term I use to describe amazing content that people want to share online as shareworthy, and today, I’d like to dive a bit deeper into the concept of creating shareworthy content, so your blog and online reputation can benefit from the compounding effect of blogging, attract more visitors, and grow organically over the long term. In other words, shareworthy content leads to sustainable growth, and I’m going to tell you how to do it.

What is shareworthy content?

It’s simple. Shareworthy content is amazing content that people like enough to want to tell their friends about it and share it with their social media connections. They can share that content by blogging about it on their own blogs, tweeting it on Twitter, linking to it on Facebook or LinkedIn, and so on. Therefore, shareworthy content is not necessarily viral content that explodes across the Internet. Instead, it’s a tangible form of the world-of-mouth marketing of the social web that businesses covet.

How do you create shareworthy content? [Read more]

5 Solid Reasons You Should Never Quit Blogging

Blogging has become the most popular and
easiest form of expression online which has also helped many to achieve financial success for themselves and their families. Although we all have various reasons for blogging, a vast majority is driven solely by the idea of making millions online and living the internet lifestyle in the shortest time possible.

Unfortunately, the get rich quick mindset is like a house built on sand and easily gets washed away in disappointment when the reality hits that its going to take some really hard work. At this point, one may experience blogger burnout or just feel like giving up but I say, don’t give up, reassess your strategies, redefine your goals and look at all that can be gained through this fulfilling endeavor.

Whatever your reasons may be for quitting, here are 5 solid reasons for sticking to it and never give up on your blog. [Read more]

How to Leverage Inspiration to Achieve Actual Results

Inspiration is a tricky thing. It comes and goes but even if you get inspired on a regular basis, translating that inspiration into actual results can be difficult.

I’m passionate about the gaming niche I work in. I have a lot of experience and knowledge so I rarely get writer’s block. In fact, I have a list of blog post topic ideas that spans multiple pages. I jot down these ideas whenever I get a flash of inspiration, which happens often as I read other blogs.

Here’s the problem though. The vast majority of my ideas never become blog posts. What usually happens is I look at my list but don’t get the jolt of inspiration that I had before. The ideas have gotten stale.

Inspiration Can Rot

I’ve written before that inspiration can rot like milk going bad. You can lose inspiration for something that you were pumped up about if you don’t take action over time. That’s what was happenning to the ideas on my list.

I didn’t have an effective process for turning my ideas into actual blog posts. However, I’ve learned from my mistake and figured out a way to leverage inspiration to achieve actual results.

Less is More

I realized I was spending way too much time trying to capture every passing idea that seemed like a good post topic. Most of my ideas would get stale by the time I reviewed them. So what was the point in writing them down?

I’ve started focusing on execution and implementation instead of inspiration. Here’s my theory:

Ideas are plentiful, but taking action is rare. Execution and implementation is where you can gain a competitive advantage, because most people don’t take action on their ideas.

I started a new list of post ideas. However, this list is much different from my old bloated list. My new list is capped at just three ideas.

I won’t write down any new ideas until I’ve turned one of the three ideas into a blog post. This new habit has helped me become more productive since the lag time between inspiration and action has been lessened. I’m sticking to a few ideas and working on them to completion before adding something new to my plate.

It’s ironic but the key to leveraging inspiration is to somewhat minimize it so that you have time and focus to implement your existing inspiration.

To help with this new habit, I stopped using an RSS reader because of the information and inspiration overload. I realized that most of my inspiration was coming from only five sites, so if I need inspiration, I just visit them.

Action Triggers

I talked about action triggers in my last post and that technique also works well for leveraging inspiration.

My advice is to write down the times and places where you will work on your blog post ideas. For example:

On Tuesday, I will work on [idea #1] at my home office after I pick up the kids from soccer practice.

On Friday, I will work on [idea #2] during my lunch break at work.

Overcoming Analysis Paralysis

Also, with a smaller list, you’ll be more likely to take action. Numerous psychological studies have shown that if you give someone a lot of choices, they will be much more likely to not take action. You may have heard the phrase “analysis paralysis”, which describes this phenomenon.

One of the best ways to cure overanalyzing is to cut down the number of choices.

Over to You

Half the battle in blogging (and life in general) is just showing up and hopefully my tips can help you make your ideas a reality.

What tips do you have for leveraging inspiration?

Performancing offers blog management services.

Long-Term Vision Should Trump Reader Feedback

In July 2009, a new blogger entered the same gaming niche as my blog. His blog looked like it had a lot of potential. He posted daily including several 1500+ word posts. He was very active on Twitter. He wrote several guest posts. He scored an interview on a popular blogging blog. With these efforts, he quickly made an impact in the industry and his traffic and Twitter followers grew quickly.

You could tell that he spent a lot of time building his blog and it seemed like it would only be a matter of time before he became a top five blogger in the niche. However, his initial enthusiasm only lasted three months. After that time, he started posting less and less and in December, he made his last post – one short of the 100 post milestone.

What happened? How did the promising blogger end up in the wasteland of abandoned blogs?

Too Much Feedback is a Bad Thing

One thing I noticed was his obsession for feedback. He was always asking his blog readers and Twitter followers for topics to write about. Also, he used polls all the time to determine the topics of his posts.

He had a diverse audience who wanted to talk about many different topics. He didn’t filter his feedback and wrote about all the different topics. As such, his blog became very unfocused. I stopped reading it because I never knew what to expect.

He catered to his whole audience but his traffic plateaued once people realized that he was going to serve everybody. Without a strong focus, people liked his blog but no one really loved it. And ironically, less and less people responded to his requests for feedback.

What’s Your Long-Term Vision?

I think it’s important to have a long-term vision for your blog that trumps reader feedback. You shouldn’t give up too much control to your audience. You are the expert.

Apple didn’t ask their customers for feedback on the iPhone. If anything, they probably would’ve requested too many features and made the iPhone just like the other smartphones. The iPhone works because it has less features which makes it easier to use than its competitors. This was the vision of Apple and they weren’t going to let feedback change their course.

Consider the creators of popular TV shows. I bet their shows would be much worse if they implemented audience feedback on a regular basis. Before the actors were even hired, they had a vision for their show and they knew that straying from that vision would hurt their show.

Therefore, have a concrete vision for your blog. The blogger I first mentioned didn’t have one and it cost him.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t listen to feedback. Feedback can be useful. Just don’t let it trump your long-term vision.

Performancing offers blog management services.

Your Product Doesn’t Have to Contain 100% Unique Content

Many bloggers seem to find the task of creating a product daunting. I know I did.

I knew creating a product could greatly increase my income, but coming up with content to fill up an ebook, video, membership program, or any other product seemed like an overwhelming project.

However, after listening to this interview with Pay Flynn and thinking back at products I had bought, I realize that creating a product doesn’t have to be this huge audacious goal.

See you don’t need your product to have 100% unique content. This realization takes a lot of the work out of the equation. You can repurpose some of your existing content and include it as part of your product to make the task easier.

This may seem like a scam but your customers won’t mind.

Flynn created an ebook with 15% unique content. The other 85% was already existing content from his blog. Yet he doesn’t get complaints from his customers and he sells many ebooks every month.

I look back at one of my favorite purchases, the ebook that SEO Book used to sell. This ebook gave me a great SEO foundation and I was able start a successful freelance SEO business. About 60% of the ebook was something I had already read on the SEO Book blog, but I didn’t mind.

So why do people not mind repeat content in a product?

Let’s look at 5 reasons.

1. They forget what they read.

People are usually in a browsing/scanning mindset when they read blogs. They are not very focused and forget a lot of what they read.

Therefore, the product seems much more unique when they consume it.

And once they pay money for it, they are willing to concentrate more since they have invested money. So they get more out of the product than reading the blog.

Also, products contain much more content than a blog post, which makes people set aside more time and focus to consume them.

2. They haven’t read the existing content.

Most of your readers have not read all your content. For example, anything older than 6 months is often brand new to the bulk of your readers.

3. The content organization adds value.

When I read the ebook from SEO Book, I started seeing how different SEO elements connected with each other. In the past, I had looked at SEO as a bunch of unrelated tasks. But through the ebook, I saw the effectiveness of holistic thinking, which made me a much better search specialist.

A well-organized product allows you to lay the proper foundation for your topic. You can sequence your content in a way that adds a lot of value.

For example, a good ebook will have the beginner stuff first, then intermediate, and close with advanced subjects.

In contrast, the order in which blog posts are published typically don’t add much value. And anyways, many of your readers are not reading your posts in order.

4. The unique content is very valuable.

Pat Flynn’s ebook is a guide to passing an architecture test. His 15% unique content in his ebook contains many of his best studying tips.

So even if a customer realizes that most of the ebook is repeat content, if they are able to pass the test using the unique content, they will be grateful they spent the money.

Here’s the takeaway: Give a lot of value for free on your blog, but save some of your best stuff for your product, the stuff that’s worth paying for.

5. Repetition is useful.

Finally, don’t underestimate the repetition factor. The more you read the same piece of info, the more you will remember it and be able to apply it in your life.

I hope this blog post has given you more confidence to create your own product. It’s not as big of a process as you think. You can include some of your existing valuable content to lower the workload.

Good luck!

Performancing offers blog management services.