Five Step #SEO Strategy for Fund #Marketing #Websites

Five Step SEO Strategy for Fund Marketing Websites One of the biggest challenges faced by many of our Asset and Wealth Management clients is the creation of an SEO strategy and the tactical implementation. This is either due to the lack of resource or the in-house capability. SEO is a manageable activity ... read more5 SEO Strategies that Boost Visibility Darren Varndell, SEO and Internet Marketing ... a smart SEO strategy that won't drive you bonkers in the process. If your preparations are complete, dive in and get to work on these five focus points for effective SEO. Your website is your digital ... read more

Setting SEO KPIs for small manufacturing websites While SEO is usually the primary focus of an online marketing strategy, we also work to integrate other tactics ... it's very easy to ignore unimportant opportunities (to quote the late Steve Jobs). Step #5: Work on one thing at a time Just as you ... read moreTop 5 SEO Trends You Can Expect in 2017 As per the opinion of digital marketing specialists, there is every possibility that the search market also will be covered by apps. In such a scenario, SEO strategies which are now more website-centric ... There are a few steps already initiated in ... read moreMake These 5 Website Fixes to Improve SEO Website design ... the intricacies of the SEO discpline and how we can be more successful with our SEO programs. I would recommend Brick Marketing to any of my clients." "Great Results, Responsive Team, Ethical Strategies: The Brick Marketing team ... read more5 Steps to Set Up a Stellar SEO Strategy Whether you're in charge of executing an SEO strategy for a highly established website or a brand ... Take the right steps from the start to gain the most helpful insights to guide your way. Related: 5 Dead-Simple SEO Hacks to Save You Time 1. read more5 Very Smart Ways to Spend the Rest of Your 2016 Marketing Budget While inbound marketing ... sites. Once you have all the data in hand, you can move forward creating an SEO strategy poised to deliver your desired results. Whether your 2016 budget contains $1K or $50K, and regardless of how you choose to allocate funds ... read moreSEO 2017: 8 Crucial Rules For Dominating Google's Search Results No matter what type of SEO strategy you want to ... enormous amounts of value. Rule #5 — Regardless Of What You've Heard, Size Really Does Matter One of the things that Google has been battling against on the web is something called thin content. read more5 Steps to Building a Great SEO Strategy Here are five ... SEO strategy. Take advantage of analytics tools If you want to make the search engines happy, a good first step is using the free tools they provide for website administrators. Eric Covino, president and founder of digital marketing ... read moreWinning In Competitive SEO Niches From the observation of businesses in the most competitive SEO niches, here are the top 5 tips for ranking extremely competitive keywords. 1.Do your own research and testing for SEO In the online marketing ... strategy has to be strong to bolster those ... read more

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4 Proven Methods to Turn Your Social Media Followers into Raving Fans

Your social media followers like your posts, comment on your content, and even click on your links from time to time.

What they don't do, however, is tell their friends about your brand.

You have a problem faced by so many businesses across the world: you have followers, not fans.

Fans will voraciously devour your social media content. They'll rave to their friends about your new updates. And they'll cheer your every move, in business and outside it.

So how do you turn your social media followers into fans?

I'm going to share a few tactics with you in this post.

1. Align Your Brand With A Mission

There's a very good chance millennials make up your biggest (and growing) customer base. After all, there are more than 75.4M millennials in America alone today. According to Pew Research, they are also the largest generation in the workforce.

Millennials are also overrepresented on social media - 93% of them are on social networks and 90% own smartphones.

If you want to attract this massive consumer base, you have to associate your brand with more than just a product; you have to associate it with a mission.

A study of millennials by Gallup found that millennials are mission driven, not money driven. They want to care about things and even change the world.

Brands that are able to align themselves with a narrative larger than themselves (or their products) frequently win big on social media.

Take a look at Dove. Instead of just selling soap, Dove is on a mission to redefine beauty. From its Facebook updates to even its Twitter bio, virtually everything about the brand signals to millennials that it is here to change things - for the better.

Even B2B brands can benefit from this mission-focused work. HubSpot, for example, frequently talks about how it's on a mission to change marketing and "spark a movement":

This mission-focused work spills into its social media marketing as well where HubSpot frequently hosts events that resonate with younger audiences. For example, it recently held a LGBTQ intern social at its Boston offices and shared the news on social media:

This is a powerful branding tactic that goes beyond capturing customers. It helps you create a compelling brand that turns followers into ardent fans.

Plus, it's also great for attracting top-tier talent.

2. Give Your Followers A Sense Of Ownership In Your Brand

How do you inspire followers to become more than just followers?

Giving them a sense of ownership in your brand is one tactic that works spectacularly.

Case in point: GoPro.

GoPro's social feeds are essentially curated from its customers' content. GoPro highlights, shares and spreads this user-generated content widely, essentially positioning its social accounts as being operated by its users.

If you hop by GoPro's Instagram page, for instance, you'll see a bio description asking users to share their updates with the #GoPro hashtag:

This is a great way to use UGC to give your customers a sense of ownership in your social activity and by extension, your brand.

3. Leverage Influencers

Top influencers often have social media following numbering in the millions. And because their content is individual-focused, instead of brand-focused, their followers are usually highly engaged and loyal.

By associating your brand with an influencer, you essentially help turn over some of these followers over to your side. If your content resonates with them, it's very easy to convert these followers into fans. After all, you already come with a recommendation from someone they trust - the influencer.

There are several tactics you can use to do this.

The simplest tactic is a tacit endorsement from the influencer on his/her social feed. You'll likely see this on Instagram where influencers ask their followers to "follow their friend(s)":

Another tactic is to collaborate with an influencer for a "social media takeover". With this tactic, the influencer usually takes over a brand's social media account and shares content he/she likes.

It works very well as a cross-promotion. The influencer gets access to your followers, you get access to theirs.

For example, Birchbox collaborated with Christina Zilber, founder of JOUER cosmetics. Christina took over the Birchbox Instagram page, which helped promote both the brands.

Instead of a simple takeover, you can also create co-branded products. Birchbox did this with beauty and fashion blogger Emily Schuman of Cupcakes & Cashmere. They created a co-branded product which was then cross-promoted on both Birchbox and Emily Schuman's social channels:

4. Focus On Solving Customer Problems

If you drop by the Royal Dutch Airlines' Twitter page, you'll see this as the cover image:

KLM uses its social platforms largely to support its customers. And it's so good at this that it even boasts average support time at the top of its Twitter page.

Supporting customers on a public platform such as Twitter goes a long way towards establishing loyalty. Remember that a customer complaint on social media isn't just visible to you; it's also visible to the public.

This is double-edged sword. On one hand, any mistakes you might make are visible to everyone. At the same time, any steps you take to remedy the mistake are also visible to everyone else.

If you establish yourself as a brand that regularly takes extraordinary steps to solve customer problems, you'll win yourself a lot of followers and fans.

For example, Microsoft maintains a separate Twitter account just to answer customer queries for XBox. Since 2009, this account has sent out 2.62M tweets.

This account solves customer problems in minutes on a medium they prefer. Quick resolution frequently earns praise from the customer, as well as the customer's followers:

If you're running a consumer facing brand, focusing on customer support can go a long way towards turning more of your followers into fans.

Over To You

Your customers demand more from your social media than just tired memes and recycled content. They want to feel that you're truly there to solve their problems, to engage them with exciting content, and to show that you are there for a mission, not just the money.

The four methods outlined above are great for showing your followers that you care about them, their problems and their ambitions.

Here's what you should take away from this post:

Showcase your brand's mission very clearly and support it with your social media content.

Focus on solving customer problems as quickly and effectively as possible through public social channels.

Use UGC to give customers a sense of ownership in your brand.

Work with influencers to give your brand a wider reach and access to a more loyal following.

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* Adapted lead image: Public Domain, pixabay.com via getstencil.com

Source: 4 Proven Methods to Turn Your Social Media Followers into Raving Fans

How to reverse engineer #SEO #Ranking from competitors

How to reverse engineer SEO ranking from competitors Every time search engine optimisation comes up in discussions with colleagues or clients, the first thing I do is place a mental bet on how quickly the chat is going down the rabbit hole. There is absolutely no denying the importance of SEO. No matter how ... read more16 Ways to Reverse-Engineer Your Competitors' Organic SEO Strategy Something that always plays on an SEO mind, either in-house or agency, is this: what is the competition doing? Reverse-engineering competitors' organic ... How deep are the pages/URLs that rank for your main keywords compared to yours? read more

What, how (and why) you need to track in 2017 See how your SEO efforts translate into rankings ... great way to monitor where you stand in comparison to competitors. If competitors are gaining rankings, you'll need to reverse-engineer their strategies and find out what makes them rank higher. read moreWe Analyzed 203,900 Data Points to Answer the Question: Do Keywords Matter? We're in a new era of SEO. It's like everything ... relevant topics to find and rank content in the SERPs. Moz's algorithms needed to do do more than basic phrase matching. They also had to reverse-engineer SERP results, and map them to related ... read more5 Website Re-Design Tips To Avoid SEO Ranking Traps The best way to build a website today is to reverse engineer it around ... because content and SEO are addressed after the fact. There is nothing more discouraging for a business than when a new website loses valuable Google rankings, or when a company ... read moreHow to get more traffic from every post by republishing "It's tempting because it appeals to your ego, and when ego is involved, it becomes easy to reverse engineer reasons to do it ... Worried about the impact of negative SEO affecting your rankings? You could lessen the effects by asking to include ... read more5 Valuable SEO Spreadsheets Resources Once you identify the websites that rank for the terms you want to compete for it's a good idea to reverse engineer their link patters ... the link profile of the top ranking competitors. After you begin any SEO campaign you are going to need to look ... read moreHow to Recover From Negative SEO Did you know that your competitors ... you are using black hat SEO, you will have to reverse those changes in order to get back in Google's good graces. The good thing about spam reports is that they will rarely affect your rankings compared to the ... read moreFuture Proofing Your SEO Yes, it may not be the beautiful, fancy SEO strategies to go after 20k monthly search keywords.. but I guarantee I'll get triple the traffic going after 200 different keywords than your main one. Plus, it tends to be a lot easier to rank for that fat ... read moreHow to Reverse Engineer Your Competitors' SEO Strategy Keyword analysis will reveal your indirect competitors, helping you determine who else is ranking for the same product terms ... it's unlikely you'll be able to reverse engineer their techniques effectively. A presentation is often the best way ... read more

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SEO is Not Dead for Local Businesses

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The word on the street is that search engine optimization (SEO) is dead. Well at least according to many industry pundits who claim that the advent of newer technologies such as social media and mobile apps have taken market share from SEO. But for many local businesses, that notion couldn't be further from the truth.

Across ReachLocal's thousands of customers, without SEO, a significant portion of their revenue would be lost. For these businesses, however, their approach to SEO has evolved. The businesses that are garnering tangible results from SEO have shifted their objective from simply getting to the top of the search engines, to delivering a great user experience, which subsequently also gets them top ranking.

SEO is No Easy Task

SEO is something local businesses know they need to do and is critical to their business, but many get lost in the many details required to do it well. Nonetheless, many attempt to do it themselves. But they quickly discover why companies have dedicated SEO experts on staff.

SEO is a moving target. Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo! are continually changing their rules and algorithms on how they rank content in search results. Just a few years ago, keyword stuffing, cloaking and link farming were the techniques of choice to land on the first page of search engines. Today, those same techniques are major violations that are punishable by poor ranking.

The Evolution of SEO

The reality is that SEO is not dead, but rather it has transformed. Personalized search and machine learning has enabled SEO to have a deeper understanding of what a user wants. As a result, good SEO is now a multifaceted discipline. It requires a gamut of expertise from technical skills, to writing skills, to web design skills, to analytical skills. It is no longer enough to slap up a pretty Web site, throw out some content with various keywords and then try to optimize it for SEO purposes after the fact. The ideal SEO practice must look at SEO from a holistic perspective and ensure that both visitors and search engines understand a site, otherwise, it could create missed opportunities for performance and ultimately waste precious money and resources.

Another important evolution in SEO is the increased demand for mobile friendly sites with the ability to do voice searches that land useful results. The ubiquitous use of smart phones means sites must be mobile friendly and use real speech patterns, as well as content that is original, relevant and has actual value.

In addition, beyond creating a SEO optimized site with strategic content that meets the needs of the searcher, successful SEO requires ongoing maintenance and access to sophisticated analytics to understand what optimization techniques are working.

As alluded to earlier, modern day SEO requires a full breadth of expertise not typically found in one person. In large companies, an entire team is often deployed to manage all the various facets of SEO. However, for many local businesses, hiring just one person dedicated to SEO is not even a viable option. So how can a local business address the SEO conundrum? Can it even be done effectively and efficiently?

A Local Business SEO Case Study: All Dry USA

All Dry USA, a provider of restoration services to homes and businesses in Florida and New York, is an example of a local business with a SEO success story. The company initially tried to manage their SEO in house. But the process became too much. Like many local businesses, they needed to focus on their core service offering, not time-consuming marketing programs such as SEO. They simply did not have the time nor the interest to learn every intricate detail needed to run successful SEO. So they decided to outsource their SEO marketing, along with search engine marketing (SEM) and Website management. By doing so, they had access to all the necessary skills required for modern day SEO including content experts, Web design experts, technical experts and marketing analytics experts.

Setting Clear Goals Key to SEO Success

Having tried doing SEO internally, All Dry already knew that more time and effort does not always lead to more leads, nor quality leads. As a result, the first step they took was to develop a strategic plan tied to clear goals and ROI. Once the goals were developed, they embarked on the SEO journey. Within a couple of months, All Dry's SEO program was driving just as many leads as their search engine marketing (e.g. paid search) efforts. Specifically, All Dry attained the following results:

111 percent more leads from SEO

170 percent year over year growth in organic search

A 59 percent increase in onsite conversation from SEO sources

Underscoring the importance of quality over quantity, All Dry's online marketing success has resulted in tangible growth to their bottom line. Since investing in and outsourcing their online marketing, the company doubled in size every six months, added a new service line, and opened a new location in New York. For local companies, such as All Dry USA, SEO is far from dead. However, cracking the complexities inherent in successful SEO is certainly a challenge. Once done, however, these companies are reaping enormous benefits from SEO.

*Rob Frost-Dean is Director of SEO services for ReachLocal, a leader in powering online marketing for local businesses. Rob leads the ReachLocal team responsible for delivering the SEO services for thousands of ReachLocal customers. Rob's SEO experience has spanned managing teams for large brand retail and travel industries as well as local, domestic and international SEO initiatives.

Source: SEO is Not Dead for Local Businesses

The 10 Most Common #SEO Mistakes

The 10 Most Common SEO Mistakes Optimizing your website and blog is an essential element of your content marketing strategy. While SEO is changing, it stays on top of marketers' agendas as it is a powerful way to bring visitors to your company's outlets and to direct them towards ... read more10 Big SEO Mistakes that Ruin Search Rankings SEO has been evolving rapidly in the last ten years. Recently, Google announced that its ... then you have made one of the most common mistakes in SEO. You are not in sync with the changes that are happening in the world of search engines. read more

The 10 Most Common Web Design Mistakes Below, you'll find the top ten most common web design mistakes and how to keep them from hurting your site's overall engagement. Since over forty percent of modern searches are conducted on smartphones and tablets, having a website that can display ... read moreDo Not Make These 10 Common SEO Mistakes This is certainly one of the top 10 SEO mistakes out there today. 4. Bad Use Of Meta Description And Meta Keywords The most common mistake regarding meta description is people not using it at all. Just in case you weren't aware, the meta description is a ... read moreTop 10 SEO Mistakes You Should Avoid To give you some perspective into different slip ups that you should avoid in SEO, this infographic from CJG Digital Marketing has gathered up the 10 most common mistakes that could definitely harm your campaign and profession. One of the key takeaways ... read moreThe 10 Most Costly SEO Mistakes Here we're giving you five of the top 10 most costly SEO mistakes. If you're interested to discover more common SEO mistakes you can sign up for free to download the guide to the top 10 SEO mistakes. We believe that understanding the search terms your ... read moreThe 7 Most Common SEO Mistakes There are many different types of SEO mistakes that people make, and today I am going to outline the most common ones. These mistakes result because there are many different types of publishers out there, with greatly differing levels of knowledge and ... read moreThe 10 most common website SEO mistakes It happened again. I just conducted an SEO audit on a newly launched site. Three interconnected sites: an e-commerce site, the main brand site, and a WordPress blog. The web shop my client hired to build and design the sites promised that it had SEO expertise. read moreThe 10 Most Common SEO Mistakes … As Song Lyrics When it comes to SEO, some technical considerations are straightforward. Are you unknowingly blocking your entire website in robots.txt? Do you have content on your pages or are they one giant image per page? Those are very easy problems to find & fix. read moreThe 10 Most Common SEO Mistakes After 13 years in SEO, I've seen a lot of websites. After a while, one starts to notice trends – the same basic SEO errors repeated over and over. Most of these are easy to find and fix – the kinds of things that any decent SEO should be aware of. read more

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Best SEO Agency Awards Announced by 10 Best SEO for November 2016

10 Best SEO is a growing awards organization for the SEO Agency industry that recently announced its monthly ratings of the best SEO agencies. First place was awarded to WebpageFX, with Digital Current and Boostability taking runner-up positions.

Philadelphia, Penn. (PRWEB) November 28, 2016

10 Best SEO has released its November rankings for the best SEO agencies in the industry, with WebpageFX, Digital Current and Boostability topping the list. The new monthly award is designed to highlight companies that have proven themselves to be leaders in the digital marketing world.

10 Best SEO is a growing organization rewarding the very best in the search engine optimization industry. They provide valuable information to business owners and organizations who want to choose the right SEO agency for their needs. Details about this month's winners are provided below.

As a leading search engine optimization firm, WebpageFX helps companies build their brand online. They take a comprehensive approach to SEO, ensuring that businesses have a solid foundation to enable future growth and development of their digital presence. In addition to search engine optimization, WebpageFX provides a variety of other digital marketing services, such as website and user interface design, landing page design, email marketing campaign creation and management, online shop development, content marketing and many others.

Digital Current is a top SEO agency that builds solid SEO campaigns that fit together with other online advertising and marketing channels that businesses all over the world use. Their objective is to ensure every client is able to develop their brand in a way that draws vast amounts of positive attention from their target audience. Digital Current believes in customized solutions that are adapted to the needs of individual businesses. They have a team of online marketing professionals with various specialties, such as target market analysis, website optimization and quality link building. The whole team works together each day, paying close attention to detail and making adjustments to their work along the way. Their clients report that they have received not only an increase in visitors, but also better conversion rates.

Boostability is the third winner on the list of best search engine optimization businesses. Boostability is dedicated to providing excellent digital marketing and search engine optimization services. Their marketing professionals can do anything from market analysis to keyword research, optimizing each aspect of a client's whole online presence. With Boostability, businesses will see improvements done to their website so that it is held in high regard by both search engines and visitors. They can do local search engine optimization for small businesses, as well as run global campaigns for e-commerce sites and bigger companies with a larger customer base.

For more information about the November award winners, visit http://www.10bestseo.com.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/best-seo-agency/leading-search-engine/prweb13878559.htm

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Source: Best SEO Agency Awards Announced by 10 Best SEO for November 2016

How Competitors Can Ruin Your #SEO

How Competitors Can Ruin Your SEO Some methods may take months and even years, but they are still effective when dealing with big and popular sites. Smaller sites are easier to kill and instruments are more numerous. You've probably noticed that in forums and Facebook groups lots of ... read more3 Powerful Tools to Spy on Your SEO Competitors Staying competitive is key to staying ahead of the SEO game. One way to stay competitive? Closely monitoring your competition. There are many tools you can use to quickly and efficiently gather data and information about competitors' SEO, which helps ... read more

How to Make Your SEO Campaign Work: Things You Should Remember Ranking higher than your competitors on Search Engine Results Pages (SERP ... the more search traffic you get. An effective SEO strategy can do wonders for your business. However, it's best that you plan your campaigns meticulously and execute them ... read moreHow to evaluate an SEO Proposal ... hire a professional who can evaluate your website and your competitors' websites and can suggest methods through which you can improve your rankings. Well, almost every SEO professional will submit you a proposal to accept before he or she can ... read moreHow Your Competitors Can Help Your SEO Campaign Here is some specific competitor information to look at that can inform your campaign: What keywords are your competitors targeting? If they know anything about SEO, it's fairly easy to figure this out. Look at the title tags of the main pages of their ... read moreReverse Engineering: What Can You Gain From Your Competitors By filling in the gaps of their model, you can improve upon their strategy for the benefit of your own business. Reverse Engineering Your Competitor's SEO The appearance of your competitor's website, including layout, organization, link structure ... read more7 Ways To Use Your Competitors To Your Advantage For SEO In fact, if used correctly, competitors can be a good thing for your SEO strategy. Here are seven ways to use your competitors to your advantage for your SEO campaign: 1. Free content ideas. It's hard to come up with new content ideas consistently ... read moreInternational SEO Gone Wrong: 7 Assumptions Can Ruin Your Program Even in the most organized enterprise businesses, coordinating an international SEO program can feel a lot like herding cats. Still, as common markets mature and competition increases, optimizing abroad may provide you with the highest return on your spend. read moreHow can I analyze my competitors' SEO? In your ... of my competitors potential. Last but not least you can check random traffic received by each competitor using similarweb.com. However, you can do all the above things or complete keyword research with mondovo.com (complete set of SEO Tools ... read moreHow to Improve Ecommerce SEO ... basically trying to gather as many "votes" as you can so that you can come out on top of your competitors and rank better. What is the best way to build good backlinks for SEO Ecommerce? When it comes to link building, the quality you get from a ... read more

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The 10 Most Common SEO Mistakes

Optimizing your website and blog is an essential element of your content marketing strategy. While SEO is changing, it stays on top of marketers' agendas as it is a powerful way to bring visitors to your company's outlets and to direct them towards your sales funnel.

SEO methods are constantly evolving due to search engines' developments and users' changing perspectives. It is not that easy to stay on top of the most successful optimization techniques, with many businesses falling into the trap of incorrectly doing SEO. Instead of seeing massive traffic and increasing conversion rates, the results can be quite the opposite.

There are some common SEO mistakes that are tough to avoid. Testing optimization approaches is also difficult because you can't verify your methods in real-time since search engines' rules are becoming hard to predict.

While the optimization field is ever-evolving, some practices are proving effective, while others are harmful in the long run. Let's review the top ten common SEO mistakes you should avoid so your business' website will bring the desired results to match your efforts.

1. Choosing the Wrong Keywords

Optimizing is all about the keywords that you want your website to rank for. But are you are choosing the right ones?

One of the most common mistakes in selecting keywords is neglecting the preference of search engines and users for long-tail keywords. While you might define your products and services in a certain way, it's more important to understand what words your potential customers would use to refer to them. Sometimes the terms you consider correct might mean something completely different for other people, or could be too generic. In either case, you will be optimizing for all the wrong keywords.

It's best to do your background research carefully before you start the optimization. Using tools like the Google AdWords KeywordPlanner, Google Trends, SEMrush and Moz Keyword Explorer can help immensely in putting your finger on the pulse of trending and adequate keywords.

2. Using Keyword Stuffing

You might think using your target keywords in every sentence of your content would boost your ratings. That strategy couldn't be more wrong. In fact, going overboard with using keywords is registered as spammy by search engines, which means it actually hurts your SEO performance.

That's why keyword 'stuffing,' or overusing your intended keywords, is not crucial to your SEO success. Such an approach would make your content unnatural and useless for its intended audience. In fact, Google is employing a special semantic search called Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI). This program can recognize your content's topic without the need for stuffing your content with repetitions of your target keywords.

3. Creating Content That's Not About Your Keywords

Another common pitfall in SEO optimization is producing content that is not actually about your keywords. The problem is that you want to rank for a certain keyword, but you fail to focus the text on your target topic. Search engines like Google want to serve their users with the most relevant content for people's search terms. Thus, if your content does not answer user needs, it won't rank well.

This mistake is often a result of trying to fit a few different topics within a single piece of content, creating low-quality work just for the sake of including keywords, or optimizing for multiple keywords in one article. Your primary goal should be to produce content that truly corresponds to the questions and needs of your target audience, including using the right search terms. Then search engines will be able to trace your content as matching the keyword you are optimizing for.

4. Publishing Non-Original Content

This next typical mistake is related to the quality of your content. While duplicating texts was a common practice back in the day, today search engines penalize this approach. Copying and plagiarizing content is seen as a spammy practice and is highly discouraged.

Duplicate and thin content simply doesn't work. Instead of ripping off copy from other places or using software that 'spins' the content into a new shape, it's worth investing in creating original and meaningful texts. This is the only way to make sure your website doesn't get downgraded and pushed in the back of search results.

5. Skipping Title Tags & Meta Descriptions

Optimizing your content does not finish once you include a target keyword in your articles. Title tags and meta descriptions are essential elements of SEO that should not be forgotten. Skipping them means a huge missed potential for your content. These optimizing factors are considered by search engines when crawling your website, so if properly done, they can improve the performance of your content.

Another technical detail that content marketers sometimes forget is including image tags. The alt tags of the visuals you include in your content are important, as they are another sign of how you are targeting articles. Search bots cannot see the pictures – but they can read the alt tags and add this information in the way they index your pages.

6. Missing Quality Links

To get the best from SEO, content marketers today should grasp that the quality of external links included in content is more important than their quantity. That's why it's better to make sure you link to relevant, well-ranking websites with solid reputations – not just any site. It's also useful to link back to sites that have linked to you, as this brings back traffic in the future.

Another counterproductive practice when it comes to links is using ineffective anchor text. This wastes precious SEO opportunities, as the anchor texts signify to the reader and to search bots what the link is about and how it can be beneficial to users. Thus, avoid using 'click here' as an anchor text and make sure you opt for a variety of anchor texts, as employing the same text over and over again can be seen as spammy.

7. Going Astray with Your Internal Links

There are also common mistakes when including internal links that you should watch out for. Naturally, it's important to think about your top-performing pages and consider placing links to them in your content. This is a way to give them visibility and create additional traction. But make sure you don't include internal links just for the sake of having them in an article if they don't match the topic and focus of the piece.

As with keyword stuffing, it's crucial to watch out and not overdo internal linking. If the content and links seem unnatural, the work will not be appreciated by your target customers. It would not be favorably treated by search engines either, as it can be seen as a fraudulent practice.

8. Not Investing in a Fast and Mobile-Friendly Experience

SEO optimization is not only about content and keywords. It's also about the quality of your website, particularly its performance on mobile devices, which are users' top choice today. Google and other search engines can recognize when your website is not mobile-friendly (think about the Mobilegeddon update).

If you haven't considered a smooth mobile experience for your audience, your rating on search engines can be jeopardized. The same goes for load speed, as search engines put an emphasis on that as well. You shouldn't be surprised if a slow website leads to lower SERP. You can use online tools like Pingdom and GT Metrix to analyze where the speed problems come from and how to fix them.

9. Not Using the Power of Influencers for Social Media Interactions

Optimization has a social dimension as well. When you are sharing your content on social media, one of your main goals is to get the attention of users who have a significant online influence. This means their content gets noticed by both your target audience and by search engines. That's why it's important to create relationships with such 'power users' and to use their credibility to promote your content.

Another aspect of this is submitting your blog posts or website promo to social sites such as Digg, Reddit, or Quora without having a 'power user.' It's much easier to make noise about your content when the user sharing it has credibility on that network. Building relationships and doing structured outreach via influencers is an indispensable part of your optimization strategy.

10. Forgetting About Analytics

Last but not least, the only way to know if your SEO optimization and content efforts work is to track their progress. Many marketers would disregard the numbers, but this is a serious mistake. Setting up and regularly reviewing your analytics is essential for your optimization results.

Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools are just two of the main tools you can use to measure and get an overview of your website's performance. With their help, you can see how your optimization is working for the different kinds of content and using various strategies you are trying out.

Search engine optimization is an indispensable part of any content marketing strategy today. While you can find plenty of advice online, making a number of typical SEO mistakes is quite common. Instead, it's better to get well acquainted with the challenges that others have experienced and avoid them in your marketing efforts. These ten errors have proven quite widespread, so they are now easier to recognize before you make them.

Featured Image: Pixabay

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Source: The 10 Most Common SEO Mistakes

Don’t Let Your Site Be ‘The Walking Dead,’ Engage Them With Better UX

Rawles: 'If the Power Grid Goes Down, I Would Not Recommend Being In a Town of More Than 500 Population' Rather than watching these catastrophes playing out on television or in history books, to truly prepare yourself and your family for potential catastrophes, it is important to think in terms of them happening ... (Because let's be clear – those ... read moreNot over your Ex? You may just be in love with the IDEA of them. After getting enough distance from a former lover or partner, I found myself STILL pining over them. It may have been months ... Love is always right there for you. Your job is to open up and let it in. read more

Selective Perceptions (on Ebooks and the New Resource Management) and evaluate packages even if they don’t evaluate individual titles (Nancy Gibbs called this “pre-selection†). So selection isn’t completely dead, but only areas like Special Collections will continue to engage in traditional ... read moreBride-to-be Sophie talks about modern manners when it comes to wedding invitations but nothing has been more helpful than the following website ... your guests name in ink on the card or have a dedicated line within the invite. We have opted to dish out invitees via the envelope as I don't want to ruin our beautiful invites by inking ... read moreYung Lean's Empty, Lifeless 'Unknown Memory' Contrary to what its title might suggest, the album looks forward rather than backward: Lean spends the better part of it reveling in the ... but scramble wildly to hide any traces of them. But despite Lean's best efforts, irreducible self-consciousness ... read morewhat is inside KAABA The Arab tribesmen who conquered in the seventh century vast territory were not Moslems, but were persons who worshiped idols and are scientists call them pagans ... that the claim that in Islam they don’t worship stones is not true. read more10 Gangs of wasseypur dialogues which will make you ROFL We usually repeat them too. Here we bring the exclusive collection of these dialogues, which will make you laugh and make a feel of watch it again: read moreIEA Training Manual - Module 3 - Exercises How you would like to see your assessment used? Describe a situation (a government policy or practice) that could be improved as a result of your assessment. How you would like to see your assessment used? read morePsychology Study Guide, 8th Edition This is a study guide to accompany "Psychology" (8th edition) by David G. Myers. It follows the main text's content, and offers 'Previews' and 'Stepping Through the Section' chapters for each main section. The study guide includes fill-in-the-blank and ... read more

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Source: Don't Let Your Site Be 'The Walking Dead,' Engage Them With Better UX

Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing – What’s Best for 2017?

You've heard the terms "inbound" and "outbound" marketing, but do you know the difference between the two? To develop an effective marketing strategy for 2017 and beyond, you should have a solid understanding of both.

It boils down to what is best for your business.

What's the Difference?

Outbound marketing is considered a more "classic form" of marketing. It relies on "in your face" or forced methods of advertising, such as television commercials, printed billboards, and print advertisements.  Outbound marketing has been around "forever" and even pre-dates the formation of the United States.

The History of Outbound Marketing

The first newspaper advertisement to appear in North America was an announcement published in the Boston News-Letter in 1704 seeking a buyer for an Oyster Bay, Long Island estate. Andrew Bradford published the first magazine in North America – "American Magazine" in 1741.  He beat out rival Benjamin Franklin by just three days, but Franklin's "General Magazine" was the first to introduce ads for monetization a year later.  The following Century marked the earliest recorded leasing of a billboard in 1867.

AT&T ran the first radio commercial on WEAF in New York City in 1922. The first television commercial followed, broadcast by WNBT on July 1, 1941. Bulova reportedly paid $9 bucks for the ad. I doubt that anyone could have predicted that 75 years later, a 30-second ad could fetch $5 Million.

I would love to know who to blame credit for the first telemarketing campaign, but that seems to be a mystery. According to one source: "Telemarketing was first started by some housewives calling people and trying to find cookie buyers." Despite the source being somewhat dubious, the telemarketing phenomena, which caught fire in the 1970's, continues to be employed heavily to this day.

The Problem with Outbound Marketing

One big issue with outbound marketing is the lack of personalization. That's also a big reason why it isn't as effective. Outbound marketing includes advertising campaigns in the form of outdoor billboards, television commercials, email blasts (spam), direct mail, sales calls and magazine and newspaper advertisements.

Outbound marketing is throwing an announcement out there for anyone and everyone to see, despite knowing the majority of those exposed to the message may not even be interested. It also has a shorter shelf life. After your advertisement expires, it no longer benefits your business.

Perhaps the biggest issue with outbound marketing is the cost. According to Doyen Digital, outbound marketing costs 61% more per lead than inbound marketing. Outbound campaigns tend to be more labor-intensive and often involve a number of additional expenses. This could include printing, mailing, production and other costs associated with sharing messages through various forms of media. These expenses can add up fast and become a real burden; especially for small businesses, startups, and nonprofits.

That doesn't mean that outbound marketing's days are over. Far from it. The key is to utilize techniques that are relevant and effective in 2017. You will find examples of outbound quick wins here:

Outbound marketing costs are only projected to go up with technology like caller ID, ad blockers, spam filters and even Netflix, making traditional ad deliver much more challenging. That technology was developed in response to consumer backlash against forced advertisements. It has also fueled the growth of inbound marketing.

The Rise of Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing incorporates new media like social media, blogging, and paid advertisements, all of which offer an opportunity for a more targeted form of advertising. Not only does inbound marketing target the right people, but it also allows customers to give their consent before you start advertising to them.

While outbound marketing is sometimes referred to as "interruption marketing", inbound marketing is often referred to as "permission marketing." It is less aggressive, yet more effective marketing approach. The purpose of outbound marketing is to reach the largest amount of people through cold calling, advertising, mail, or other proactive marketing techniques which are difficult for consumers to avoid. Some good examples of effective inbound marketing approaches can be seen here:

According to Hubspot, an estimated 90% of marketing resources are still invested in outbound activities. Although outbound marketing was once the most effective form of marketing, inbound is rapidly taking its place. The decline in outbound marketing popularity is largely due to the rise in social media, which allows brands to take advantage of "real-time" marketing.

Inbound marketing first gained traction in online search. Social media further spurred its rapid growth. As people spent more time on the internet, it only made sense to advertise there. Google and Facebook have been the largest beneficiaries of this trend.

When you create well-optimized content, you have the opportunity to organically reach people who are actually interested in what you have to offer. Additionally, pay-per-click ads have the ability to reach your target audience much more effectively than a billboard. Instead of forcing your message on everyone to see, inbound marketing encourages customers to come to you.

The Inbound Advantage

According to Doyen Digital, SEO-generated inbound leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads have a 1.7% close rate. Why? Inbound leads are coming from people who initiated a call or navigated to a website. They're actively shopping and intend to make a purchase.

Outbound leads, on the other hand, wind up targeting people who may have no interest or need for your product.  Cold calls, a knock at the door or a booth at a festival will not meet with the same level of enthusiasm. You sought them out. They may express an interest, but it's not usually the same level of interest as someone who proactively sought you out.

What's the Best Tactic for 2017?

Even though there are far more reasons to practice inbound marketing, it may not be time to ditch outbound marketing completely. If your budget allows, you should consider mixing inbound and outbound marketing strategies, especially if you're trying to expand into a new geographical region.

In this case, you could run television and direct mail advertisements in the new region prior to launch and then focus on inbound marketing strategies after the official launch date. You may also consider mixing billboard advertisements with social media deals.

If your company is on a tight budget, you may want to focus strictly on inbound, since outbound marketing can be more costly. You should always consider your potential ROI. Measuring your return on investment for billboards, television, or newspaper advertisements is much more difficult than determining ROI for online efforts.

Image Credits

Featured Image: geralt/Pixabay.comIn Post Image: ArtsyBee / Pixabay.comScreen Shot: Slideshare  / EngagioScreen Shot:  Slideshare  / Hubspot

Source: Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing – What's Best for 2017?

Toronto SEO Consultant B2B Search Engine Marketing Services Expansion Announced

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The Viral Traffic Solution announced an expansion of its leading search engine marketing services now available in cities all across Canada to help business owners rank on the first page of Google and dominate over their competitors to reach and attract more potential customers.

Toronto, Canada - November 24, 2016 /PressCable/ --

The popular Vital Traffic Solution announced an expansion of its renowned SEO and search engine marketing services to help business owners all across Canada develop a leading and dominant presence online.

More information is available at http://vitaltrafficsolution.com.

The Viral Traffic Solution is a full service internet marketing agency based in Toronto, Canada, combining over 10 years of experience and leading industry knowledge to maximize its clients online marketing ROI by producing superior results through a range of premier, proven and pioneering SEO, web design, video marketing and reputation or social media management strategies.

The popular full-service internet marketing agency with a proven track record of search engine dominance has now announced an expansion of its renowned SEO and search engine marketing services from the Greater Toronto area, where it successfully took over the #1 Google ranking for 7 different cities with the terms "city name + SEO company", to the whole of Canada.

The Viral Traffic Solution services now available for business owners all across Canada are delivered by a team of dedicated specialists with extensive experience crafting personalized plans for specific business needs which can ensure the type of visibility, status and overall presence online that can not only reach but also attract potential customers and ensure an edge over competitors.

Free consultations and website evaluations with recommendations and honest assessments of the changes that could be made to improve a specific online marketing ROI along with more information on the Viral Traffic Solution team and its full suite of SEO and search engine marketing services can be consulted on the website link provided above along with multiple client testimonials.

The Viral Traffic Solution explains that "we move businesses to the 1st page of Google. Our service has the strength of standing the test of time while being affordable enough to facilitate a return on investment and it means that when a potential customer is searching for what our client's business does or offers, they will find it. We don't use one-size-fits-all online marketing strategies. We take time to understand a business and personalize the strategy to their unique needs."

For more information, please visit http://vitaltrafficsolution.com

Contact Info:Name: Jackie DinhOrganization: Vital Traffic SolutionAddress: 550 Victoria Park Avenue, Toronto ON M4M 3T5Phone: (800) 832-5114

Release ID: 149450

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Poultry Feed Market Research by (Source, Type, Form and Region), Industry Share, Supply, Revenue, Growth Rate Forecast 2027 (Fri 25th Nov 16)

Source: Toronto SEO Consultant B2B Search Engine Marketing Services Expansion Announced

Common Misguided Beliefs About #SEO Companies

Common Misguided Beliefs About SEO Companies Not all have in depth understanding of what do SEO companies actually do. Therefore, it is to be expected that there are some misunderstanding on how Search Engine Optimization (SEO) actually works. The term Search Engine Optimization, or more known as SEO ... read moreMacy's and Chipotle Put Misguided Beliefs About CEO Pay on Full Display The stock halo effect has been unwittingly ingrained in the minds of shareholders by misguided ... Yet at many companies, not just Macy's, there is a disconnect between the need to cut costs and reducing CEO pay. While it's common to eliminate worker ... read more

The dark rigidity of fundamentalist rural America: a view from the inside I religiously (pun intended) attended their Christian services ... belief system, there really isn't much, if anything you can do. This is why I think the whole, "Democrats have to understand and find common ground with rural America," is misguided ... read moreFlash-centric misconceptions of HTML5 As developers, we have our own set of misguided beliefs about a certain technology ... Windows amongst many others. Most common misconceptions regarding HTML are design centric. So, let's take a look at what is offered by HTML 5 from the design point ... read moreThe Illusory Correlation: A Common Mental Error That Leads to Misguided Thinking In the 1700s, it was common to believe that a full moon could cause epilepsy or feverish temperatures. We even changed our language to match our beliefs. The word lunatic ... that fail to start a successful company. You only hear about the hits and never ... read moreCommon Beliefs that Lead to Unprofitable Pricing The pricing of products and services is among the most critical decision processes ... or "we need to charge more to cover our overhead" are variations of the same misguided message that often stems from misreading a costing problem as a pricing ... read moreThe Daily 202: Obama in a state of denial about Trump, as Democrats work through the stages of grief THE BIG IDEA: Barack Obama has deluded himself with the misguided hope that Donald Trump will not even ... That means Mr. Trump will be appointing the head of the General Services Administration, which manages the property, while his children will be ... read more17 web design trends for 2016 Pinning an inspirational photo, liking a witty status, and retweeting a powerful message have become so common we don't even need to name ... Written content remains invaluable for SEO purposes, but with every piece of content you add to your site ... read moreThe Benedict Option After The Election Houses of worship, for example, were exempted from the Department of Health and Human Services Obamacare contraception and ... But Scripture is very clear about this, and the belief that Christianity forbids homosexual conduct was unquestioned for nearly ... read moreA Misguided and Damaging Belief Having served in ministry for more than two decades, I've seen a common idea that simply isn't true dominate the landscape of the church. And in my opinion, it's one of the most damaging beliefs a Christian can hold. Here's the false idea: "God will never ... read more

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7 Ways to Optimize Your SEM Campaign for the Holidays

Posted bywheelhousesearchon Thursday, November 24 at 14:51

to Guest Articles, Marketing

A Last-Minute Guide to Optimizing Your Search Engine Marketing for the Holidays!

The holiday season is well under way, and many eCommerce businesses identify November and December as peak months for revenue (and advertising opportunities). In November alone, there are three major "shopping holidays":

Thanksgiving

Black Friday

Cyber Monday.

Last year, online shoppers spent $4.45 billion on Black Friday and Thanksgiving (1). So, if you haven't begun your holiday search marketing campaigns, or you are still looking to refine them, the time to start is now! (Don't worry, you still have time.) Here are 10 ways to optimize your SEM campaign for the holidays:

1.     Review Last Year's Analytics

Did you run paid search campaigns last year? If so, reviewing your analytics from last year's holiday season is a great place to start. Review your previous keywords, ad copy, promotional offers and incentives, identify dates and times of peak traffic, etc. Find the ones that were most successful, and be sure to include them in this year's holiday ads.

2.  Review Your Competition

Although we always recommend reviewing your competitors' digital advertising campaigns before you begin your own, this can be especially insightful during the holidays. Google some of your primary keyword phrases for your holiday campaigns, and see how competitors are incentivizing consumers in their ads. For example, are all of your competitors offering free shipping in December? Are they promoting a buy-one-get-one-free deal? Competitor ads can give you some good options for your own ad promotions (or help you understand how to differentiate yourself in the market).

3.  Optimize Ad Copy for the Holidays

Take time to revisit your current ad campaigns and modify the copy for the holidays. Changing "sale" to "holiday sale" or updating your campaigns to match upcoming holidays (e.g. "Black Friday Deal") is a good way to connect with online shoppers searching more specifically with seasonal terms.

4.  Review Your Landing Pages (to make sure they match holiday campaigning)

If you haven't already done so, it is a good time to check in with clients regarding new landing pages. Make sure that your existing landing pages will have sale banners or deals, and if not you'll need to change your landing pages to their new landing pages on Black Friday (see automated changes above).

Also, make sure that your ad copy relates to what's on the landing page, so site visitors have a smooth user experience. If the ad is for a "Black Friday Holiday Sale", the landing page should also be Black Friday-specific.

5.     Plan Your Calendar, and for spending peaks

Take time to sit down and plan out your next two weeks of tasks, day-by-day. Consider printing out a monthly calendar and add sticky notes for daily reminders. Add client goals, sale dates, important national holidays (like Black Friday and Cyber Monday), daily budgets, etc. Remember to take advantage of convenient tools offered by Google, like automating ad copy changes by the hour or pausing ads automatically at 11:59 p.m on Fridays.

6.     Ad Extensions

Adding a new site link for your holiday sale landing pages and naming it "Holiday Sales" or "Black Friday Sales" could help increase traffic to your site, because it gives customers a clear direction to what they're looking for. Additionally, if your customers' primary way of purchasing or receiving leads is through the phone, adding a call extension is a great way to increase your CTR.

7.     Mobile-first strategy

On Thanksgiving Day 2014, over 52% of all online traffic came from mobile or tablet devices (3). According to PayPal, 35% of Americans say they would shop online at the dinner table on Thanksgiving to get a good deal (4). These statistics suggest it's time to look at your current mobile advertising strategy. If your products have historically been performing well on mobile devices, you can assume that Black Friday & Cyber Monday would be the most excellent days to increase your mobile boosts.

Other quick tips:

Make sure conversion tracking is set up appropriately in Google Analytics before you begin, so you can properly track your ad traffic and conversions.

Consider working with a digital marketing agency who is a Google Partner, to help manage your campaigns professionally.

Citations:

(1) http://fortune.com/2015/11/28/black-friday-sales-2/

(2) http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2013/11/26/advanced-holiday-adwords-strategies

(3) http://www.boostmedia.com/blog/ad-text-tips/holiday-marketeer-your-november-guide-for-holiday-sem-ad-copy-optimization/

(4) https://www.paypal.com/stories/us/holiday-predictions-big-buys-bathrooms-and-binge-watching

Source: 7 Ways to Optimize Your SEM Campaign for the Holidays

Beginners’ Guide to #SEO and #SERP: 8 Tweaks You Can Make Today (Plus a Few For the Days Ahead)

Beginners' Guide to SEO and SERP: 8 Tweaks You Can Make Today (Plus a Few For the Days Ahead) So I'm going to define a few terms and teach you some common-sense strategies you can implement right now, so that, even if you never get to the "SEO PhD" level, you'll already be way ahead ... SERP. In fact, the average length for results that ... read moreThe Step-by-Step Guide on Improving Your Google Rankings Without Getting Penalized That can guide you in writing ... but a simple tweak would result in a higher click-through rate. Invoke curiosity: Curiosity will cause people to click your headline, but do it with caution and make sure you deliver on the promise of your headline. read more

The Future of Content: What It Will Look Like Wondering what the future of content will look like? Then this little pdf is worth saving for future. You'll see that the very best content today contains some of these elements. A few ... s why you can't write a plain guide to SEO these days and ... read moreSEO for Bloggers: How to Nail the Optimization Process for Your Posts - Whiteboard Friday Success isn't an overnight phenomenon when it comes to SEO ... then on you'll want to consider your keyword targeting, on-page factors, your intended audience, and more. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand spells out a step-by-step process you can adopt ... read moreThe Ultimate Guide to Making an Affiliate Income from Your Blog But that's changing now thanks to a few animal updates from Google. These days it's all about trust and authority – you need your readers to see your blog as an authority and you need Google to trust your SEO ... others can hopefully make a bit ... read moreIs SEO a good career choice? 14 top experts know the answer If you aren't prepared to prove yourself and stay ahead ... in the SERP, no more keywords in Google Analytics and tons of other changes. What you knew today could be thrown out the window tomorrow. But that's also what's fun with SEO. You can work with ... read moreHow to Make WordPress Sites Load 72.7% Faster It can handle 40+ plugins if they are all the right ones. But it only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch. A single faulty plugin could make ... plus a few tough decisions. Generic hosting, cheap themes, and running the wrong plugins will sink you. read moreHow To Grow a New Website to Over 100,000 Organic Visits Per Month The purpose of this post is to walk you through precisely how my team and I reached this milestone, the approach we took, and show how technical SEO combined with content strategy can deliver serious results. There were a few key elements that led to the ... read more3 Easy Tweaks to Get More Clicks from Google Search This is an important question, and one which requires a review of a few different techniques you can implement ... to dates in Google SERP's. I mention this in greater detail in my Google Panda recovery guide. There are ways to tweak dates so that ... read moreThe Adaptive SEO Approach (And How To Get More Conversions) Some of us take for granted "what works today" but fail ... But I digress… Don't let a few bad apples you lead you to dismissing valuable business strategies like SEO. With all that in mind, disregarding the value of SEO can truly hurt your ... read more

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Source: Beginners' Guide to #SEO and #SERP: 8 Tweaks You Can Make Today (Plus a Few For the Days Ahead)

Why Just Building Links Doesn’t Work Anymore, & 8 Types of Content to Create that Will Grow Your Online Presence

When it comes to building an online presence, many brands still believe they can take the easy way out.

Although the icky days of black hat SEO and link stuffed copy have gone the way of the dinosaurs, it's not uncommon for a new or budding company (still) to think they'll succeed by rattling off cheap, backlink-stuffed online content.

This couldn't be further from the truth.

Today, readers (and Google) are more discerning than they've ever been before, and the only way to build an online presence that lasts is to create content that's designed to offer genuine value and relevance – to both of them.

I'm not talking about cheap, one-off, thoughtless stuff meant to drive quick rankings: I'm talking about thoughtful, in-depth, relevant content that offers something real.

Today, I'm here sharing why building links alone doesn't work anymore, and the types of content you should absolutely be investing in to seriously grow your online presence. Ready?

Why Just Building Links Doesn't Work Anymore

Even people who know virtually nothing about SEO, content quality, or engagement know one thing: links are supposed to help you get noticed online.

In some ways, this is true. In others, it couldn't be more off-base.

Yes, high-quality links can help Google determine the authority and relevance of a page. They can also provide context for your readers and help you make valuable SEO connections between the pages on your site.

Low-quality links, however, can hurt your SEO more than they help it. And this is by design rather than by accident.

Here's why: years ago, black-hat SEOs made their fortunes manipulating search results. They did this by either buying links or working dozens of them into spammy pages for the purpose of manipulating Google's search results. Google, not surprisingly, didn't love this. As such, the search engine developed an algorithm update to address it.

The change went by the name of the Penguin update, and it went into effect in April of 2012. Designed to punish sites that use spammy backlink strategies, the Penguin update sought to ensure that sites focusing on links were doing so for quality and relevance rather than perceived SEO gains.

Today, sites that use spammy backlink strategies pay for it in the form of Google penalties and decreased respect in the online environment.

What's more, cheap, link-hungry sites are falling out of vogue with content creators everywhere, and many teams and individuals are simply refusing to create content that doesn't provide value beyond its backlinks.

But the crazy part is that the marketer who thinks crappy content will work still exists. Here's proof: an example of my writing agency talking to an incoming lead with this mindset just this October.

Are Marketers Still Creating Content for Links? The Answer, Sadly, is Yes

In mid-October, my team got a request from a marketer to create content "just for backlinks' sake." The project consisted of web pages for local dentists.

We don't create content like that. So, when we sent him a quote for engaging content that would be written for the reader as well as Google, and not just created secondary to a link, here's what he said. I kid you not. (Names removed for privacy.)

The reason we turn people like this elsewhere is because 1) first, at the rates they offer it is impossible to retain knowledgeable writers, and, 2) writing this content would mean that we'd have to lower every standard we have for our other clients that receive engaging copy.

What's more, this content would not add value to the overall ecosystem of the web.

No time was wasted arguing in the simple reply our support representative sent him:

But, there's a silver lining to this story. The marketer came back to us a month later and invested in higher-level services, including our keyword strategy. He also asked our advice on creating local, geo-targeted content for his clients.

Holding to high standards will win in the end, in content marketing.

8 Content Types that Will Boost Your Online Presence

So if spammy, backlink-stuffed content doesn't earn links, what does?

The answer is varied, and it depends in large part what your goals and focuses are.

With that in mind, though, here are the top types of content designed to earn links and help you get noticed online:

1. Engaging, Well-written Content

By far, the best type of content for links is just high-quality material. Forbes calls this "old-school link bait." According to their definition, "link bait was a piece of content that was great. Insanely great." When publishers work to develop fantastic content, they can then put it out online and (here's the key piece) publicize it to a few select sources – the best influencers in the industry, for example – before sitting back and waiting for the results to roll in.

Unlike content that's designed for the sole purpose of claiming links, quality content is intended first for relevance and value and second for SEO. The value of this content is bone-deep, which is why it succeeds so dramatically.

In many ways, value is the golden rule for the entire content ecosystem. Whether you're trying to attract readers, earn links, or boost your SEO, quality and value are the foundation, and everything else builds from there.

2. Non-gated Content Resources

While there's a long, ongoing debate about the value of gating content or not, it's safe to say that free, ungated content will earn you the most value in terms of links. While gated content can be fantastic for harvesting high-quality, in-depth information from leads, free content is where it's at for any company looking to build out their online presence.

In fact, David Meerman Scott, a prominent marketing strategist, reports that simply offering free rather than gated content will earn you 20 – 50 times more downloads.

With this in mind, keep the majority of your content ungated and open to the public. When you combine this with the first tip (quality first, always), you'll soon find yourself with a bullet-proof strategy for links, engagement, and brand recognition.

3. Extensively Researched Guides

When people head to the web today, they're looking for valuable content that teaches them something new. Because of this, content that features deep levels of research, plenty of usable facts and statistics, and opinion-forming material is highly likely to be linked to and shared.

While many marketers believe that creating this type of content will be impossible in their given industry, the fact of the matter is that research-dense content is attainable in virtually any field.  By providing in-depth and well-researched content to your followers, you'll reap the rewards in terms of shares and links.

Check out a few examples of guide content that are killing it (in shares, reads, and rankings):

Be forewarned that this type of content can take a lot of time and money. I was talking to my friend Sujan Patel (we live near each other in Austin, Texas), and he's getting ready to do a few of these guides. He estimates a budget of $50,000 to create several, This includes research, copywriting, HTML embed, creating graphics – the whole nine yards.

4. Long-Form Blogs

When it comes to your blogging, long-form content performs better than shorter material. While 85% of the text-based content on the web is 1,000 words or shorter, blogs and articles with between 2,250-2,500 words get the most links and attention.

With this in mind, shift your content strategy to focus more on long-form content. Because it meets several of the above stipulations (it provides value and relevance, and features extensive research), it's highly likely to perform well among your audience and can help you build an online presence that lasts.

Worried about where you'll find the topics to flesh out this longer content? Just turn to your website's comments, FAQ page, or even third-party sites, like Quora, relevant social media groups, and comments, or current events.

5. List-Style Posts

List posts are famously viral, and while they may seem a bit cliché, they'll help you get noticed. Here's why: list posts are readable, actionable, and skimmable, which makes them highly valuable to readers. When a reader comes across a list post, they know the information within it is organized into digestible bits, which makes it easy to implement immediately.

With this in mind, try to incorporate numbers into the headings of your blogs. Because lists are so easy to read and digest, they're likely to go over well with your readers. While some marketers dislike the formulaic nature of lists, they work. Because of this, they're a worthwhile addition to your content strategy.

6. Content with Great Visuals

Images are a powerful addition to any content marketing strategy, and they're a great way to earn links and views. HubSpot reports that colored visuals boost a person's willingness to read a blog or article by a massive 80% and 34% of marketers name visual material their single most important content asset.

With this in mind, don't hesitate to add visual content to your online content. A well-placed series of screenshots, some beautiful stock photos, or a custom-made infographic will all add significant value to your online content and may be exactly what you need to gain the attention (and the links) your brand has been working so hard for on the web.

7. Content that Caters to Your Target Audience

I've said it before and I'll say it again: understanding your target audience is essential in creating content that earns links and shares.

Because content that is targeted directly to your unique base of readers is more relevant, specific, and valuable than less targeted content, it will go the furthest in terms of earning you the views and attention you deserve.

8. Promoted & Sponsored Content

Content that is not promoted often goes unnoticed. Because the web is so vast and the amount of content out there is so extensive, it's not surprising that un-promoted content often sinks to the bottom of the content sea, never to be seen again. Fortunately, you can bypass this and earn your content the attention it deserves by promoting it.

When I say "promotion," I don't mean some half-hearted social media updates. Instead, you'll need to check the following boxes:

Reach out directly to the largest influencers in your industry (especially if you've mentioned any of them in your content)

Share your content several times on social media to gain the widest exposure

Share content in relevant online groups, communities, and forums

Add trending hashtags to your content

Engaging Content Remains the Foundation of Your Brand's Growth Online

For years, the widespread assumption has been that content is meant to help you rank, first and foremost. While this is, in some ways, true, it's also heartbreakingly false. While content does help you rank when you do it well, that's only a secondary effect of its true purpose: delivering relevance and value to your readers.

In recent years, search engines and users have evolved to the point where low-quality content just isn't interesting anymore. Today, search engines aren't interested in cruddy backlink-stuffed material that does nothing but clog up the web and suck value from all of the sites around it.

Instead, they want real, well-researched, long-form content that actually adds something to the ecosystem of the online world.

While bad content is easy to create and many people, like the marketer in my example above, believe it's the golden ticket to outstanding web rankings, good content is the way of the future. It's the only way to get noticed online today. The climate of the web is evolving, and the glory days of low-quality content have long since passed.

Today, cheap content doesn't fulfill a purpose in the online environment.

Tech updates like Penguin, coupled with shifting consumer focus, have made it intensely clear that getting noticed online requires skill and attention, rather than just brute force.

With that in mind, marketers operating in the modern online environment will do well to focus on the types of content that do drive results – promoted content, free content, research-dense content, list posts, visually-enhanced posts, and long-form material. While these things all need to work together to build a robust content strategy, they're a great place for marketers with an eye to the future to start.

Image Credits

Featured image: created by Express Writers

In-post image: Rawpixel/DepositPhotos

Screenshots by Julia McCoy. Taken November 2016.

Source: Why Just Building Links Doesn't Work Anymore, & 8 Types of Content to Create that Will Grow Your Online Presence