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4 Of The Best WordPress Search Plugins

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A well placed and visible search bar is essential for your website or blog, a visitor who cant see what they are looking for is going to look for where they can search for the page or content they need, if they have to spend more than a few seconds looking for the search bar the chances are that they will lose interest and leave. Multiple this by hundreds or thousands of visitors all leaving your site and this could do serious damage to your website or business! Your search bar is also a treasure trove of user data which can be used to see what your audience is looking for on your site, this information can then be used to refine your content and keep readers engaged  and staying on your site all of which result in positives from better time on site signals to Google that can improve your rankings in the SERPs.

WordPress comes with its own search function built in and it does a good job of bringing back search keyword information however its only been since the 3.7 update less than 18 months ago that  ranks by relevancy were fixed and also cannot perform searches for specifics such as comments or tags.

Luckily there are many excellent alternatives out there for WordPress both paid and free, here’s a run down of 4 of the best: [Read more…] about 4 Of The Best WordPress Search Plugins

The 3 Low Hanging Fruits of Blog Content Creation

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Cherry PickingCreating new content for your blog can get nerve-wracking. This is most evident once you have run out of things to talk about or are undergoing blogger’s block or writing fatigue after having written multiple posts on a consistent basis. Even though you’re in this funk, you still need to produce valuable content on your blog to appease your readers and maintain the relevancy of your blog through constant updates.

If you think you’ve exhausted your well of ideas for your blog, then let these easy-to-do content hacks help you come up with fresh and exciting angles for your posts.

Create articles out of Quora threads

Quora_logo

Quora inherited the mantle from Yahoo! Answers as the premier Q&A online site. It hosts a variety of questions from users about anything under the sun and answers from influencers and subject matter experts. From a blogger’s standpoint, this is a great place to perform content curation in which you find ideas for your upcoming posts on your blog. In order to do this, you can search for questions within your niche that you haven’t covered on your blog and turn their answers into a blog post.

Feature posts from other bloggers

One way to attract attention of your target audience to your blog is to feature posts of other bloggers related to your topic on a weekly basis.

To do this, you will need a set a feed reader like Feedly to find blogs that publish valuable information about your niche to be included in your feed. Once you have set up your feed dedicated to a specific topic, monitor the posts that appear on your feed and take note of those that provide value to your readers.

Another way of doing this is by going to BuzzSumo and searching for a keyword phrase related to your blog topic. The result will show you the most shared and viral content over a period of time. You can filter the results so that it will reveal to your specific kinds of content (articles, videos, infographics, etc.) and the specific range of time when the posts were published (within 24 hours, a week, a month).

Collect the posts published within the week and create a post on your blog that links to these content pieces. Examples of great weekly roundups can be found from Mashable’s Weekly App Roundup and Social Media Examiner’s This Week in Social Media. Dedicate time to create weekly roundups that link back to posts from other bloggers so you can create new content on your blog using existing ones.

Mine insightful posts on Reddit and expand them

256px-Reddit

Reddit is a community site that runs on user-generated content by way of sharing links, meme, and ideas to usher intelligent discussion with like-minded people. Once you have gotten acquainted with the site – the different subreddits, the acronyms, the running gags – you will be able to tap into the power of the rich content found here.

The first thing you need to do is find the right subreddit about your niche or industry. From here, browse through the highest rated and most talked-about topics and comments made on the subreddit. Find those that you can expound on your blog and put your own spin into things. By doing this, you automate your content idea generation by letting other people from Reddit do the job for you.

Since news moves fast in Reddit, you can also watch out for updates from the site that you can newsjack on your blog. For instance, Jezebel covered an ongoing discussion at r/funny that featured a picture of a Sikh woman with facial hair. The best thing about the discussion was that the woman whose photo was taken intelligently responded to the post, which elicited an apology from the original poster. Monitor these kinds of user activity on your subreddit to simplify your content creation.

More on blog content creation:

Exploring Blog Content Alternatives: Video

Killer content is crucial to blogging traffic

 

Best Ways to Promote Your Blog Online

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blog promotion

It’s undeniable that blogging today is one of the most effective and powerful tools for promoting brands, products and services. But it’s not enough that a business owner or company creates a blog. There should also be an effort to further promote the blog through various avenues particularly on the web.

Promoting your blog online means making sure that more people are aware of it and gaining more readers and customers moving forward. This may take time and patience but those who are doing it and are reaping the rewards can testify that it’s worth the effort.

So while the new year is just starting, consider taking these steps to raise awareness of your blog on the web.
[Read more…] about Best Ways to Promote Your Blog Online

5 Free Photo Editors For Viral Image Creation

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Thanks to the exploding popularity of sites like Pinterest and Wanelo have shown that creating visual interpretations of content (like infographic creation), as well as substituting images for the written word itself, can have a big impact. As the web gets larger and larger, it seems like its users are looking toward a more beautifully-design Internet that both inspires and educates them.

Photo manipulation has grown from correction to more of an art form, allowing anyone with an iPhone and the Instagram app to create edited photos with filters applied, easily and in a matter of seconds. This has created a demand for more photo apps that have greater features that are easy to use but can make a photo look how a user wants it.

If part of your social media strategy includes quotes or sharing images of projects or products, then the following free photo editors can certainly help. Each has its own benefits and set of unique tools that can make any image posted on your social media accounts, websites, or blogs stand out better than ever.

Pixlr

Pixlr is a popular and easy to use app because it mimics the major tools of Adobe Photoshop, but it is free and online. This means that you can access Pixlr from any internet browser without having to download (or pay for) any software. Pixlr is great for basic image correction and editing, including resizing, color correction, and cropping. It is easy to save images and the process is fast. Pixlr also has an app for iOS.

PicMonkey

PicMonkey is what most Insatgrammers probably envisioned a great photo editor should be. The controls and options have fun references (e.g. you save file sizes as Roger (Federer? Ebert?), Pierce (Brosnan), or Sean (Penn)) and there are so many creative and fun features: cool fonts, seasonal clip art add-ons you can lay on top of your photos, custom filters that can be applied to only certain parts of the image, beauty filters like wrinkle remover and blemish fix, and so much more.

There are certain fonts and features that are only accessible with a paid membership, which is $4.99/month or $33 per year.

QuotesCover

QuotesCover is an image editor that was created to put words on patterns or images, with a typographic, artistic emphasis. There are hundreds of quotes you can already choose from on the site, as well as color combinations to create the perfect background. You can also upload your own words or images for the background. When you have chosen your words, you chose from 5 different image types: Facebook Cover, New Google Plus Cover, Viral Images (these are square), computer wallpaper maker, and for art prints.

Once you have chosen your image size, it then takes you to a creation tool where you can choose from pre-designed font and color combinations. You can also add your image background.

5 free photo editors

Once you are ready to download your image, click Download Picture. When saving, do not change the file name until the image is downloaded. Otherwise it won’t download (for reasons unclear).

Using the viral image size is also a great option for creating unique Pinterest pins that can help get your Pinterest account more traffic.

FotoFlexer

This free image editor is online as well. It has a robust set of features and lets you upload a photo from your computer as well as get your photos from a variety of online sources, including Facebook, Flickr, and SmugMug. Once you have chosen your photo, you can begin to make edits, which include the ability to fix red eye, smooth wrinkles, add glitter text and stickers, or even a border. There are also a wide selection of effects (or filters, to the Instagrammers) to add to the photo.

There is even a Geek section, which allows you to use Smart Resize, Smart Recolor, and the Morph feature. Because of its fun stickers and actual photo editing features, FotoFlexer is a great choice for creating viral images with text or just retouching a few images that need help with coloration or red-eye.

GIMP

GIMP is the only downloadable program on this list, and it is most similar to Photoshop. For that reason, it is useful to have some Photoshop experience before using it. GIMP is completely free and has a variety of features, including a customizable interface, photo enhancement, and the ability to open several different kinds of photo formats, including .PSD, the default Photoshop format. GIMP is a great alternative to Photoshop and while it cannot do everything that Photoshop can, it is a great alternative, especially because it is free!

 

While these are just some of the copious amounts of free image editors online today, these 5 will give you a great start toward creating viral images that could help you get more traffic and views online.

Three Places to Syndicate Your Internet Marketing or Social Media Content

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If you have a blog with regular, great content, it may beneficial for traffic to get it syndicated on another website that brings in more traffic. There are several options for websites that syndicate content. To find one in your niche (if it isn’t internet marketing or social media), all it takes is some googling of industry keywords plus “blog syndication” or other variations.

Google News

Google News is a great resource to get syndicated on, but its process can be tedious, especially if all the guidelines aren’t followed. Once a website is syndicated, it must maintain the guidelines. The stories that are chosen by Google to appear on are by computer algorithm; websites cannot choose which of their pieces of content are going to get published on news.google.com.

However, based on the Panda update, having continuous fresh and unique content that makes an impact are most likely to get picked up by the Google News Algorithm.  Additionally, content may only appear in the Google News results for a month or so, depending on relevancy.

Business2Community

Business2Community is a great website that always has good content. There is sometimes a bit of a wait to get accepted for syndication as a Contributor, and once you are, your pieces of content are chosen by editors and you don’t have control over what gets published. Business2Community also allows its readers to contact authors through a contact form and always gives links back to the original article.

The articles on Business2Community get shared via social media regularly and the site has done a great job of promoting its contributors.

Social Media Today

Social Media Today is a lot like Business2Community when it comes to syndicating content, except it’s choosing process is more automatic and it focuses on social media-related pieces of content. If your blog covers anything about social media, it is easy to apply; once you have been accepted, you can also write unique pieces of content for the site fairly easily. This would be a great way to get exposure for unique pieces of content that are only published on Social Media Today.

Getting notification about acceptance is pretty fast and the site is vast, yet very easy to use.

When it comes to content marketing, especially if you are a blog or business offering related types of services, it is important to get as much exposure as possible. Syndicating your existing content can be an easy way to do this.

 

Why You Should Use Performance Marketing

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The Marketing Metrics Continuum provides a fra...

You’ve got a business, you want to increase your sales (duh!) and you want a larger Internet presence and market share. In the old days, you know, circa 1992, you could put an ad in the local paper, you could run an ad on television (1 minute  = $$$) or you could try radio (1 minute spot = $+ a half $). As for marketing, you could slap your logo on a hat, pen, refrigerator magnet, tote bag (think PBS’ annual telethon), and then go to conventions and trade shows to give them all away.

Several of these methods still work. Television works, but it’s even more expensive now than it was back then. Same with radio. You can advertise in the local paper, but in all likelihood, the only person who will see it is your grandmother, and unless she’s your target demographic, kiss your ROI goodbye. [Read more…] about Why You Should Use Performance Marketing

How to Work With Bloggers for Social Media Contests

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How to Work With Bloggers for Social Media Contests

Bloggers that cover topics within your business’ industry can be a great untapped resource when it comes to promoting your social media presence to your target market. Some bloggers may be willing to post company-sponsored giveaways and guest posts on their blogs. These two options can help a company reach people who are interested in their products without spending a lot of money on advertising or branding campaigns.

Reaching Out

Send an inquiry letter to the blog owner or head writer offering to either do a blog post or giveaway on their blog. Try not to come across as salesy or spammy– otherwise your inquiry email might just get deleted immediately without consideration. Bloggers are getting requests for these types of promotions on a regular base so do your research. Come up with one or two specific things you like about their blog (such as a certain post or reoccurring feature) to prove that you are a regular reader. Be respectful and positive– bloggers encounter so much negativity and scrutiny on a regular basis so it’s important to come across as a great company to work with.

Guest Posts

Offer to do an original guest post on their blog (or compensate them for writing it) that includes some information about your business’ products. This content must also not be too salesy or spammy, as it can affect the blogger’s reputation and may turn off readers. At the end of the post, some blogs may allow you to give your social media profile links to get their readers to further interact with you online if they are interested.

Giveaways

Another option is to offer to host a giveaway of your products (or of a gift card to a well-known retailer, like Amazon) to readers of the blog. The acceptance policy of giveaway promotions will vary widely depending on the blog, so be sure to follow all the guidelines. Using a giveaway widget like Rafflecopter is an easy way to integrate social media into the giveaway. Make sure that the giveaway items are worth the effort it takes to enter. For instance, if a hair product company only gave away 1 hairbrush, it might not entice readers as much as a hair products gift basket with shampoo, conditioner, a flat iron, styling spray, and a Beauty Brands gift card.  Bigger giveaways will get more attention.

These are just two options when it comes to working with bloggers to promote your social media and overall online presence.

Do you have any other ideas? Let us know in the comments.