Blogging has revolutionized the internet in a way that few other trends have been able to accomplish. Millions and millions of people have found an outlet for their writing and opinions. Anyone who can use a keyboard can literally have their own blog, their own journal up within literally three minutes of reading this article. It is really that easy. Then why are most blogs drearier than a Miley Cyrus concert? Why aren’t there more of creative writers that make the world stand up and take notice of what they have to say? If you have been around the internet blogosphere, then you have invariably stumbled upon those “me-too” blogs that are basically nothing else than online journals of every excruciating detail in the bloggers’ life. Things like what they had for lunch, what time they woke up, what they watched on TV etc. routinely find their way into blogs. The trouble is, no one other than the writer themselves really cares about these things. [Read more…] about 20 Unconventional Ways To Spice Up Your Blog
What it Takes to Run Effective Article Marketing Campaigns
An article marketing campaign is useful when you’re trying to provide information about a business, increase sales and gain traffic to your website. When people search for information on the internet, they usually type in a keyword that relates to what they are looking for. Their search engines then take them a “search results” page where links to information on the subject they requested are displayed. The information they choose to read is usually in the form of an article.
People Want Facts
The entire point of writing an article is to provide information. Opinion and fact are two completely different things. Yes, people love an article with personality, but too much is simply a waste of time for the reader. Know what you are writing about and provide as many legitimate, verifiable facts as possible.
Articles Should be Readable
Take the time after you’ve written your articles to proofread them. If an article contains an abundance of misspellings and punctuation errors, it takes away from the quality of the article. Most of the time, article directories will display the name of the author. Because your name is displayed, people will not want to read your articles because they will know that your articles are of poor quality. This gives you a bad reputation as an author. It’s best to proofread your articles before submitting them. Knowing what type of tone to write your articles in also helps. Avoid switching up the tone too much in your articles. Decide whether you want to create content in a conversational or informational tone.
Hire a Qualified Writer
Not everyone is an expert at writing their own articles. Some people simply do not possess the skill needed to churn out an informative, interesting, fact-filled article. Others do not have the time or patience to create the articles they need to advertise their products and/or services, so they choose to hire someone who can. The person you choose to hire should have experience and work they can provide in order to help you to make a decision about whether or not you should hire them.
More is Better
The more articles you submit, the more effective your campaign will turn out. Submitting only one or two articles per month isn’t going to cut it. Since there are so many people submitting articles on a daily basis, the chance of your article remaining at the top of the list is very slim. It’s best to submit a number of articles each month, especially if you plan to keep your numbers up.
Keywords, Keywords, Keywords
Keywords should be inserted into your article at least once every 100 words. Keywords are the terms that people use to search for information. The search engines are able to locate information by searching for those keywords in your article. Find out what words and phrases to use and strategically place them throughout your content. Avoid overusing your words and phrases, as search engines have a way of identifying spam immediately and practically overlooking articles with heavy amounts of keywords altogether.
Use More Than One Directory
Submitting to more than one directory is important. You’ll gain a lot more exposure, resulting in more success. The best thing to do is to find out what directories are the most popular, and submit a different article to each one. Only use article submission software to submitting to low and medium quality directories and take your time to manually (format) submit unique content to the top 50 sites (based on homepage PR and Alexa ranking).
Make a Resource Box
A resource box provides information about the author, such as their name, the types of subjects they specialize in, their goal, their services, years of experience in business, etc. Creating a resource box at the end of each article is a great way to gain a much more positive reputation in regards to the services you provide. It also entices people to want to read more of your content.
Become an Expert
Whatever it is you choose to write about, it helps to become the ultimate expert in your field. For example, if you are writing articles to sell candles, find out everything there is to know about candles. Spending a few hours each week researching the background history of your product and finding out all information possible will make your content more interesting and help you to gain more readers. People will continue to look for your articles in hopes of finding out all the information they need.
Analyzing Competitor Information for Your Link Building Strategy
While creating a solid link building strategy can at times be overwhelming, with a good plan it should not be as difficult as it sounds. To begin, you always want to start with strong market research and competitive analysis. In other words, your best strategy will be to find out what the market wants and then design your strategy accordingly, rather than the other way around. A competitive analysis of the market lets you benchmark the best, strongest, and most worthwhile practices in your industry.
More established websites shouldn’t be seen as a threat. In fact, these can teach you a lesson or two. Indeed, studying competitor websites will give you an idea as to which link building strategies work, and which do not. Steps you can take include… [Read more…] about Analyzing Competitor Information for Your Link Building Strategy
10 Android Apps for Web Hosting Geeks
Whether you fancy web design, application development, server administration, or just managing your blogs, you are a web hosting geek. If you were not, you would not be reading this. Fortunately, if you happen to have a phone running the Android mobile operating system, we have found ten Android apps, in no particular order, to make designing, development, and server management a bit easier.
Contrary to some reports, FTP is not dead. This little app will give you just what you need to upload or download files from your server. AndFTP supports all major protocols, including SFTP, SCP, and FTPS for secure file transfers.
Because choosing just the right color can mean the difference between failure and getting paid, every web designer needs an app like this. Magic Color Picker uses both palette and slider selection and supports RGB, HSV, HSL, and YUV color models. [Read more…] about 10 Android Apps for Web Hosting Geeks
SEO vs. Social Media – Which Wins?
SEO & Social Media – It’s not a competition but a partnership
It used to be that SEO was the holy grail of Internet Marketing and the online world was ablaze with the opportunity and success of optimizing your website for the Search Engines to gain visibility, traffic, leads and sales.
Then, all of a sudden the social web exploded with Facebook, Twitter and Social Bookmarking where everyone could chat about your product or service, write a review and share it with their ‘friends’. [Read more…] about SEO vs. Social Media – Which Wins?
7 Site Analysis Tools to Make Your Blog Better
Whether you are a new webmaster or a seasoned blog owner, we all need outside input to help our site grow, spot weaknesses and find ways to improve our homes on the Web.
Though there is no substitute for human analysis and honest, personal feedback, there have been many attempts by developers to build automated feedback systems to help blog owners find areas they can improve their sites and discover their hidden strengths.
Though many of these tools quickly fell by the wayside, others provide valuable information that is both useful and actionable for webmasters.
On that note, here are seven automatic site analysis tools that you can use to help you achieve your goals on the Web and grow your presence online.
1. SiteReportCard: Though not the most in-depth tool on the Web, SiteReportCard provides a quick check up on how your site is doing in several key areas including broken links, page load time and HTML validity. Makes it easy to spot any glaring problems with your site that you might want to examine deeper. [Read more…] about 7 Site Analysis Tools to Make Your Blog Better
The Killer Is Dead – Stop Using Absolutes in Blog Posts
You’ve heard it before. SEO is dead. X service is a Facebook, Twitter, or Google killer. And here we are, multiple years after each of these things have been said, over, over, and over again, and none of the above things have happened.
Surely, some things have been killers of other things, and it’s been stated in a similar way. But if we look at history, these kinds of predictions have always been greatly exaggerated and always radically off. But they continue to come – and why? Because it’s traffic-bait, attention grabbing hyperbole that makes people stop and wonder if yes, their jobs will be lost or yes, someone else’s job is going to be lost.
But that shouldn’t be for you. [Read more…] about The Killer Is Dead – Stop Using Absolutes in Blog Posts
Why Bloggers Should Ditch the List Format
I know what you’re thinking. The list is a mainstay of blog writing. You see it on nearly every blog in existence. Heck, some blogs ONLY use the list format. And to demonstrate how firmly entrenched the list formatted blog entry is in the blogosphere, I myself was about to title this post “5 Reasons Why Bloggers Should Ditch the List Format” before I realized the irony. But if lists are so popular, why would any blogger in their right minds advise against it?
Well for starters, there are millions upon millions of blogs out there, each vying for their own plot of readers. In fact, a Blog Herald article noted recently that the task of counting how many blogs are out there is virtually impossible. [Read more…] about Why Bloggers Should Ditch the List Format