“How much blog traffic does your company’s blog receive?”

A blog is an easy way to provide information to current customers and potential customers. It can also:

• Increase your company’s page rank.
• Help your company gain media attention.
• Position your company as the ‘expert’ or ‘go-to’ business within your industry.
• Increase sales and profits.
• Assist you with keeping on top of customers concerns, needs, and wants.

Most customers expect businesses to have a blog on their website or a link to a blog. If your company doesn’t have one, it’s time to ask, “Why not?” Taking advantage of blogging is a cost effective marketing tool. Used properly, it can increase company sales and profits.

Boost Your Blog Traffic Today With Three Simple Steps

Client's Blog Busted by Millions of Visitors Photo by John Evans-Stock Exchange Visit www.thetippingpoint.co.uk

Provide killer content for your target audience.

Customers and potential customers want quick, valuable information that will help them solve whatever problem(s) they have. Give them what they want!

After you’ve polled or surveyed your customers, think about blog topics.

Example … If your company is a graphic and web design firm targeting small businesses, you could have blog posts on the following:

• How to get your small business noticed with a logo that stands out.
• How color psychology can boost web traffic.
• How a redesign of your blog can boost blog traffic.

The next step is to write headlines that stop readers’ in their tracks.

Using the above ‘graphic and web design company’ example above, possible headlines for the blog post topics are:

Company X’s Logo on Billboard Stops Rush Hour Traffic

Company X’s Website Makeover Attracts Celebrity Shoppers

Company X Big Fat Blog Traffic Results in 20 Million Hits

Use short and simple sentences.

Use bold headings and bullet points.

Don’t use industry jargon if your audience won’t understand it.

Tip: Think of writing blog posts like writing screenplays. There’s a beginning (Act I, introduction; plot point or big event), middle (Act II, conflict; arc of the story; midpoint), and end (Act III, the resolution).

Remember, blogging isn’t about your company. It’s about helping your customers solve whatever problems they need solving. Blogging is also a good sales and marketing tool.

Optimize content with SEO.

Search engine optimization or SEO can be both time consuming and a pain in the neck. You want to optimize your blog posts. But on the other hand, you want to provide valuable content to readers. The good news is you can do both. However, I suggest putting more emphasis on content.

You can research keywords using Google AdWords Keyword Tool or another program to find the ‘best’ keywords/phrases for your blog. Select keywords/phrases and test them in blog posts. An “A/B” testing is a good way to analyze traffic to see which blog posts received the most blog traffic.

In addition to using Google Analytics, check out HitsLink. The company provides you with in-depth analysis of your blog/website. Reports are easy to download. In my opinion, HitsLink doesn’t seem as cumbersome to use as Google Analytics.

Find the right ‘tone and voice’ for your blog.

Keep your target audience in mind when you think about tone and voice. Tone is the ‘author’s attitude (or mood) towards a subject. Voice is the personality, point of view, or style of writing. Examples of voice are:

• Funny
• Upbeat
• Serious
• Trendy
• Dark
• Snarky
• Matter-of-fact

It’s usually recommended that blog posts have a conversational, friendly voice. However, there’s a difference if your blog’s audience is for those in finance organizations vs. parents of toddlers.

Conduct research on what your target audience is reading. See what others are writing in your industry. Test blog posts to see which ones receive the most comments and traffic.

Extra Blog Traffic Tips 

1. Who is your target audience? Are they chefs or stay-at-home moms? If you don’t know ‘who’ your target audience is you can’t provide them with awesome content. This is where newer businesses stumble. They don’t know ‘who’ their target market is.

2. What problems are you solving? What problems do your customers need solving? How do you find out? Take a poll or survey using Survey Monkey, a provider of free online survey solutions. SurveyMonkey offers customers more features with one of their paid subscription plans.

3. Once you know ‘who’ your target audience is build a relationship with them. Or, continue to develop the relationship with a successful blog that provides killer content. Hook visitors with brilliant content, and they’ll come back for more.

Warning! If you use these three simple steps to increase blog traffic, your website could be busted overnight. You have a webmaster in-house, right?

Has your website experienced blog traffic overload? Share.

Related articles

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• 4 Ways to Tell if You’re Getting the Right Visitors to Your Business Blog (contentmarketinginstitute.com)
• 7 Lessons I learned from Increasing My Search Engine Traffic by 200% in 6 Months (dailyblogtips.com)

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Having a blog on your company’s website or linked to your website is a cost effective online marketing tool. It’s important to provide content that will attract visitors, keep them interested, and convert them into customers. Place social media icons on your blog to make sharing easier. Have a conversation on Facebook and Twitter to show followers and fans that your company is interested in what they have to say. Show your care and concern.

Below you’ll find 7 dust-busting techniques that will clean your blog and make it shine again.

How to Clean and Refresh Your Company’s Blog 

Redesign it.

The design implemented three years ago could be out-of-date today. It’s important to stay on top of the latest design trends. Pay attention to the color scheme. A bold color scheme could work for an entertainment business, but not for your medical practice.

Rewrite blog content.

Rewrite or hire a freelance writer/blogger to rewrite old content. This is a great content strategy to breathe new life into your blog. Perhaps, the content is outdated or didn’t make a good first impression when it was originally posted. Perhaps, blog posts weren’t optimized with keywords/phrases.

Rewrites could dramatically increase web traffic.

Tip: A headline on a blog post is just as important as a headline on a print article. You still have to ‘hook’ readers.

Ask questions.

Asking questions at the end of blog posts is a web traffic building strategy that most freelance writers and bloggers use. A question shows visitors that you want to know what they think — your company’s interested in having and maintaining a conversation with them.

Revise the writing style and tone.

What’s the tone of the current blog content? Style and tone can affect blog traffic. This is why it’s important to know ‘who’ the target audience is. For example, if your target audience is marketing directors, the content should be targeted to this audience by incorporating industry jargon and lingo. However, if your target audience is the ‘everyday’ consumer, avoid using industry terms. Your message will become muddled and lost. Customers will gravitate to your competitors’ content because it’s easy to understand.

Change the structure of blog posts.

There are many ways to structure blog posts. The most common way is:

• Headline
• Bullet headline
• Information

However, you don’t have to follow this pattern. Be bold and try something new such as:

• Headline
• Quote
• Information
• Headline
• Quote
• Information

Tips

• Keep sentences short and to the point.
• Use bold headlines and bullet points.
• When it comes to links, use a different color to stand out from the crowd.

Test different structures to see which ones receive the most ‘tweets’ and ‘likes.’ One thing that never changes is that web content must be compelling and interesting.

Post consistently.

How fresh is your company’s blog content? Is it posted consistently? You don’t have to publish a blog post every day; however, choose a schedule that works for your company. Perhaps, you’ll post twice a week or twice a month. Whatever you do, be consistent.

Try new angles.

Types of posts such as “How To” and “Lists” work because they’re fast and easy to read. But, you may want to ‘shake’ things up by publishing a controversial post here and there. If you disagree with your competitors, say so. If you disagree with industry trends, write about it (or have your freelance writer/blogger, write about it). There’s no harm in voicing your opinions. It’s a great way to jump start a conversation.

Use these blog ‘dust busting’ techniques to wipe the slate clean on your company’s blog. Experiment with different types of posts from “How To” to “Tips.” What works? What doesn’t work? Analyze the results to find out which posts had the most visitors and comments. Remember to keep your target market in mind when posting web content. Once your company discovers a strategy that works, stick with it. But don’t ignore new trends either. Stay on top of the ever changing world of blogging.

What are you doing to prevent your blog from collecting dust? Share.

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You may be shocked to know that some companies and entrepreneurs buy their Twitter followers. Can you believe it? Talk about being fake and unnatural! Why would anyone by followers? Well, it gives the ‘illusion’ of having a strong Twitter following.

Did you know that followers could be spam accounts? What happens when clients or customers start to follow some of the accounts that follow your company only to find out they’re spam? They probably won’t be too impressed with your company for too long.

You can increase your Twitter followers the natural and organic way by following the steps below. You don’t need artificial Twitter followers!

How to Gain Twitter Followers the Natural, Organic Way Instead of Buying Them

Image via CrunchBase

Upload your company’s logo.

Please don’t use the ‘egg’ which is the default image Twitter uses. You don’t want your company to be labeled as a ‘spam’ account. If this happens, you risk not having any followers.

Uploading your company’s logo is easy to do. Adjust the size to Twitter’s max size of 700k.

An eye-catching bio attracts followers.

Tell everyone on Twitter about your company in 160 characters or less. If you’re not sure what to write, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• What makes your company unique?
• What sets your company apart from other companies within your industry?
• How do your employees contribute to the success of your company and its customers?
• What do you offer that other companies don’t?

Write or hire a freelance writer to write a compelling bio that ‘shows’ everyone on Twitter ‘why’ they should follow your company. Don’t forget to include links to your company blog, other web pages, or other social media accounts.

Tip: Hold a contest and ‘tweet’ about it. People love to enter contests. More importantly, they love to win free stuff!

Use Twitter on a daily basis.

How much time do you spend on Twitter? Many social media experts and gurus will advise you to hire a community manager or social media manager who’ll spend 30+ hours per week on social media. Before you do this, answer the following questions:

• How large is your company in terms of sales and revenues?
• How many employees do you have?
• How large is your client, consumer, or customer base?
• What is the vision for growth for the next three to five years?
• Where do you see the company in five years?

If your company is as large as Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, etc., you may want to hire a social media manager (or outsource) who’ll work 30+ hours per week handling your social media networks.

Small business owners, consider hiring a part-time employee to handle your social media efforts. Spending 15 minutes per day on Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, etc. can increase your web presence and traffic. You can adjust the amount of (+ or -) time needed to be spent as your social media networks grow over a period of time.

Engaging with clients and customers shows that you’re doing everything possible to interact with them; you’re taking an interest in them. They’re not just a sale to you.

Share valuable content that will be retweeted.

Having a blog could work for your company. If you’re not interested in having a blog, consider posting free articles or giving away eBooks, white papers, tutorial videos, power point presentations, etc. Just give something away that readers will find valuable.

Tip: Retweet your followers’ posts share their content as well.

Don’t be afraid to add “Please Retweet” at the end of a tweet because studies have shown that ‘tweets’ without it receive less retweets. There’s no harm in asking your followers to share what you’ve posted.

Upload pictures.

Don’t be afraid to ‘tweet’s pictures from your company picnic or charitable event. This is a great way to show how your company ‘thanks’ employees for their hard work. It’s also a good way to show how your company and employees support a charitable organization within the community.

If your company started its own not-for-profit as a way to give back to the community, Twitter is smart way to ‘spread’ the word about it. Ask for the community’s support in terms of volunteering and or donating money. This is a good way to show how your company cares about the community and everyone in it.

Remember, sometimes a picture is worth more than 1,000 words!

Have patience.

You could grow your Twitter followers overnight if you buy them. However, it’s always best to grow followers the natural, organic way. Think about the following question:

What’s more important, quality or quantity?

You could buy Twitter followers and suddenly have 25,000, 50,000, 100,000, 250,000, etc. followers. However, what good does it do if you’re not converting them or receiving leads and referrals? If you want authentic followers, be patient and grow your Twitter followers over time.

These are some tips on how your company can gain Twitter followers the natural and organic way. No preservatives added!

How has your company increased its Twitter followers? Share.

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Your company may have incorporated a blog on its website or have a blog linked to your company’s website. Your company probably uses social media, hoping it will increase your web traffic, sales, and revenues. Unfortunately, if a blog post (or other web content) isn’t compelling or you don’t have enough posts, your blog will remain stagnant.

Follow the five blog post tips below to increase web traffic.

5 Blog Post Tips to Increase Web Traffic 

Content-Content Interaction (Formal) (Photo credit: jrhode)

Select the right primary and secondary keywords/phrases.

You’ve probably heard this a million times already, but it begs repeating. Selecting and optimizing the ‘right’ primary and secondary keywords/phrases for your blog posts can increase web traffic.

To find out which keywords/phrases work for your company, test them by using the “A/B Testing” method.

Select a couple of keywords/phrases and use them within pages and Google AdWords (if you advertise on the web) in addition to blog posts.

Look at the number of clicks and impressions for the keywords/phrases. Which keywords/phrases receive the most clicks and impressions? What are the conversion rates? Knowing this information is useful when your choose keywords/phrases.

Once you have your primary and secondary keywords/phrases, hire a freelance writer, content manager, or social media manager to write your company’s web content, ‘tweets’ and Facebook status updates.

Optimizing ‘tweets’ and Facebook status updates with your keywords/phrases can increase web traffic. Try it today!

Write a blog post in a conversational tone.

Writing for the web is different than writing for print. A blog post should be written using simple and short sentences. If you don’t already use the Flesch-Kincaid method to analyze your blog posts, you may want to consider it.

Flesch-Kincaid Score 

90-100 : Very Easy

80-89 : Easy

70-79 : Fairly Easy

60-69 : Standard

50-59 : Fairly Difficult

30-49 : Difficult

0-29 : Very Confusing

It’s important to write web content that has a score of at least 60 or higher. The higher the number means the web content is easy to read.

Most journalists write newspaper and magazine articles that score a 70 and above. They use simple language to get their point across.

Pay attention to the word count of a blog post.

Most freelance bloggers and freelance writers will tell you a blog post should be 300 words to 700 words. However, I’ve read many blog posts that are over 700 words. Heck! I write blog posts that exceed 700 words.

Tip: About Pages, Bios, and other pages are usually 500 words.

Base the word count on your audience.

Ask a question at the end of a blog post.

If you want to start a conversation, ask a question at the end of a blog post. This is a good way to entice visitors to post comments which begins a dialogue between you and your target market.

You could automate an email response such as, “Thank you for reading our blog. We appreciate it!” However, you may want to answer a few emails personally or have your social media or content manager respond.

Tip: Ask a question or take a poll on your social media networks.

Speaking of responding … Make sure your content manger or social media manager responds to comments. Readers who make thoughtful comments want to know if someone from the company is paying attention to them.

If you receive too many comments (100 or more) you could always close comments.

Bold headlines get attention.

Writing headlines takes patience and practice.  A bold headline will stop readers’ in their tracks — they’ll have to read your web content.

Most copywriters will spend at least 30 minutes or one hour writing the perfect headline. This may seem outrageous, but it really isn’t.

Think about it. How much do you think the writers at top selling magazines earn for writing headlines? I won’t keep you in suspense — they earn a boatload of money! It is worth it to pay writers a high salary if a magazine receives a high ROI.

It’s all about ROI (return on investment). If your company wants to increase their ROI, it’s worth it to pay a copywriter top dollar for writing headlines.

These are some blog post tips that can increase your company’s blog web traffic.

Make sure your freelance writer or staff writer keeps the company’s target audience in mind when writing a blog post.

Writing a blog post is different from writing an editorial article. Most of the time a blog post will be shorter than a 1,000 word print article. However, there are exceptions to the rule. This is why it’s important to know your target audience. Write for them!

What is your biggest challenge with blog posts? Share.

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Social media and SEO are strategies to increase business and profitability. What happens if your employees don’t embrace these latest technologies? Employees may believe social media and SEO is a waste of time compared to the ‘old’ ways of increasing business, profits, and customer satisfaction. How do you get them to support social media and SEO strategies? Find out below and get everyone in the company on board with these 21st century strategies.

Social Media and SEO: How to Get Employees to Support New Strategies

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Explain the benefits of social media and SEO. Employees may not understand the importance and benefits of being on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Schedule a meeting and explain how implementing these latest strategies will benefit everyone in the long run.

• A dialogue can be created between a company and its customers on Facebook. It’s a good way to address any concerns they may have. Plus, starting a conversation builds interest in your company.
• LinkedIn is a fantastic way to connect with other professionals within your industry. Who knows, you may find opportunities to collaborate.
• Twitter is a great way to share your blog posts, eBooks, articles, and other helpful content. You can also share videos too!

Social media and SEO are here to stay. Like it or not, these technologies aren’t going away anytime soon. It would behoove employees to embrace them; otherwise, they could be left behind.

Social networking increases business and profitability. The key to social networking is to establish and build relationships first. Employees can use this tool to find out the problems that ‘potential’ customers have and then offer assistance to solve them.

Tip #1: Develop and build relationships through social networking. Ask for business (or referrals) when you’re confident business relationships have been built on a solid foundation.

SEO helps a company’s ranking in search engines. Companies use SEO strategies to gain organic web traffic. If your company uses a SEO company, schedule a meeting with them and your employees. Once employees understand ‘why’ SEO is important, they’ll be able to embrace it.

Social media is great for introverts. If some of your employees are introverted, let them manage one of your social media accounts. There’s no face-to-face interaction on social media websites — it’s all internet based.

Tip #2: Introverted employees can overcome their ‘fear’ by getting used to communicating with clients, customers, vendors, etc. Before you know it, they’ll be preparing and giving presentations, attending trade shows, and setting up client meetings.

Social networking can be fun. The internet allows us to communicate with people all over the world. Who knows, your company could gain new business nationally and internationally through the use of social media.

Social media (social networking) and SEO are strategies that help companies increase their web traffic, business, and profitability.

Employees may be hesitant to embrace these technologies for many reasons such as fear of the unknown, fear of losing their jobs, fear they may not be able to ‘grasp’ the knowledge, etc. The obvious theme is fear.

Ease your employees’ fears by informing them that companies use social media and SEO in addition to other strategies/tools such as offline and online marketing, branding, positioning, etc. to increase business activities. Everyone will benefit when the latest tools are implemented.

Are your employees struggling with SEO and social media? Share.

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Writing content (seo) for the web is different than writing for print publications such as magazines and newspapers. Remember, readers use different types of devices such as laptops, iPads (and others), cell phones, etc. to read information online. Even the internet browser makes a difference. Information may appear differently when viewed in Google Chrome vs. Internet Explorer. The biggest obstacle is that readers could become impatient if they have they have to take a lot of time to read a blog post or article. They prefer information that’s quick to read.

Follow the 7 easy steps below to improve your web content writing. Your customers and readers will appreciate it.

Writing Web Content That Works in 7 Easy Steps

Content-Content Interaction (Formal) (Photo credit: jrhode)

Know your target market. Before you write content for the web, know your target market. If you don’t know ‘who’ the target market is, the content will be irrelevant.

Write catchy headlines and taglines. There’s a reason why tabloids, entertainment magazines, women’s magazines, men’s magazines, etc. sell. The catchy headlines and taglines ‘hook’ readers over and over again.

Writing headlines and taglines can take anywhere from 30 minutes to one hour. Yes, it can take that long to write an award-winning headline for an award-winning article.

Get to the point. When writing for the web, it’s important that content gets to the point. Don’t use industry jargon, unless of course, your target market is professionals who’ll understand what the content. Use simple language that can be read quickly.

Link to helpful internal and external links. Make sure to link to internal pages and posts within your website in addition to external links that will be helpful to readers. Look for web content that is clear, concise, and precise. Make sure it’s targeted to your market.

Use the ‘right’ keywords and phrases. Web content writing includes incorporating the ‘right’ keywords and phrases for your company. Don’t stuff content with keywords because Google and other search engines will penalize you.

When using keywords and phrases within web content, make sure it flows and doesn’t sound forced. Sometimes, it takes experience when it comes to web content writing. Your company can always hire a freelance writer to handle all of your web content writing.

Write short paragraphs and use bullet points. Web content (seo) needs to be easy to read; otherwise, you may lose readers along the way. Use bold headlines and bullet points to get your point across.

Recap

• Know your target market.
• Create catchy headlines and taglines that will hook readers.
• Use the right keywords/phrase (seo) for your web content.
• Web content writing (seo) may take more time if you’re not experienced writing for the web.
• Write short paragraphs. Use bullet points.
• Link to helpful internal and external links.
• Get to the point.

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There’s a debate as to whether or not ‘free’ is a powerful email marketing tool or spam in disguise. According to a post on the 60 Second Marketer, the word ’free’ is a powerful and effective marketing tool because it taps into an emotional trigger which activates impulses.  But how true is this for email marketing? Does the word ‘free’ receive the same reaction from newsletter subscribers? What about people looking at ads on the internet? Are they more likely to click on an online marketing campaign if the word ‘free’ is in it? Here are six email marketing and online marketing campaign mistakes to avoid.

6 Email Marketing and Online Marketing Campaign Mistakes to Avoid

Image via Wikipedia

Subject lines. Boring subject lines won’t get your email marketing campaigns opened. Boring subject lines used in online marketing campaigns won’t entice potential customers to click your ad.

Attention grabbing headlines such as “A 7-Point Plan for Personal Financial Success” or “Only 10 Spots Left for Next Month’s Bootcamp” are great examples of calls-to-actions. You’re telling your customers and subscribers, “The clocks ticking. If you don’t take advantage now, you may not receive another chance to do so.” Know your target audience and stay on top of industry trends.

I attended a couple of webinars from Constant Contact and Pinpointe; both are email marketing solutions providers. During the presentations, it was emphasized that ‘free’ is considered a ‘spam’ marketing word. In fact, Constant Contact has a feature that reviews your newsletter’s spam rating.  Using the word ‘free’ over and over in your newsletter could trigger a spam alert.

Spam words. Using words such as urgent, free, bonus, cash, get paid, home, win, won, and other trigger words may deter subscribers from reading your emails. Do not use these in subject lines! However, these may work for an online marketing Google AdWords campaign.

Broken links. Another email marketing mistake and online marketing mistake to avoid is broken links. This is a particular pet peeve of mine. Whenever I receive a newsletter, I click on the links. If they’re broken, I’ll take the time to email the sender. Test all links before you send out a newsletter or email marketing campaign and you’ll avoid a high unsubscriber rate.

Schedule. Stick to an email marketing and online marketing campaign schedule. For email marketing, analyze data such as how many times your emails are opened, the best time to send out emails, etc. Tweak your emailing schedule because it could result in a higher open rate. For online marketing, review the data in Google AdWords (everyone uses it) and make adjustments where necessary. It’s a good idea to conduct an A/B Test to see which keywords/phrases and content receive a higher click-thru rate.

Be consistent. Post consistently on your website because it builds trust with customers and readers. What will subscribers think when they visit your website and see that the content hasn’t been updated for six months? If you’re running an online marketing campaign to drive traffic to your website, you want to have updated content.

Ineffective website. Spend money on a web designer or learn how to create a website. An ineffective website won’t help your email marketing or online marketing campaign. Make sure your website is clean and not overpowered with affiliate ads. Give visitors a reason to stay on your website.

Whether you’re running a marketing campaign online or through email, pay attention to five email marketing and online marketing mistakes. The work you do today will pay off in the long run.

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When I’m approached by business owners who want to start a blog or rewrite their blog content along with increasing their social media presence, I usually think to myself, “Hmmm. How committed are they to developing and maintaining a blog? Are they ready for the commitment that social media requires?” When it comes to blogs, most business owners, especially small business owners, subscribe to the “If you build it, they will come” thinking. Unfortunately, it takes more ‘thinking’ your way to millions of blog readers, likes, and followers. It takes time, dedication, perseverance, and trust.

Before I begin writing a blog, rewriting blog posts, or handling social media management, I ask a lot of questions. This is a good way for me to assess if the ‘potential’ client understands the amount of work that goes into building and maintaining a blog and social media pages. Here are my questions:

• Do you have a blog? If yes, how many blog posts do you have? If no, how many blog posts would you like?
• What blogging platform do you use or prefer?
• What is your goal for the blog?
• Do you have keywords/phrases? If yes, what are they? If no, is this something you’d like me to research?
• Do you have an SEO system in place? If so, who’s the company and what have they done for you? What analysis has been done thus far? If no, are you looking to hire an SEO company? What do you want them to handle?
• Do you have social media accounts? If yes, what are they? If no, which ones would you like to use?
• What is the goal of social media? More likes? More followers? More leads? More conversions? Both? All of the above?
• How patient are you when it comes to growing the blog and social media sites?

Sometimes clients, especially small business owners, become overwhelmed because they don’t realize the commitment involved with having a blog and social media websites.

Fact: Did you know that most social media managers spend 30 or more hours per week on social media? It’s important to stay connected with current fans and followers in addition to gaining new ones.

How to Use a Blog and Social Media to Drive Traffic and Build a Web Presence

Blog

Image via Wikipedia

Take advantage of WordPress plugins like Yoast. I’ve been testing out the plugin for a few weeks, and I’m enjoying it. The plugin forces you to write better headlines, preferably SEO, along with body content. The plugin analyzes the content to ensure the following:

• The focus keyword/phrase was used.
• A picture with an alt tag was used.
• The keyword density is on target.
• The page content is at least 300 words.
• The URL contains the keyword.
• The meta description includes the primary keyword/phrase.
• The primary keyword/phrase is in the beginning of the page title.

These and other metrics have helped me hone my SEO writing skills. When it comes to SEO, there’s always more to learn.

Use email lists. If you’re not sending out a monthly newsletter, you may want to consider it. If you have a newsletter, include an ‘excerpt’ from a blog post and link back to your company’s website. This is a good start to driving and building web traffic.

Link building. Many companies pay for link building; however, if you’re not linking to your current customers’ blogs, you’re missing out on traffic and strengthening your relationship with them.

Tip: Link to relevant blogs within your industry and become active on them. Leave comments on blog posts and forums. Show that you’re an authority in the industry that shouldn’t be ignored.

Advertise your blog. Marketing materials such as business cards, postcards, and brochures should contain your blog’s URL in addition to contact information. You could also include it on your email signature, purchase orders, invoices, receipts, at the end of a Power Point presentation, etc. to gain more visibility.

Social Media

Twitter. Not only could you tweet your blog post, you could ‘retweet’ your followers. This is a great way to build a following. Tweet during ‘peak hours’ for your business which could be in the late morning or afternoon. This is something you’d want to test.

Facebook. There are 845 million Facebook users. If you’re not using Facebook or using it properly, you’re missing out an opportunity to market your business. Consider having a Facebook like/lead page that will knock the socks off of visitors and entice them to visit your website and read your blog.

LinkedIn. If you’re not taking advantage of LinkedIn, do so now. It’s a social media site for professionals and you can connect with others within your industry. Be helpful by answering questions in the ‘Answers’ section. Show off your expertise.

Related articles

• Social Media Convergence – Blogging and Social Utilities (itmashable.com)
• 10 Social Media Tips for Bloggers (mashable.com)

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Finding the right keywords for your website can be a tedious process. Keyword research takes time, but it doesn’t have to a ‘dreaded’ task. The main point to remember when researching keywords is to ask and answer the following questions:

1. Who is the target audience?
2. What is the main focus of my website?

If you don’t know who the target audience is then you’ll have a difficult time finding keywords and phrases for your website. Keep it simple – don’t make keyword research a complicated process when it doesn’t have to be.

My 7 Best Keyword Research Tips Ever

Keyword Research Panel at the Niche Affiliate Marketing System (NAMS) Workshop 4 (Photo credit: rogercarr)

1. Use Google AdWords Keyword Tool. This free tool is used by millions of people. You can conduct keyword research by entering your company’s website and or specific keywords. 

Google AdWords gives you the opportunity to sort keywords by high, low, or medium competition. This is important when you create Google AdWords advertisements.

2. Think about your target audience. Do you know who your target audience is? It’s important to know who your target market is before you begin conducting keyword research.  

3. Choose focused and descriptive words for your website. Stop worrying about the competition for one second and choose keywords specifically for your website. If you keep focusing on the competition, you won’t have a keyword list. Looking at your competitors keywords can be helpful because you can learn what they’re not ranking for. However, if you spend countless hours looking at your competitors, you won’t have a keyword list of your own.

4. Use Google Insights for Search and Google Trend. Use these tools to research trends in your industry. Type in a short and long tail keywords and review the data. You’ll be able to spot trends within your industry which can help you with your keyword research.

5. Review and remove negative keywords. If you own a floral shop, Google will more than likely suggest ‘flowers’ as a keyword. It may suggest related terms such as ‘silk flowers.’ This would be considered a ‘negative keyword’ if you don’t use silk flowers. You want to be aware of ‘negative keywords’ because you can disregard them when you create a Google AdWords advertisement. If you don’t, your ad will show up when customers search for ‘silk flowers.’

6. How many keywords do you want to optimize? How many products and services are you selling? If you only have one product then 5-10 keywords could work for you. However, if you’re selling more than one product and or service, you’ll want to expand your keyword list.

7. Analyze your website to see what it’s ranking for and make adjustments. You may not have to start over with a new keyword list; however, you want to make sure your current keywords are a priority. Analyzing what your website’s ranking for can lead you to keywords that were overlooked.

8. Assign a percentage to your keywords. If you’re a local travel company in Columbus, Ohio, you may not rank for a ‘general’ keyword term such as travel agency. Your company would be 100% relevant for ‘Columbus Travel Agency.’ Travel agency could get 10%, while ‘Columbus Caribbean Travel Agency’ could return 30-50% if you specialize in Caribbean vacations.

Tip: Google AdWords Keyword Tool provides analytics such as competition, local market, etc. Use these numbers and other analytics when conducting keyword research.

9. Select the final keyword list, for now. Let’s face it; markets change as do technologies. Keywords that worked for you yesterday may become obsolete today. It’s important to ‘keep your finger on the pulse’ of changes within customer buying trends and your industry. Periodically, review your keyword list and ‘tweak’ it when necessary.

Related articles

• Find New Keywords: Simplifying Keyword Research (seomoz.org)
• Researching and choosing long-tail keywords (marketing.yell.com)
• What tools can assist with keyword research for search optimisation? (marketing.yell.com)

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Is your company’s blog sitting on the internet waiting for visitors to find it? If you believe the saying, “If you build it, they will come,” you may be waiting for a long time. It’s important to implement ‘white hat’ SEO techniques such as internal and external linking building. It’s also important to strike a balance between ‘tweeting and posting’ links to your blog along with other helpful blogs. It’s not just about you.

Image via Wikipedia

Some companies still use meta tags; however, they’re no longer the only driving factor to increase web traffic. You’ve probably heard the statement, “Content is king.” This has changed over the years. Relationship building is king and ‘unique’ content is queen. Provide visitors with well thought out blog posts and articles that will make them come back for more. Fluff doesn’t cut it anymore.

Blogger Reveals: 3 Servings of SEO for Your Constipated Blog

1. Internal and external link building. It’s important to have internal and external links to strong pages and websites. When I worked with an interior designer, I linked to high ranking pages within his website. I also linked to relevant websites that complemented his industry.

2. Commenting on blog posts and forums. I still do this for clients. For example, my former travel writing client had me comment on blog posts and forums twice a week. Not only did I help my client gain web traffic, but I made some fabulous connections along the way.

It’s important to contribute to the conversation on blogs and forums. Many people make ‘generic’ comments such as, “Great post!” This doesn’t add to the conversation. The goal is to show that you’re a reputable source of information. When others see that you have a lot to offer, they’ll be inclined to visit your blog/website. 

Note: Google doesn’t take into consideration your URL link when you leave a comment. Most people use WordPress which has implemented ‘no follow’ into the platform.

3. Keywords are the key. When I worked my former travel writing client a few years ago, my blog posts would show up in Google Alerts. Sometimes, they’d show up on different article websites, but that’s another blog post about internet scraping.

The blog posts were listed in Google Alerts because I worked with my client to develop a keyword list. We tested a few keywords and narrowed the list down to about 10-15 solid keywords and phrases. My goal was to have a keyword density between 3% – 5% on all blog posts. This can be tricky if you don’t know how to ‘weave’ keywords into web content. Luckily, I enjoy writing, and was able to produce unique content. Did you know that blog posts I wrote in 2008 still receive comments and backlinks? I’m extremely thrilled for my former travel client whom I keep in contact with today.

Tip: Test and analyze keywords/phrases to find the ones that will work for your company.

Review Twitter and Facebook pages. Do you mostly post links back to your blog/website? If you do, you may want to nix this strategy. Provide links to other blogs and vlogs (video blogs) that are helpful to your target audience. Also, create a welcoming Facebook like/lead gate to give customers a reason to ‘like’ your company. 

Follow these “3 servings of SEO” and your company’s blog will move forward in no time.

Related articles

• Ridiculously Easy SEO Habits to Start (savvy-writer.com)

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