What your blog can learn from Guy Fieri's bad restaurant review

Guy Fieri is a famous chef who just got blasted by a New York Times restaurant review. And from reading the review, it sounded as if Chef Fieri created dishes that were just a wee bit out of context. Well, in a restaurant, creating recipes that are out of context is when you go so far with your recipes that diners are left wondering why in the hell you've covered foie gras with Milk Duds. The two have nothing in common. One doesn't compliment the other. Just as Guy Fieri learned that creating recipes out of context doesn't work; in your blog, if you are writing out of context, your readers won't know what you are talking about.

What is "writing out of context?"
At a recent social media conference, a speaker gave this example:

"I was watching Drew Carey's Improv-a-Ganza show with some older friends. In the show, Drew has actors act out improv skits based on the topic he presents to them. In 
acting out one of the skits, one actor kept referencing 'Milk Duds'. My friends were all laughing as the skit unfolded.  

Now, to ground you in what I'm about to say, you should know these facts about me. I am 25 years old, I have an undergraduate degree from Stanford, I have a graduate degree from Georgia Tech, I am married, and I have my own successful design consultancy. My point? In my entire life, I have never, not once,
heard the term 'Milk Duds'." 

No idea what you are talking about
Think about that for a second! He had never hear the term 'Milk Duds.' He had no idea what Milk Duds were, and thus he had no idea what was so funny. The whole thing was out of context. You've probably heard of Milk Duds, those awesome marble-sized balls of chocolaty goodness. So to you, a comedy routine that incorporated Milk Duds would make perfect sense. You've come from a background where you know and love Milk Duds. They are part of the context that you understand.

You had better not answer 'Yes' to this question
If you were writing about Milk Duds in a blog article, would your audience know what they were? The speaker at the conference was a highly intelligent, highly educated guy, yet he didn't know what Milk Duds were. Does that make him a nimbleweed because he doesnt know something so ingrained in your knowledge? If you answer yes to that question, you may not know your target audience. Do you know who your target audience really is? Do you know what their problems are? And if you don't, how is it that you are writing to them? You can fix this by getting to know your target audience.

How do you get to know your target audience?
Beth Hayden of Copyblogger offers this advice:

1. Do market research so you can know what problems your audience has
   Solving their problems is the #1 reason they will buy from you. What keywords are they searching on? What are they saying on social media? What questions are they asking on your blog or your competitors blogs? What's the airspeed velocity of the unladen swallow? (that was probably out of context for you, sorry)
2. Join the community you are trying to serve
   Take part in discussions and conversations via social networking sites, blogs, forums and other online groups.
3. Research your audience’s mindset
   The first thing you need to study is your audience’s mindset — the way they look at the world. What’s important to them? What types of people do they admire? What are their values? Once you have this information, sit down and write down everything you know that describes this person. 
4. Write to that person
   Now that you know your target, write as if you were talking directly to them, one on one. Solve their problems, and they'll keep coming back to you.

In the comments tell us what audience you are trying to serve
We'll reply (along with other readers) about ways to help you understand customers in that industry or demographic. Who do you think your readers are? What problems are they trying to get solved?

Suggested: Why 1700 CEOs are Wrong about Social Media


Image credit: ProComKelly

Is your blog losing out on a huge second audience because of fear?

Tweet

There is a long standing controversy over whether or not it's OK to duplicate your blog article content on another website. The argument between search engine optimization (SEO) experts goes like this.

SEO guy- "Never duplicate your blog content on another website, Google will penalize you."
SEO girl- "When we were dating you were always such a fraidy-cat. Google doesn't penalize you unless you are trying to game the system or steal someone else's content. Just look at all the news syndication websites out there. Do you think Google is penalizing all of them?"
SEO guy- "Well, you,....you... "
SEO girl- "Wait, what's that music I hear? Are you listening to the new Taylor Swift album? Are you sure you're a man?"

Will Google penalize me if I duplicate my content?
Duplicating your blog content simply means that you take your blog article, publish it on your own site, and then post it somewhere else as well. Google doesn't particularly like duplicate content. But then again, I have serious doubts about whether or not they care to do much about it. Instead, what Google is simply trying to avoid is, for example, if you searched for articles about red swingline staplers, you don't want more than one search result that leads you to two identical articles. That's not an ideal search experience. But Google doesn't need to penalize you for posting your blog article in two different places. Instead Google simply chooses which version of your content to display, and then skips the other.

What are the options if you are afraid to duplicate your content?
Some SEO experts suggest that a duplicate posting is OK if you change a few things in your article so that it doesn't get seen as a duplicate. Suggestions include:

• Rewrite the title
• Change paragraphs to bullets
• Change advice into questions
• Change images / ALT text
• Mix and match content from a similar article
• Rearrange the first and last paragraph
• Switch from Maxwell House to real coffee

Other SEO experts suggest placing a link back to your original article and adding canonical tags (that's tech-speak, sorry) in the code. It has been suggested that if you first post your article on your site and then quickly link to it from Google+, Google might actually index the article very quickly. The theory being if the post on your site is the first one found, Google may lend more weight to it. After that, you can post your content to a second site. For more detail about the suggestions, check out the lively discussion we had on LinkedIn.

What does Google say about duplicate content?
Let's stop all this whining and shenanigans. Google themselves wrote an article about the topic. Here's snippet from the article:

"If you syndicate your content on other sites, Google will always show the version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you'd prefer. However, it is helpful to ensure that each site on which your content is syndicated includes a link back to your original article. You can also ask those who use your syndicated material to use the noindex meta tag to prevent search engines from indexing their version of the content."

What does Jeff Bullas do?

Jeff Bullas is a hugely popular blogger with 250,000 followers. That doesn't make him an SEO expert, but I'm thinking he probably knows what he's doing. Jeff duplicates his blog posts. I took a look at the last three articles he posted on his blog. He then duplicated those same articles on Business2Community.com .I compared the two versions to see if they were identical. On average, Jeff only changed five words in each article. That's it. Just five words. In articles as long as his, changing five words hardly constitutes a rewrite, and thus I am betting Google sees these as duplicates. Is Jeff being penalized for his duplication? I sure doubt it. Is Jeff crying in his Uncle Tobys VitaBrits Weeties (the Australian version of Wheaties cereal) about how his SEO is in the dunny (Austrailian word for toilet)? Hell no he's not.

What do I do?
I duplicate my content. Why? First of all, I want the content that I write to appear on my own blog. When I write an article, I want my readers to read it on my site. My social sharing links point readers back to my site. Readers share the link back to my site on their social networks. I want all that SEO pointing to my site. And I want my readers to find other articles on my site. And then, after all of that, I want a whole new set of eyeballs to see my content. That's why I post it on another site. The other website contains my bio which links back to my blog. Since Google knows I own my blog, and my bio appears at the bottom of the duplicated content, Google can tell I've just re-posted the content. I'm not breaking the law. Interpol isn't going to raid my swanky pad and confiscate my laptop and my fancy coffee. Instead, Google is just going to index the article on my blog and not index the article posted on the second site.

So what say you? Just how wrong do you think I am? Do you duplicate your content?

What Can You Do When You Don't Know What to Blog About?

Tips for a smooth social marketing strategy

Where does new material come from? How do all those writers come up with such fantastic ideas for their next popular storyline? For those who blog, writer’s block tends to be a stumbling block for just about everyone who ever puts pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). 

Three Ways to Combat Writer’s Block 

Having writer’s block is something that can disturb many writers, but the best practice is to avoid it in the first place. 

1. Start by writing down ideas regularly. Don’t wait until you sit down to write your blog and think the ideas will come to you there and then. Put your technology (for example, your smartphone) to good use and jot down ideas as they come to you. Never assume that you’ll remember them later – and if you do forget them, great opportunities could all too easily slide by without you even noticing. 

In fact, it is generally great practice to get an idea and let it take seed in your mind. Writers often take years to contemplate a complete story, which you don’t really have time for in a blog. But, you can always generate an idea and let it grow, at least for a few days. 

2. Researching different subjects is another brainstorming idea. The worst thing you can do is focus on what you think you know, because you will quickly run out of ideas like that. Discover new opportunities and research new materials. In short, be forever learning. 

Study popular questions that your customers have asked. Consider researching ten of the most popular questions you’ve been asked recently. This is a great opportunity to produce word of mouth marketing, since your audience will be able to interact and directly relate to your material. This particular source is perhaps the best material from which a writer can derive quality substance in order to manufacture material that will create conversations that can be shared. 

3. Study hot topics and consider how they relate to your brand. What trending material could you incorporate into your brand’s blog? It’s generally good practice to incorporate keywords and hot topics into your subject material, but you don’t want to do so in a fashion that detracts from your brand. Maintain common ground and share in moderation.

You don’t have to let writer’s block interfere with your blog so long as you keep your ideas fresh and steady. Be open-minded and keep an eye and ear out for anything that strikes your interest because it is more than likely to get the attention of your audience also. 

Promote Your Blog with Marketing Word of Mouth

Social marketing tips for your blog 

Manufacturing a blog and its content is only the first step a writer must take. The next is that you must be able to effectively market your blog in order to generate visibility and publicity for your personal brand. You can promote yourself and let others promote you as well through word of mouth strategies. 

So, what specific methods are most practical for marketing your blog? There’s more than advertising to consider in this situation, and quite frankly there are numerous tools and methods by which you can help your blog improve your audience response.

Coming up with promotional content

When it comes to basic blog content, there are several important characteristics that you should include in your material and content strategy. 

Blog honestly. This sounds simple and really is. It is in fact more difficult to try to be someone you’re not- and the audience will pick up on it. Stick to your field of expertise and acknowledge when you’re reaching into a different department. In many cases, the honesty will help improve feedback, particularly from other field experts that may have advice or recommendations. 

Blog regularly. Don’t make your posts erratic and unpredictable. Consider your blog as if it were part of a regular newspaper; delivering opinion, facts, and updates frequently to an expectant audience. If your readers know when and where they can expect to find fresh material, they’re more likely to subscribe and read your blog.

Include appealing photos/images in your content. Simple as it may sound, there are certain characteristics a photo/image should have. The most important is that it should be relevant to your content. Graphs that simplify complex data or information are a great place to start. Infographs can also be incredibly helpful, just make sure that the text is legible (size and color of font in relation to the background). 

Utilize keywords appropriately. It is completely necessary to include related keywords in your content, but you don’t want to overwhelm your content at the same time. Overuse and/or wrong placement of keywords may deplete the quality of your blog’s material. Getting the reader’s attention is important, but keeping it is a necessity. 

How to attract readers

One of the best ways to start enunciating your blog is by linking to social networks- such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Pinterest (you can link the pictures to your blogs, just make sure they provide relevance). Be sure to include any forums, groups, and blogging communities that you are a member of as well when making links.

Don’t neglect to sign up with the RSS feeds, since this is one of the best and simplest ways for readers to subscribe to your material. When fellow readers can see subscription numbers, they are more likely to subscribe themselves. Numbers can say more than words sometimes, as though it were an indirect recommendation from other readers. 

Then there are the benefits of linking through “popular reading” blog sites. These sites promote blog material and are great for improving blog visibility as they basically list a large network of established blogs that readers are already familiar with. They can be incredibly handy and are a great place to position a new blog. They include:

• Stumbleupon.com
• Digg.com
• Reddit.com
• Delicious.com 
• Technorati.com 

These sites also present an opportunity for you to do a little footwork in order to achieve more. Reach out by writing related articles, blogs, and social posts, and also by commenting on the material (such as giving advice or answering a question), then add in your blog’s link. Be sure to read the comment rules, since some will require that you shouldn’t post any links or your comment will be deleted. Though for the most part, they will only block out the link and leave the comment itself. 

There is also the option of syndicating your blog through certain sites. These sites are networked and reach different audiences around the world. An example is Amazon.com where Kindle owners can read your articles (you even get paid for each read). Others, like Networkblog.com and EvanCarmichael.com are perfect for building blog traffic for your business related material. 

Email newsletters are still very effective and should include your blog link (s) for your most recent posts. Keep mailing lists of already positively established contacts as they will give you a great chance to ask for feedback from frequent readers.

When it comes to blogging, you can create quality material that is attractive, but it won’t receive the visibility it truly deserves until you promote it properly. Design your material with promotion in mind and set up a network of sites where your blog can reach a broad range of readers who will appreciate what you have to say. 

The next best thing to a guest blog post

Adding new eyes to your blog
shouldn't be this complicated

All of us who spend our time in the depths of social media have been told ad infinitum that writing guest posts is the missing magic that will catapult us to stardom and wealth beyond the realms of Taylor Swift. Taylor secretly wants to write a guest post on my site, but I won't let her. Anyway, there is another way to add significant traffic to your blog that is rarely discussed. Whether you are writing an article that will serve as a guest post or one that is going to be posted directly to your blog, you can use expert quotes in your article to help significantly drive new eyes to your blog.

How does using expert quotes work? 
The idea is so simple, yet so overlooked. When you are crafting your blog article, include a quote from a known expert in the subject area of your article. Once you incorporate expert commentary into your blog article, you'll find that the expert who is being quoted will promote your post in social media to their own networks.

Everyone, including experts, wants to elevate their level of respect (being further viewed as an expert) in their niche. Once your article is published, they will reach out to their Twitter minions, Facebook likers,
their email list, and link to you on their personal  blog. And, if they are separately employed and have enough clout within their own organization, they will convince their employer's social media team to promote it as well.

How do you get an expert to provide a quote?
This is easier than you may think. But you've got to consider your target first, and then do a little work to make the process as seamless as possible.

• Look for an expert who is reachable
• It's easier to reach out to an expert who works for a small software company than it is if you try to reach Seth Godin. Not that he's impossible to reach. In fact, he calls me so frequently to ask my advice I've had to put his mobile number on auto-block so I can get back to my real life. Seth, if you're reading this, sorry, you're going to have to come up with your own brilliant ideas from now on. 
• Reach out to the expert and tell them you are writing an article and would like to include an expert quote from them.
• "Own it"- own it means even if your blog only has two regular readers, one of them being your mom, when you contact the expert you need to be confident and sound more like a journalist than some schlep with no blog readers.

Make it easy for them to provide the quote

• Instead of asking the expert to write a quote, write the quote for them and ask them to review and approve. 
• Send them your full article with their quote already included
• The fact that you have pre-written the quote makes it so much easier to get the quote approved. And since you have sent them the full article, they can understand the context of how their quote will be used. What you are trying to avoid is waiting around for them to write a quote and send it back to you.
• Include links back to their site or blog. That is their payback for providing the quote.

Who are the best experts to target?

• The best experts to target are authors, press contacts, and those who simply participate in answering questions on LinkedIn or Quora (more on that below). 

In order to get an expert quote, what should your article be about?

• Do a review of an ebook (or pull a quote from an ebook). Reach out to the author directly.
• Review a software product (or similar). Reach out to the company's marketing team. Or, look at their press releases area of their website and find the appropriate press contact. Typically, press contacts at companies are very reachable.
  
  Example: "Post to multiple social networks quickly using one simple tool "

Where to find an expert:

• Finding an expert can be as easy as posting a question on a LinkedIn Group and waiting to see who answers. Once a good answer is given, take a look at that person's LinkedIn profile to see their level of expertise. Do they work at a respected company in your niche? Do they author an important blog in your niche?  
• This would also work on Quora or LinkedIn Answers.
• The type of experts that answer questions on these sites are the type of people who are likely to be reachable, and will respond to you.
  
  Examples:
  From a question about why ISPs block images, an expert ended up providing a quote for "Why email marketers should avoid the coming wave of mosaics in email and what to do instead"
  From a question about email deliverability, an expert ended up providing a quote for "Flush your email marketing job down the toilet with this one big mistake" 

Why bother adding an expert quote?

• This elevates the respect level that readers will associate to the article, and thus to you. 
• The expert will promote the article to their social networks, driving new eyeballs to your blog. The effect is similar to having your article posted as a guest blog which will include backlinks to your site which drives great SEO to your site.

If you are interested in a quote from a not-so-humble email marketing expert, let me know.

Image credit flickr under Creative Commons

Powering Up Your Personal Word of Mouth with Best Blogging Practices

Power up your personal word of mouth with these blogging tips

It is true that word of mouth marketing has been with us for as long as commerce has existed. Interestingly, word of mouth marketing has dramatically changed in recent times, especially since the advent of the internet. Information technology has transformed word of mouth marketing into a new specialty in marketing that can be planned, is actionable and can be tracked just like other major forms of marketing. It has therefore come to be a general term to refer to several techniques that are used to energize and engage customers. It has come to include blogs, viral marketing, loyalty programs, social media, emails, discussion boards, mobile texting, and other strategies that get customers to talk to others about your products.

In particular, there are several ways in which you can harness the power of word of mouth marketing through blogging sites and other social media to significantly boost the exposure of your company. You can use blogs to give people and potential customers a reason to speak and talk about your products or services.

Word of Mouth through Blogging

Blogs can significantly contribute towards your word of mouth marketing in various ways. Firstly, blogging software like Wordpress and Blogger.com do not need you to have any special programming skills or knowledge. This means that even a technically challenged employee or business owner can easily post a blog and tap into the online market.

Secondly, due to the fact that blogs are meant to be regularly posted, they are very helpful in increasing a business's exposure through the provision of new and useful content for search engines to comb through.

Thirdly, blogging enables the company or business owner to have control over the content being marketed because the business owner or the company can choose which topics to post. As a business owner, you can start a blog that will elicit a discussion that is centered on a particular aspect of your products, and everyone will be discussing about your product in those angles through their posts. In addition, blogging is a good way to encourage customers to provide feedback by submitting their comments. The fact that the customers' comments can be viewed by everyone who visits the blog makes this a perfect word of mouth marketing technique that is worth pursuing for any business owner.

Just like blogging, you can harness the power of word of mouth marketing through discussion boards on certain blogs. Discussion boards are very helpful especially if you want to develop relationships between your business and your customers. By offering a forum for individuals with common interests to share their thoughts or their interests, discussion boards can be successfully used to create a sense of community. As a business owner, you can take advantage of this format by presenting an initial topic of discussion with relevant information that will encourage customers to post comments and even ask questions. This is a very effective word of mouth technique that will ensure your products or brands are discussed by thousands or even millions of customers and potential customers.

Some important Points to Note

One important step that you should consider when generating word of mouth marketing through blogs is to have a clear understanding of the blogs that are most likely to generate a significant impact on your target audience. Although the largest blogs will normally have the widest reach, you need to consider if they are the ones that will best relate with your target audience. You will need to work with bloggers who have between 100 and 1,000 people linked to them because according to experts, it is this category of bloggers that can enable PR individuals to successfully reach niche markets.

Nevertheless, you need to remember that bloggers will never be journalists, and they will not just publish your press releases. They will usually write stories with opinions, views, and angles, thus a plain, mass-targeted advertorial or press release will basically not cut it. It is not possible for you to tell the blogger his/her own opinions, but you can assist them by developing an informative and interesting story in a way that will relate to their target audience. You should keep in mind the fact that bloggers intend to publish stories and not a sales pitch.

Conclusion 

In conclusion, word of mouth marketing depends on customers sharing their views or opinions in an open public forum, and the internet has significantly boosted the exposure that businesses can gain by using this technique. Through the use of blogs and other internet resources, you can do several things to get more from blogs without actually blogging.

Post to multiple social networks quickly using one simple tool

Are you overwhelmed with the notion of all these social networks that you are supposed to share your blog articles on? Your boss says "our new corporate mission statement indicates we need to post to multiple social networks in order to stay competitive in the current business landscape". Whatever. It can be daunting. Especially if you are just getting started which means you don't really know which social networks are going to be the important ones for you to post. Some experts advise that you just focus on the top couple of really big social networks such as Facebook business pages, Twitter, and LinkedIn. However, if you are not willing to take that schtick for an answer, and you want to post your blog articles on multiple social networks, there is a free application that can help you manage all of this, Shareaholic.
Tweet

Shareaholic is a plugin that is available for several different browsers. Once you publish your article on your blog, you'll be able to click on the Shareaholic icon in your browser and individually post a link to the article on all the different social networks you choose. This is a one-at-a-time exercise, but Shareholic will still speed things up for you. See the screenshot below that shows the Sharaholic icon and a list of social properties displayed within a browser window.

• Go to shareaholic.com and download the proper browser plugin
• You can configure which social channels you want to use at  shareaholic.com/account/services (image below)
• Visit the url of the blog article that you want to share
• Click the Sharaholic icon on your browser
• In the dropdown, click the first social network (for example, Facebook)
• A separate popup window will open. It might ask you to allow Shareaholic to access your social account.
• Fill in the fields on the popup window and submit
• Your update will be posted to your social network
• Click the Shareaholic icon again and move on to the next social network in your list

Quirks, general mayhem, and the good stuff

Facebook
Note that a few of the social networks behave in a quirky manner, particularly if you are trying to post to your business account, instead of to your personal account. For example, with Facebook, it makes you first connect Shareaholic to Facebook using your personal account, but you can then post to your Facebook business page IF you use the little selector thingey shown below. After you click "Post to Profile", you'll be able to select a Facebook business page to post to.

To post to a Facebook business page, click "Post to Profile"

LinkedIn
With LinkedIn, don't just post to your updates, instead, also post to your LinkedIn Groups as well. Shareaholic makes this easy by clicking the "Post to Groups" box, and then typing in the names of your groups.

For LinkedIn, click "Post to Groups"

Short Links made easy
When I'm using Shareaholic to post our blog articles to multiple social networks, I prefer to be able to track all the links that people click on across all of those networks. The way I do that is by always using bitly as the creator for all my short-links. Shareaholic makes that easy too. Once you click the Shareaholic icon, the dropdown will display your bitly shortlink. In the screenshot below, see the bitly url at the bottom of the list of social channels? I click the Copy icon and I now have the bitly short link that I am after. I use that as the url for every social network post I make.

Social sharing chicklet links onto your blog
One extra-happy-bonus feature of Shareaholic is that you can get a set of those social share chicklet button thingamajiggers to go on your blog posts. They look like the below. Shareaholic even has an integration to Blogger, Wordpress, and Tumblr blogs so you can easily add them to those platforms. Or you can add them to your regular website. Choose from three designs and different sizes. Once installed, they simply "work." You don't have to do anything else to them. You'll see them at the bottom of all our blog articles.

Highlight more of your site's content with Shareaholic Recommendations!
Shareaholic's head of marketing, Janet Aronica, points out that "adding Shareaholic Recommendations to your blog increases pageviews and time on site by recommending your site's own content at the bottom of each article you publish." Shareaholic's recommendation engine will create a display of a few images (plus text) that encourage readers to click through and read other articles around your site. Shareaholic will crawl your site and find all the pages, and recommend which ones the visitor should read next. This requires a bit of fancy-pants html work on your part, unless you use a Wordpress blog, which means you can use the Shareaholic Wordpress plugin. You Wordpress people are so special. We bow to your mightiness. Post these recommendations at the bottom of each blog article.

Shareaholic Recommendations - set these to appear at the bottom of your blog articles

Kerphlooey
Sometimes the Shareaholic service is just down! (or it's that something goes wrong with your browser). "Down", taken from the ancient Greek, meaning it's kerplunkt, kerphlooey, dead, "not working in an optimal manner", and the like. So, you might click on the Shareaholic icon in your browser and nothing happens. Or, you click on it, select the social network, and no pop up happens. Nice. But, it's not like you're paying for the service so no sense crying over spilled social beans. Spilled coffee beans, yes. Spilled social beans, no. Although, Loraine in the cube next to me accidentally inhaled a coffee bean once.....


Although Shareaholic isn't perfect, and doesn't offer any auto-scheduling or other fancy hoo-ha, it's still an effective time saver when posting to multiple social networks.

Read next: Your email open rate may not mean what you think

32 White Hat Ways to Build Inbound Links - Expanded

This article expands on Hubspot's "32 White Hat Ways to Build Inbound Links" written by Corey Northcutt by adding a few more ideas to what Corey discussed. Oh, and, if you don't mind, please tweet a few snippets from this blog post. If you do that, we may then be able to afford to buy Loraine in the cube next to me a new ficus tree since she killed yet another one .....sorry, long story. : )

Building inbound links to your blog or website is the most important way to bring more visitors to your site and to influence search engines to rank your page higher.  If you can add inbound links without trying to pull the wool over Google's eyes, then Google will reward instead of penalize you.

Get your blog on

In this section of Corey's article, he outlined several ways to use your blog. I would add the following:

Use Tweetable quotes in your blog content to get readers to tweet
In your blog posts, put tweetable snippets with a Twitter share button displayed on them. Your readers are looking for tweetable content. If you provide short, simple content for them, they'll be much more motivated to send out that Tweet. Don't take up the full 140 characters though.  Leave room for them to put in their own hashtag or re-tweet text.


Link to other blogs and your own blog, from within your blog articles
Linking to other people's blogs will encourage those blog owners to repay you the favor by linking back to you. But, don't forget to link to your own blog articles as well. This type of interlinking will encourage readers to click through and read more articles on your blog. This decreases the abandonment rate on your blog.  The abandonment rate can be considered by search engines who rank your page. If users stay on your blog website for longer, it makes your blog look all shiny and sparkley and stuff. Google loves shiny, sparkley things.

Write guest blog posts
Write a guest post blog on someone else's website. Your content will be posted on someone else's blog which means their readers will become familiar with you and visit your site. Sign up to be a guest blogger on myblogguest.com. It's a great place to find a guest blogger and to list yourself as one too.

Invite another blogger to write a guest post on your site
If the author has a decent social following of her/his own, you can expect that she will use social media to promote the article which also drives traffic to your site. This is a great concept, but don't overuse it. You should author your own blog and then have a few guest posts from time to time. You can apply to guest post on this blog here.

Create content beyond your blog

In this section Corey encourages you to invest in more than just blog content. I would add that from within your ebook, you should create hyperlinks to your own blog content, post short, and add tweetable quotes in the ebook to encourage readers to tweet the content.

Create an infographic and post it on Pinterest 
Infographics are insanely popular. Click on the image on the left for an example.
When you create one, post it on your blog page and then on Pinterest. The link on the pinterest page should point back to the blog article url which will serve to further drive traffic to your article. Place social share links on the infographic and supply the html code for others to be able to post the infographic on their own websites. Don't forget to write text on the Pinterest page that uses your keywords. This will help in your search rankings.

Tweet your infographics with [INFOGRAPHIC] in your tweet 
Once posted on your blog or Pinterest page, tweet the infographic and include [INFOGRAPHIC] in your tweet. People recognize this and will click through to view.

Create custom graphics for your blog image
For your blog posts, first pick out a good image using Creative Commons that has no usage restrictions. Again, if you don't use an image on your blog, Google will pout about it because all-text is not sparkley and shiny whereas text with an image is all pretty-like. Then, using the image, create a graphic and place text on it that will entice viewers to visit the link like the one below. The image should be posted to your Pinterest board.  Since viewers of Pinterest will also see the sparkley text prominently on the image, they will click the image. The link on the pinterest page should point back to the blog article url which will serve to further drive traffic to your article. And, while you're at it, you should add your logo to the bottom of the image you've created. That way, if people repin your image to their Pinterest boards, your logo will always be present.

Create a meme image and post it on your blog article and Pinterest page
Meme images are those funny images you see moving around the internet. They too are all sparkley and shiny, and make people giggle. You can highjack some of these images for your own use. See below for an example of one that was posted to a blog article about how to double your Gmail inbox placement rates. And here is the same image posted on our Pinterest board. The link on the Pinterest post points back to the blog article. A free tool to help you find and build your meme image is memegenerator.net. There you can pick from hundreds of meme images and write your own text on them.

You can follow Corey Northcutt on Twitter at @northcuttSEO

Imagine your small business if you had a blog that didn't suck - 8 tips to avoid oblivion

Elaine needs your help

You own a small business, and business is down, revenue is down, profit is down, cash bribes under the table are down..... And what's that I hear you saying?,  "Oh, it's the economy, that's the problem".  Yeah, yeah. Cry me a river. Listen, if  your business is off, then you need to write a blog.  And not a blog like your current blog, but a serious blog that actually elevates you into the position of being looked at as an expert in your field. A person that people turn to when they have questions. A person willing to help by providing expert advice in your field. And no one is more adept at providing that type of advice than you. This isn't something you just hire out for someone else to write. YOU write it. Otherwise it will come off as cold, off-point, and impersonal.

Now, picture yourself a year from today with this great blog that you've written. Lots of insightful, witty, advice-giving, smart blog articles. And instead of empty tables at your restaurant, or more employees than customers in your retail store, or less traffic to your e-commerce site than the Queen has to her Diamond Jubilee website (actually, her website is probably slammed, bad example), or less good looks than that jerk who stole your girlfriend in high school just because he had an awesome Nissan 240-Z and you had a stupid '78 Pinto.....  
Anyway, picture your business with a blog. What looks different just because you have a blog of awesome-ocity?  People are now talking about your business whereas previous to your blog, no one even knew about your business. Why are they talking about it? Because one of your potential customers read a blog article of yours and told one of their friends about it. Since it was really helpful to her, she really liked it and posted it on her Twitter feed believing it could help other people in her situation too. It was seen by 81 out of the 426 twits who follow her on Twitter. And one of them was that jerk that stole your girlfriend in high school.  BUT, now he writes articles for the Decatur Dispatch, that cute little neighborhood pub that distributes around 8,000 free copies per month (about 524 of which are actually picked up and read), so you forgive him (and his now rusted out 240-Z) because he wrote a short little bio of your business and actually called to get a quote from you for the article. That's social media man. That is what I'm talking about.  Your blog, if good enough, is the cornerstone of you finding your way to many many more customers than you have now. Don't revisit this concept of writing a blog a year from now, having done nothing. Read the rest of this article to help you get going, and don't whine about it.

If you need to build your business you need to go at this with all cylinders firing. I'm not telling you to stop the adds you are placing on Google, take down that roadside billboard you rented off of highway 41 in Hahira, Georgia, or even stop paying for that Yellow Pages ad. Well, actually, I am going to tell you to stop that one.  Anyway, those are all "outbound" forms of marketing and are valid methods that can and do work.  But you want to also use "inbound" forms of marketing. Inbound is marketing where customers come to you instead of you pushing ads to them. How do you do that? Well, the pillar of a good inbound marketing campaign is an exceptional blog. Let me be clear about this.  If your blog sucks, your inbound marketing efforts will be about as profitable as that investment I made in online grocer Webvan.com, right before it imploded in 2001. When it was all over-with, the only thing I was able to recoup was a couple of over-ripe papayas and a broken down '79 Pinto that was once used as a grocery delivery vehicle.  

Anyway, when you write an incredible blog, people want to read it, people want to share it, and your status is elevated to that of Supreme PooBah (or at least to the level of Grand Under-secretary to the assistant to the Grand PooBah). Writing a great blog just takes some thought.
Here are the things you want to consider when writing a blog that people will want to read:

• What problem do your potential customers have that you can solve?

• Do not sell.  Selling will turn readers off.  They want your expertise.  The selling will take care of itself.

• Write with a single person in mind.  Her name might be Elaine Benes or whatever.  Think of Elaine and what problem she has that you can solve.

• Write the blog in service to your customers

• Write to equip your customers to be successful

• A catchy title is a must

• If you have other content to offer, like an ebook or some other such nonsense, then have a call-to-action in your blog to download the additional content. Other calls to action might include: Follow the business on social media, Subscribe to the blog, or Join your newsletter

• Types of blog articles that go viral:  

• Controversial articles- stay away from politics or the really sensitive stuff, but if you have a specific opinion on how to solve a problem, then state it.

• Motivational articles- tell them your sappy story about triumph over adversity in a down economy when everyone said it couldn't be done, and how your high school guidance counselor said you'd never amount to anything. People love that crap.  

• Instructional articles- Although this has been beaten to death, people simply like articles with titles like "3 Steps to Newsjack your Restaurant that Would Make Gordon Ramsay Jealous"

I realize here that telling you how to write a blog makes me look like someone who thinks they are some kind of expert and all smarty-pants and all.  I'm likely to catch a rash of some sort from having written this.  But, I'm the writer, not you, so go write your own blog.....

Leave comments to tell me what other information you'd like to know about writing a blog.
Read Next: Gmail gives email marketers a second chance

3 Steps to Newsjack your small business that Would Make Gordon Ramsay Jealous

Newsjacking!  

Chef Gordon Ramsay might be angry, but he actually wants your restaurant to succeed.  What the heck is newsjacking and how can I grow my restaurant (or any small business) using it?  Well, it's like Joe Cocker said, "I try with a little help from my friends...."  I'm not sure why I need a Joe Cocker reference in here. Anyway, in this case, you'll use your "friends" in the media business.  You don't have any?  Well we'll borrow them.  Newsjacking is a simple concept.  When a big news story breaks that relates to or affects your industry, you write a blog article that relates to, or incorporates that news story.  Newsjacking a story into your blog is a great form of inbound marketing, a means by which you draw attention to your small business.  You should be writing a blog for your small business anyway, and with newsjacking, you are just capitalizing on the temporary hype on the internet surrounding the breaking news story.  When a news story breaks, people everywhere start searching the internet for it.  And that's where you'll get the extra traffic to your blog article.  Not to mention the fact that if you are quick to post your blog article, some of your followers will repost your article or build links pointing to it.  

Here's an example of newsjacking.  Let's say you are an Atlanta restaurateur and you hear that the President of the United States has just arrived in town on a previously unannounced visit.  This example isn't exactly related to the restaurant business, but work with me here.  You'd write a blog article that describes how the Big Cheese is in town and how traffic is going to be a nightmare on Peachtree Street during the lunch hour.  In your blog article you offer a lunch special for everyone who comes into your restaurant and says "last week I was skewered to death in traffic when the Pres was in town."

Newsjack in three simple steps

1. Start out by monitoring your industry.  Use Google Alerts to set up email alerts to you about the subject you want to cover.
2. Write your blog article.  But as you do, try to figure out what people will be searching on, and incorporate those phrases into your blog copy.  You can use Google's keyword tool to help you.
3. Use social media to spread the word about your new blog post.  Use your Facebook business page, Google+ business page, Twitter account, your email list, your mom, whatever.  Just get the word out.

So, before Gordon Ramsay pulls a surprise visit to your walk-in refrigerator and finds that month-old chicken carcass, get in there and clean it up.  And then promote your small business with a little bit of newsjacking.

Create Effective Content to Market Your Business

As a solopreneur or small business owner, you may think that content marketing is a huge undertaking and that there are better things you can do with your time. You should realize, however, that putting out great content is an excellent marketing tool for building your brand and establishing customer loyalty.

In recent years, there has been a shift in marketing campaigns. Advertisements have lost their power over customers. Nowadays, people buy from brands they like and trust. But where does this trust come from? Through engaging and building relationships with your consumers using effective content. This is essentially known as content marketing.

You want people to subscribe to your blog updates, follow you on Twitter, opt-in to your email campaign, and subscribe to your page in Facebook. Through the repeated exposure of your content to an audience, you effectively build a relationship with them, giving you opportunities to get them to convert.

The tricky part though, is creating excellent content that can connect and engage with your audience. How do you create a social marketing buzz around your brand? Here are some tips:

     1. Know your audience

Before you can create effective content, you must know your audience. What are their likes and dislikes? What makes them happy? What pains them? What are they looking for?

For example, if you’re a small business owner with an online business selling mom and baby products, then it’s important that you understand what moms like. What do they look for, what problems do they suffer from? What kind of content would get them excited?

By knowing your audience, you can create content that’s relevant and focused, and effectively promote and market your business. Keep in mind that you must inform your audience as well as entertain them.

     2. Be unique and creative

Although it’s easier to simply copy what others have done before you, duplicating content is not really going to effectively capture your audience’s attention. Your audience will simply think “been there, done that,” and you’re left feeling discouraged and wondering why it didn’t work for you.

In today’s world, you need to be creative and unique. Don’t just copy what others have done before you; on the other hand, you can pattern your ideas from them and create something new and different. Something that will make your audience stand up in attention and say, “Wow!”

So don’t be a copycat. To create effective content, put your own personality and style into the content you’re offering.

     3. Experiment

If you’re using Facebook, for example, and are not getting the results you want, maybe it’s time to experiment a little bit. Try different kinds of content and use different kinds of platforms to discover what works with your audience. Maybe you need to mix it up a bit and create more meaningful Facebook posts to connect with your followers. Or maybe creating a blog would be better for your small business brand to help you engage with readers.

Experimentation is important because otherwise, how else will you discover what works or not?

     4. Personalize your content

People want to engage with other people, not brands. So it’s important that you show off your personality through the content you offer. Tell your story and make people empathize with you. Don’t be afraid to share something about yourself, because this is how people will be able to relate with you and your brand.

     5. Be consistent

This is a very important thing you need to do in order to effectively market your business. You must post regularly and consistently in order to engage with your audience.

How will people remember you if you don’t provide regular content? If you don’t update your Facebook page, then how are people going to read your valuable Facebook posts?

So be relevant and consistent. If you abandon your blog or Twitter account, then your followers are going to abandon you as well.

Creating effective content to market your business can be tricky, but following these steps may help you find the right balance in engaging with your audience and marketing your small business. Remember to listen to your audience first and learn what they want – the rest usually follows after that.

Women Entrepreneurs the Secrets of Success for Wednesday, August 11th

Carol Hoenig

Carol Hoenig is a fulltime freelance writer and publishing consultant. Her novel, WITHOUT GRACE, has been awarded the Silver Medal for Book of the Year 2005 by ForeWord Magazine and given First Place for Fiction by the DIY Book Festival. Jada Press and the New York Book Festival also gave her novel honorable mention.


Her book THE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO PLANNING BOOK EVENTS was named finalist by USA Book and Reader Views and given the Gold medal by ForeWord Magazine for Book of the Year in the category of writing. Carol’s essays, articles, book reviews and short stories appear in a wide number of publications.

Carol blogs for The Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-hoenig/ covering politics, culture, the publishing industry and the writing life.

Carol also contributed to PUTTING YOUR PASSION INTO PRINT, written by Arielle Eckstudt and David Henry Sterry. (Workman, July 2005)

Arianna Huffington invited Carol to contribute to ON BECOMING FEARLESS, (Little, Brown) released in the fall of 2006. Tory Johnson, ABC’s Good Morning America’s workplace contributor, also invited Carol to submit an essay for her New York Times Bestseller, WILL WORK FROM HOME (Penguin). Stephanie Gunning invited Carol to submit an essay on creativity for her anthology AUDACIOUS CREATIVITY.

Carol’s short story, Snow Angels and Somersaults, was a finalist for the 2007 Spring/Summer Glass Woman Prize, a bi-annual prize for women prose writers. http://moondance.org/2007/winter/fiction/snow.html.

Carol is on the advisory council for Author Solutions and was on The New York Center for Independent Publishing advisory council and writer’s conference committee for five years before it disbanded. She was the Director and Writer-in-Residence for Old Forge Library Adirondack Summer Writing Workshop for 2008. She is Editorial Director for Worthy Shorts and is a member of the Women’s Media Group. Most recently she was tapped to write a monthly column for Digital Americana, the first literary magazine for the Apple iPad. She also covers stories for Patch.com. For more information, visit www.carolhoenig.com.

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What Every Blogger Should Know About Trademark Law Before and While Blogging

by Latoicha Givens, Phillips Givens, LLC

Hello Friends!

I felt the need to write this article because one, I am a blogger. Also check me out at www.luxetips.com. And two, I have had discussions with so many bloggers about whether they owned a trademark and how to protect the good name and reputation they have built through blogging.

I will give you an example of some of the pitfalls bloggers have encountered.

Example 1: You register a blog with blogger and your blog name is Widgets.blogspot.com. You build up a reputation and readership and you decide you want to own your own domain name.

You contact a hosting company and try to register Widgets.com, but low and behold, someone else already owns the domain name. You contact the owner of the domain name and they will gladly let you have it.....for the low low price of $10,000.00! Yikes.

Example 2: You go ahead and register your domain name, Wethepeople.com. Hey you own it! But then some company comes along and registers Wearethepeople.com. You both are in same business and when you do a google search, their name comes up first. You have built a brand name, reputation, and following with Wethepeople.com. They are diverting traffic from your blog and causing confusion. What can you do?

So fellow blogger and potential bloggers follow these simple rules to ensure your blog, your brand and trademark, is protected and avoid becoming prey to infringers and cybersquatters.

1. A blog name is a trademark. One misconception many bloggers have is that they do not think they own a trademark because they are not organized as a company. If you a blogger and publish daily, weekly, or monthly articles on your blog, you are in the business of publishing. Also if you receive advertising revenue, or in-kind gifts, products, etc to review on your blog, you are actively engage in commerce - the ability to conduct business transactions.

A trademark is defined as words, symbols, phrases or designs which the public associates with a single source of goods or services. By law you establish trademark rights by actual use of the mark in commerce or filing an intent to use the mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, USPTO.

2. Do a preliminary search for your blog name. Make sure the blog name you choose is not identical or too similar to a brand name, company, or other blog. You can accomplish this by doing a Google Search. Now Google may not capture every identicial or similar name, (only a comprehensive trademark search will do this) but those that are registered with government agencies and are on the web will be found. The last thing you want to receive is a cease and desist letter from me, a trademark lawyer, stating shut down your blog or else!

3. Register your domain name. A MUST MUST MUST! You must own your blog's name. Before starting a blog, you have to own your name. I can't repeat it enough. Now there are tons of services like blogger, typepad, and wordpress that will let you create a blog name through their service but this DOES NOT mean you own the domain name.

You can choose a domain registrar like VL Hosting to register your name for a nominal fee. Sometimes fees are as low as $10.00 per year. Why do this? Because there are mean lean sharks out in the blogosphere called cybersquatters. They literally surf the net for brand names and company names that do not have registered domain names and register them so they can hold them (cybersquat them) until you come crying and begging for them to release it. They will but for an astronomical fee.

4. Register your blog's name, phrases, and design as a trademark. It is just good practice and planning to register your blog as a trademark. You never know how successful you and your blog may be. Without registering your trademark, you do own a lawful common law trademark right (a trademark right without federal or state trademark registration). However to bring a trademark infringement action against an infringer you must register the trademark with the state where you are located or the USPTO.

Also registering your blog as a trademark is good evidence that you have a legitimate interest in your blog's domain name, if you have to file a domain name dispute against someone who purposely registers a domain name similar to yours in order to steal your traffic. I do understand that obtaining federal trademark registration can be expensive, but it is relatively inexpensive to register with your state. Depending on the state where you are located, fees can be as low as $15.00. But it is smart to get some legal advice. A poorly drafted trademark application will be rejected.

If you are a blogger already engaged in publishing your blog and have not completed any of these steps, I would recommend that you complete these steps as soon as possible! Believe me accomplishing these simple tasks will save you headaches and potentially money.

I hope this article was helpful. If you would like further information, please contact me at lgivens@phillipsgivenslaw.com. Please stay tuned for my next topic: How to file and win a domain name dispute.

Reprinted from phillipsgivenslaw.blogspot.com

Latoicha Givens is the founder and a member of the firm Phillips Givens, LLC. Ms. Givens practice includes representation of start-ups, small, and mid-sized businesses in intellectual property matters, specifically, trademarks, copyrights, and licensing issues.