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Blogging Tricks Will Only Bring You Part of the Way

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Recently, I was working with someone that considers themselves an expert in social media marketing, SEO, and other popular terms these days for promoting a site and getting it some traffic. The person ran their ideas past me, and there were two things I quickly noticed.

The first was that they had probably read some blogs that told them to do various things to increase their SEO, things like bolding keywords, stuffing meta tags with keywords, and changing out H2 tags for H1 tags all in the hopes of beating their competitors.

The second was that they were focused on various tricks relating to creating landing pages, buying links, and other marketing methods.

All of the information this person passed by me was older information, most of which was nearly useless today as well as short sighted, with possible results that would end in disaster.

Imagine if you will, owning a blog for years, slowly building it up, trying to get to the next level in traffic, revenue and whatnot, hiring an “SEO expert” and having that person create, via tricks, some serious traffic.

You pay the person, thinking they’ve done a great job, and three months down the road, your site starts dropping in rankings, traffic dries up, and various other things happen that puts your site lower than it was before the “SEO expert” came along.

This is a far too common occurrence in blogging. Even the bloggers managing their sites make mistakes in SEO, marketing and social media in hopes of creating a hugely successful, viral, high positioned page that they can leverage in terms of making huge amounts of money or popularity that they can leverage in other ways.

People have to stop and realize that blogging tricks will only get you part of the way to your goals, and if done incorrectly they can actually cause huge setbacks.

Too much optimization, too overt in your self-promotion, and you’ll end up wishing you could undo your hard work.

The best advice I can give someone looking to do better with their blog would be to research as much as you can before you act in any way to effect your blog in any important way.

Don’t just leap into action after reading one person’s experience, and always check the age of the information because all the search engines are working hard at providing the best natural, gaming free search results.

Blogging Fear: Just Start Writing

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Recently, I was consulting with a business owner about starting her own blog. Darren Rowse, Problogger, referred her to me, and so I was excited to get started. One of my biggest passions is to teach, and there is nothing I love more than to see a business jumping into the blogging world.

She was very hesitant though. She had looked at many blogs and was awestruck by their high quality content, amazing editing, striking use of images, and she felt like competing would be hard. Then I told her that the blogs she was comparing herself to were years old. Both bloggers had already done hundreds of posts, and had refined their writing style, use of images, and editing over that period of time.

She was just starting out and like anything, blogging requires time, effort and practice to do amazingly. She begrudgingly started writing a post, and saved it as a draft for me to look over. Other than a few stylistic things like making some text bold and italics, the post looked great. She looked it over again and was finally ready to publish it. Nervously, she wanted to take it back.

We all have those doubts, those questions. “What if others think it is horrible? What if it doesn’t make sense to them?” In the end though, while the blogging is about helping build her business and brand, it is also an archive of her life as a businesswoman and should cater to her own desires first.

Quickly, the “bug” of publishing content online grew, and she was always thinking about what to put on the blog next.

This whole experience made me wonder if the issue with blogging is that too many people expect to be experts on day one. When you had your first day of school, did you know everything in the text books? When you started your first real job, were you the number one expert in your field? No! So why should blogging be any different? Be it as a hobby, career, or a promotional tool, blogging is like any other task from riding a bike, to building a business: it takes practice to do well.

Don’t let your fear stop you from producing content. Even if it doesn’t appeal to everyone, I highly doubt that with over six billion people living on the planet, that you won’t make a connection with at least one of them, and if you are really shy about your content, don’t promote your blog, just post what interests you. Use your blog as a tool to express yourself, and let come what may. It is your island, you control the design, content, comments, and more. Fear nothing, and get blogging!

The Disappearing Act

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If you’re reading this, there’s a healthy chance that you’ve either written for a blog network or managed one — you’ve done both. Blog networks are the magazine publishing companies of the Internet and though there obvious advantages to having your publication purely on the Internet, there are still some organizational pitfalls that blog networks encounter. I’ve thought about this on occasion and though the list can go on and on, writer dissatisfaction and communication problems actually stem forth from three behaviors. Here’s one.

The Disappearing Act
The joys of the Internet allows us to establish a “global frequency” of sorts around the world. if you’ve managed a blog network before you’ll be amazed with your newfound reach. But the same convenience comes with a price and that is .. all of a sudden your writer — or worse yet, your “tech ninja” disappears. No responses to emails. Nothing on Skype or IM. More than half the time, the reasons are justified and understandable. A loss in the family (knock on wood), a big residential move hence the lack of Internet, a storm or something tragic in that side of the world (I used to get emails of genuine concern from my Internet colleagues when they saw CNN reporting armored tanks storming into the business district of the Philippines a few years back).

As a network manager, you’d need to exercise judgment on how to deal with these situations. You’ve never met them in person, but there still should be some form of empathy. Now in other pejorative cases where your writers never respond (they continue to update their Facebook and personal blogs but not yours!) then actions should definitely be taken. Let me ask you. How long should you wait? One week? One month? No reply on the third email?

nota bene: Obviously we’re professional enough to understand that by writing this post I mean no specific reference to anyone I’ve dealt with in the past. These are general problems that many network owners and editors have experienced before and are experiencing today.

I’d love to hear about your experiences on how to remedy situations like this as it does help the industry become better 🙂

Creative Link Building

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When you run a website, whether it be a blog or a static site, aside from quality content, the name of the game is link building. Not only is building quality links essential to your strategy in terms of search engine rankings such as Google Page Rank, it’s also another way for Web surfers to find your site and obviously you want each and every inroad to your site that you can possibly get. The number one strategic concern for anyone with a Web presence has got to be obtaining links that legitimatize your business.

If you’ve already got high quality content that visitors want, then you’re ready for link building, but if not, then you’ll want to tackle that part of successful site construction first. Otherwise, the links you build will only point surfers to a disappointment and they aren’t likely to return. Returning visitors are the foundation of any good site, you need to make sure you please those you seek to bring to your site, or all the strategies and tactics in the world will do you no good.

Once you’ve built a site worth visiting, it’s time to hit the link building circuit. Link directories have now become known as ‘link farms’ and are frowned upon by search engines and visitors alike. Unless you can find an extremely high quality link directory that caters to the niche you’ve designed your site around, it’s best to try other methods of obtaining links. Blog commenting can work, but these days many blogs are no-follow, which means that search engines will not recognize the links as a valid means of judging the popularity of your site. That’s the bottom link in link building, from an SEO perspective: popularity. The more sites linking to your site, the more popular the search engines will consider it to be.

Social bookmarking can do wonders, but you want to be sparing with this technique. It’s widely used now and many spammers have invaded the scene. You can also use social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Myspace and Twitter to build links to your site. By pinging your profiles that you’ve built links to your site inside of, you can encourage the search engines to follow through to your site and link it. It’s extremely important to employ the maximum amount of creativity that you can in order to get links. Contact sites you admire and ask for a link. Use friendliness and any people skills you have. If you’re not a people person yourself, why not have a friend who is contact them on your behalf? If you are running multiple blogs and don’t have much time for doing link building yourself there are many websites these days that offer it as a service such as Notable.com.sg: https://notable.com.sg/link-building-singapore/

Linkbaiting can lead to links. If you blog about someone on the Web who offers real value, often these people will check their incoming links and then check your site. If they like it, odds are good that they’ll link back. You can offer services such as blog posts to bloggers and even write articles for static sites. Using article marketing can be a powerful way to generate links, but a personal approach to a webmaster with the offer of a free article? That’s a favor they’re very likely to return. You might also try to make videos that you could post on YouTube and then offer them up to be embedded on blogs across the net. Many times, people will link to your site in exchange for a quality or just plain fun video.

Use your imagination and the sky is the limit for link building.

Don’t waste time on old methods that are being overused and may soon go extinct. Push the envelope and use your personality. If you’re serious then provide seriously useful content for others. Do the favor first and you’ll be surprised by how generous many people will be in return. If you’re artistic then offering graphics, music, photographs or other forms of art could net you quite a few high quality links. If you’re known for your sense of humor, why not work that angle and come up with a hilarious post for bloggers or a video that’ll bring a smile to people’s faces? Don’t be afraid to try something new because you cannot know until you give it your best shot. That’s how new methods are developed, trial and error.

In the end, it’s up to you to make your link building campaign successful. There’s no reason to shy away from any new technique you believe might help your site out. The Web is for innovation so if you aim your efforts in that direction and stay persistent, you will absolutely see success.

Success in the Business of Blogging is More than Passion

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Over the last four years, I have watched as many successful bloggers stopped blogging, and new bloggers took their place. Having success in the business of blogging requires more than passion, and I think that is something far too few people make sure to mention.

If you want to have a successful business where your primary product is your blog, then you might want to think long and hard before you dive in.

Creating a business from blogging is like any other business. You need to think about what you are trying to build, and come up with a plan to get there.

Organize Your Thoughts and Ideas
If you can write down an idea map, or even just a procedural list of your goals and how you want to accomplish them, you’ll be further along than many. Giving yourself clear points of comparison is key. While many people become successful by accident, there are just as many that do so because they know what they want.

I consider myself fairly successful in the niche that I targeted, but the wider web audience don’t know me from Adam. The reason for this is that I wasn’t trying to make myself successful and well-known in all niches, but instead, I focused in, and since the competition was less in the niche I chose, I was able to make great strides and earned enough community clout and success to keep myself employed for the past four years.

Network, network, NETWORK!
If there is one tip regarding business success that I enjoy giving out, it is to network with others. I feel like I go back and forth between being an introvert and an extrovert, but in the end, I have met many people, and connected with my fair share. I can pull out an e-mail list of network connections, and if I’ve done things right, I can get more than a few of them to help me out, give ideas or feedback, and even help promote my work. Network connections can mean the difference between getting your site, business or idea in front of a few hundred and a few hundred thousand.

Timing and Luck
With success, there is always an “X-Factor”. You can do everything right, and keep within budgets, meet metrics, and never see the doubling effect growth curve that some of your competitors might see, and that is because there is something to be said for luck and timing.

Many people recognize the name Jeff Chandler within the WordPress circle of enthusiasts, and I would hazard a guess that more recognize his name than my own. I’ve been using and talking about WordPress since I began, four years ago, while Jeff is relatively new to the software and the community. What he was able to do in such a short amount of time was bring a community and brand around himself in a way that I’ve never been able to do. I’ve had more people recognize me as the co-host of his successful podcast, than for any of the other projects I’ve ever done.

Other Factors
Of course there are many other factors regarding success in the business of blogging, and for each person, the goals or point of success might be different, but what far too many people forget is that blogging can be a business, and like any business there is more to it than just creating a product, or being a service. Marketing, network connections, skill, timing, luck, and a savvy mind can help your business go a long way.

How to Find People to Follow on Twitter

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We’ve all heard of how awesome Twitter is for social media marketing, but you may not know how to get started. One of the most important and basic things for Twitter marketing is finding people to follow.

Here are a couple ways to do that, so you can start networking with active people in your industry.

1. Search Twellow.

With the popularity of Twitter, Twitter profile directories have started popping up. Twellow is my favorite one. It’s pretty easy to use. Just enter the name of your niche in the search box and you’ll get a list of profiles that are interested in your niche. The profiles will be ordered by followers so you can easily follow the most popular ones.

2. Search Twitter itself.

You can use Twitter’s search function to see which people are currently talking about your industry. Simply search for the name of your industry or other related keywords. Then, check out the profiles and see how often they actually tweet about your niche. The ones that are big fans of your industry are great candidates to follow.

3. Check out bloggers.

Check the active blogs in your niche to see if they have a Twitter feed or a link to a Twitter account. Many bloggers have become active on Twitter, so this method is an easy way to find people to follow.

4. Find out who other people follow.

Once you’ve found some quality Twitter profiles, browse through their friends and see who they follow. I’ve found great people through this technique. Oftentimes, there are quality Twitterers that are under the radar because they don’t follow a lot of people. However, you can find out about them with this technique since many people usually follow them.

If someone follows a lot of people and you don’t want to wade through all their friends, you can ask them for the top 10 people they like to follow.

Over to You

How have you found people to follow on Twitter?

This is a guest post from TwitQA.com, a twitter tool where you can ask and answer questions.

Getting Links to your Blog

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Is your blog not experiencing the volume of traffic that you would like to see? One of the major flaws that many blog owners do not consider is the importance of links and linking. Links are to a blog, what highways are to the automotive world. Without highways, information, people, and goods cannot reach their destination. The same is true when talking about links. You can post the most credible or well written blog on the internet, but without proper linking from your post, or to it, the information you have provided is simply that: yours.

Links take readers of other blogs and different miscellaneous websites to areas of the internet that they normally would never have gone. Your blog might just be one of the areas that are outside of their comfort zone. These internet users are crucial to your blog’s survival. One of the most important reasons why it is essential to build a large linking network to your blog is how much higher you rank in search engines.

One of the methods that search engines like Google and Yahoo! use to rank their pages is how many other websites link to it. For example, a site that has fifty sites linking to it is more likely to be higher on a search engine list than a website that has ten. Keep in mind that this is not always the case, but this is definitely a good rule of thumb.

Another element that is crucial to the growth of your blog is the quality of the links that you provide. While gaining reputation through other websites, you have to ask yourself if the websites that are linking to you are doing you any good. If your blog is on the best Super Nintendo games of all time and you are getting links from sites that focus on the poverty of developing nations, then search engines are not going to take your blog seriously. If, however, you can find a way to talk to Nintendo itself and convince them to link to your blog, then your credibility and influence is going to be greatly affected in a positive way. It takes a combination of quality and quantity for your blog to gain strength on multiple search engines.

Again, it is the goal of a successful website or blog to be first on a search engine’s results, or at least on the first page. While this process may take a while, if you produce quality content, then you can be sure that you will succeed.

The most important part about linking is actually convincing someone to link to you. There are two methods that almost all blog owners use, due to their ease and effectiveness. One method is to actually write on someone else’s blog; a quick article is usually sufficient. This is a quick and easy way to simply show the bloggers on that site that you exist, and as long as you produce great content, then many of them will stop at your blog regularly. The more direct route that many blog owners use is to just simply ask another website’s owner if he/she would be willing to link to you. Sometimes this method works beautifully.

Sometimes the person you asked may want to barter with you, such as an exchange of links. Just remember, the worst thing that can happen to you if you ask someone is that they will just say no. Simply thank them for their time and move on.

Eventually, your blog will begin to contain multiple links to and from many websites. Keep in mind that linking is equally affected by the quality and quantity of your linking potential.

How much traffic is Bing sending to your blog?

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I thought it would be interesting, a couple of weeks in, to see how much traffic Microsoft’s new Bing search engine was sending to a range of blogs I have stats access to.

While it’s very early days and the sample size I have access to is fairly limited compared to the web statistics collection companies, it does suggest that Microsoft has a long way to go to begin challenging Yahoo, let alone Google.

Bing’s highest share was on my personal blog, which covers a range of topics including technology and current affairs. Even there it mustered just 2.35%, putting it in second place behind Google’s massive 93% lead. It seems to have taken some market share from Yahoo and AOL.

On a site about families and relationships, Bing accrued 0.5% of the share in the past two weeks. Here it possibly took a little share from Google, though the giant still had over 90%.

On a large general consumer technology site, Bing managed 0.67%, putting it in fourth place, though it took no share from Google or Yahoo.

Bing did less well, accruing just 0.46%, on an iPhone-related blog, while on a blog about high definition TVs it scraped 0.69%.

Hardly anything to write home about.

iTWire reports that StatCounter search engine market share data also showed Bing got just a fraction of a percentage point.

It’s hard to get an idea of the keywords and phrases someone uses to find each site differs between Google and Bing because Bing’s sample size is so small. The fact is, with such a huge market share and history of crawl, the list of keywords from Google is huge and far more varied.

When it comes to how many pages have been indexed and listed (using the “site:” modifier, which isn’t perfect), Google often seems to return more results than Bing, though some larger sites have more returns from Microsoft’s engine.

It’s unfair to draw conclusions just a fortnight after Bing launched. At one level, I’d like to see Google’s dominance challenged just a bit by some other players, as it reduces our reliance on one company to send visitors to our sites. At the moment, though, Microsoft is playing catchup with everyone else.

Have you noticed any significant influx of visitors from Bing or is Google still your main search engine traffic driver?