SEO reputation management

SEO Reputation Management: A Guide to Building a Positive Online Image

Across all industries, 97% of business owners think reputation management is an essential addition to their SEO toolbox. The thing is, there’s a difference between managing your reputation and building a positive online image. One is a kneejerk response to negativity while the other is a proactive commitment.

In general, it’s better to take advantage of SEO reputation management before things get out of hand. The majority of online shoppers look at online reviews and company reputation before coming to a purchasing decision. If you have a superior brand image, your customers are willing to pay almost 10% more on your goods compared to your competitors.

In short, your online image can have a serious impact on your bottom line. Want to build a better brand? Then read our SEO reputation management guide.

1. Take Control of Online Reviews

Even if you’ve never claimed your business on a directory such as Google My Business or Yelp!, the odds are good that it’s already listed across the internet. That means your customers are free to leave reviews regardless of your input.

And if you’re not keeping a close eye on what your customers are saying online, that can come back to bite you. How? Since most consumers search for online reviews before making a purchase, they’ll likely search for any related to your company.

If the first post on the SERP is a scathing one-star review, that’s enough to turn people away without a second glance. But almost all business directories allow business owners to respond to reviews, whether negative or positive.

This gives you an opportunity to address the reviewer and apologize directly. Simple actions such as these go a long way in establishing your business as one that listens and cares about its customers. Plus, Google has said time and time again that businesses that interact with reviews benefit from a local SEO boost.

2. De-rank Negative Reviews

Sometimes reviews aren’t available on platforms that you own. What about a negative product review from a popular website? If one of these is in the top rankings, it’s definitely going to scare some consumers away.

It’s not something you’ll be able to fix right away in most cases. But if you happen to upgrade your product according to their review, reach out and encourage them to try your improved merchandise. Sometimes companies give the product for free to make it easier for the reviewer to write the article.

What if you believe the author’s review was subjective and unfair? You could ask them to remove it, but that’s a dangerous proposition. An unfair reviewer likely has a bias and will go out of their way to publicize your request.

Instead, you should analyze why the review is ranking so high in the first place. Oftentimes these reviews are propped up with little more than domain authority. With the power of relevant backlinks, you can boost up a better, objective review so consumers see this one first.

3. Create Multiple Domains

In a perfect world, your potential customers would only see websites owned by you whenever they made a search. That way you have full control over the content and branding they’re exposed to.

It’s possible to make this perfect world a reality.

By harnessing a variety of similarly-named websites, you can own the top of the SERPs. These websites may be alternative blogs, charity work, or a collection of helpful guides. With the help of great SEO, unowned content related to your brand isn’t likely to reach the top of the rankings.

You don’t even have to create new websites if it’s not your thing. A cheaper, easier option is to rely on subdomains. These can command the top spots with the right organization.

4. Write Content for Branded Searches

If your brand is big enough, people are going to search for more than relevant reviews. For example, they may seek to compare your company to a competitor. That could become an issue for your online reputation if it leads to your competitor’s site or a biased reviewer.

Access a keyword planner and see what people are looking for in relation to your business. If you find a branded search that could lead to negative information, it’s a good idea to write your own article with the relevant keywords. You simply can’t trust other individuals or businesses to do well by you.

That said, consumers can detect bias a mile away. If they visit your website to read a comparison article, they’ll likely expect you to rank your business as superior in every way.

Don’t do it.

Tooting your own horn won’t create a positive online image. Be fair and accurate with any content that could become a sales pitch.

Keep in mind that branded searches may not always involve a company comparison. You may discover some customers are having trouble with your product or service and are searching for a solution.

That tells you two things: First, you should improve your product or add more supplemental information to help your customers. It also means there’s room to create an article that offers a helpful solution. Otherwise, they’ll conglomerate on different help websites and may vent out their frustrations.

SEO Reputation Management: The Next Steps

When most people think about search engine optimization, they assume it’s all about increasing website traffic. The reality is SEO serves multiple functions, and one of its most important is managing your online reputation. By owning the content related to your brand, you’ll have more control to depict your company in its best light.

Looking to get started with great SEO reputation management? Backlinks are a potent way to get positive brand content at the top of the SERPs. Buy text links and keep your brand image in check.

monitor backlinks

How to Monitor Backlinks: A Dead Simple Guide to Tracking Your Links

A backlink is when a webpage links to a different page or site. Backlinks are powerful, well-proven ways to increase web traffic and they are a crucial part of any SEO strategy. They’re one of the best ways to make your website more popular.

But if you don’t monitor your backlinks, then you’ll have no idea what’s working and what’s not. Luckily, we’re here to help you. Continue reading and we’ll walk you through a dead-simple guide on how to monitor backlinks.

Why Monitor Backlinks?

There are a variety of factors that will help Google determine where to place your site among its search rankings. Some of these factors include social signals, the speed of your website, keyword usage, and the length of your content.

Another major factor is backlinks. When you have backlinks from other sites, especially ones that are authoritative and receive high amounts of traffic, you’re likely to rank higher.

There are three primary reasons as to why it’s important to monitor backlinks to your website. First, you will be able to know which of your marketing strategies are working and which are not.

Second, you will be able to give better reports to your customers. And lastly, you’ll be able to quickly add more social proof to your site.

When you monitor your backlinks regularly, you will see where you were successful and you can share that information with your clients. You can then repeat those strategies and build off of them to make your backlinks and overall marketing strategy even stronger.

The Two Phases of Monitoring Backlinks

As great as backlinks are, they’re not that valuable if you aren’t regularly monitoring and analyzing them. Let’s look at our two-phase process for how to properly monitor your backlinks.

Phase One: Make Backlink Monitoring Part of Your Work Schedule

There are two approaches to how you can monitor your backlinks. The first way is the manual method. With this method, you would perform search after search and add links to a spreadsheet as well as other important information.

This approach can certainly work but it’s also quite time intensive.

The other method is to do automated backlink monitoring. With this solution, the system will automatically monitor your backlinks for you. This kind of solution typically costs money, however.

Either way, after you’ve chosen your preferred approach, you want to schedule time in your work calendar for when you will regularly monitor your backlinks. It can take several hours if you with the manual approach. However, it will usually take less than one hour if you go with the automated method.

A good thing to keep in mind is to not just look at your own backlinks. Some automated solutions will also provide analyses of backlinks from your competitors. This is a handy tool that can help you optimize your own backlink strategy.

You’re then going to want to divide your backlinks into different categories. These categories will be split into desirable, undesirable, and everything else.

High-quality websites will result in better backlink opportunities. Also, strive to build relationships with domain managers in order to better establish your website and backlinks.

Phase Two: Apply What You Learn from Backlink Monitoring

Your work doesn’t just stop at monitoring your backlinks. You then have to take what you learn and apply it to your reporting and outreach.

If you’re at all involved in proving marketing or SEO services to customers, then your reporting is extremely important. By knowing how to properly and effectively monitor backlinks, you’ll be able to show customers how your work is benefitting the business of your clients.

Whenever you can, make the correlation between backlink monitoring and the desired business outcomes of your clients.

In order to improve your reporting, it’s important that you focus on the outcome of your backlinks. Not sure what sites are applying your backlinks.

You can also use backlink monitoring to see how long it takes for your backlinks to increase your outreach. The first thing you want to do here is to identify your backlink opportunities. You can do this by picking some of your competitors in order to find the best backlinking opportunities.

Then, go ahead and rank the backlink opportunities for their value and relevance. You might become overwhelmed if you end up with hundreds of potential backlink opportunities. To prevent this problem, you’ll want to rank the backlinks for their relevance.

For example, you may decide to not pay attention to backlinks from certain publications because it will be too hard to reach the kind of people you’re trying to target. By putting your attention on sites with good Domain Authority scores, you can better optimize your targeting.

You also need to make sure that you execute your outreach strategy correctly. There are certain tools online that can help you find email addresses at websites you choose to target.

The Importance of Knowing How to Monitor Backlinks

By knowing how to monitor backlinks, you can greatly enhance your SEO efforts as well as increase your ROI and conversion rates. Backlinking isn’t always easy, but monitoring backlinks will reduce the amount of trial and error and help get you stronger backlinks in no time.

Having an experienced company help manage your backlinks is one of the best ways to quickly and effectively increase your web traffic.

Are you interested in buying backlinks? Consider getting a free SEO consultation to help with your link building!

twitter seo

9 Twitter SEO Tips You Need to Know for Your Business

Are you looking to boost your SEO game on Twitter? Worry no more about which tweets will hit or miss the mark. Below, we’ve got a list of 9 Twitter SEO tips for your business.

Why use Twitter and Twitter SEO to promote your business? It’s practical social media marketing, especially when you consider how many people are on it. In the United States, there are over 68 million active Twitter users per month. 

1. Promote Your Brand via a Fully-Optimized Profile

When you’re creating a Twitter account, you want to use a handle and username that promotes your brand. Use the same or a similar name you use on your other social media. This is how your audience finds you on your social media.

The verification badge is a key icon that helps build trust and authenticity. This badge disappears whenever you change your name. Thus, avoid changing your username as much as possible.

Another important Twitter SEO tip is to optimize your profile photo. Use a profile photo with an optimized filename. Rename it with keywords separated by dashes. 

2. Make Your Tweets Re-Tweetable

A great way to build your presence on Twitter is to get users to share your tweets. To do this, limit the characters in your tweets. The best number of characters is somewhere between 110 and 120.

When you tweet, consider the length of your links. If it’s too long, use URL shortening sites like bit.ly. Avoid sharing URLs without context since it can confuse followers. 

Do you want to know how to get on Google search? Under certain circumstances, a tweet with countless likes and re-tweets can go there. This, however, is unreliable unless you have a hefty following that always reacts to your tweets.

3. Use Keywords in Your Tweets

Keywords are vital to your Twitter SEO and any other SEO. They make your brand easier to search online. Know which keywords will work best with your brand and incorporate them in your tweets. 

Figure out your primary keyword. Use this as a hashtag in each of your tweets. This way, when people look up the keyword, your posts will come up.

The tweet may even pop up in the Trends Feed.

However, be careful about overdoing it. Despite keywords, you must offer valuable content to your followers still. 

4. Choose the Best First Characters in Every Tweet

Did you know that your first 42 characters are a bit more important than the rest? Yes, the first characters of your tweet can give the most impact on its SEO value later. The first words you write will come up as the tweet’s title tag on a Google search. 

These 42 characters include important details. On a Google search result, your account name and the first characters show up. Don’t stress out too much on pushing all your keywords forward.

Most search engines still index your entire tweet. 

5. Provide Relevant Content Experience

Using social media like Twitter promotes brand awareness through influencers or hashtags. However, it’s easy to get your followers’ attention with clickbait titles. Avoid these and offer authentic and relevant experiences instead. 

If you’re adding links to your tweets, make sure they bring users to the right landing pages. Remember that internet users want what they want right away. They don’t enjoy having to look around your website for what they want, so don’t make them.

Use hashtags for events your brand is a part of. Seasonal events are also great for adding more applicable keywords. It’s a great way to keep up with competition who also use seasonal keywords. 

6. Optimize Twitter SEO with A Great Bio

Every Twitter business page needs a short, comprehensive bio. The best way to use it is to focus on what your brand specializes in. Mention which industry you belong to and what followers can expect from you.

Since it’s a small bit, you can do this one yourself. You don’t even need to make it longer than a paragraph. Your bio only uses 160 characters at most.

Be simple, brief, and attention-grabbing. Add your links in later. Add the even more intriguing content later.

7. Make Your Twitter Handle Visible in Your Website

There’s one way to get onto the game and that’s using your handle on your website. You can even use it as a link to direct site visitors to your twitter profile. This way, they can follow you once they reach your Twitter page.

Do this by adding the Twitter button on the site or your username as a link. Keep it next to your other social media buttons. This way, visitors can find your social media accounts like Twitter with ease.

Keep both your Twitter and your website accessible to new followers. This is useful if you have a lot of website visitors. After following a business, 85% of followers feel they’re more connected to it.

8. Be Bold, Add Visuals

Humans are visual creatures by nature. We depend more on our visual senses than on any of our other senses. Take advantage of this fact of nature in your Twitter SEO game.

Be as visual as you can be.

You can do as little as add emojis to your tweets. This creates a visual point that can change the entire mood of the tweet. Tweet photos and use memes.

9. Insert Links

If you want to get a twee page indexed on Google, use links. This is a more reliable way of getting on a Google search page result rather than depending on retweets and likes.

Using links on your posts helps create a solid backlink profile. As we mentioned earlier, use URL shorteners to keep the character count in check. TinyURL and Bit.ly are two popular URL shorteners.

Be More Social, Be More Present

That’s it for our guide on Twitter SEO and how you can optimize it for your business. Now that you’re done with the list, do you see how easy it is? We hope you enjoyed reading about these 9 SEO tips. 

Are you a new player in the digital marketing game? Do you want to know how to find more people interested in your business and/or services? Do you want to know the basics of generating inbound leads? 

Check out this guide and learn how to inbound lead generation works. 

What Are Guest Blogging Services and How Can They Help Your Business?

Do you think your site looks pretty enough to stand out from the crowd?

Good web design is a start but you need to do a lot more to build traffic. With over 30 million small businesses and websites in the US alone, you need to conduct every tactic in the book to get ahead. 

Perhaps one of the best tactics to invest in is guest blogging. You can even avail of SEO experts for guest blogging services to give you a significant boost. 

But how do guest blogging and expert guest blogging services even work? What are the benefits of both?

Let’s tackle them both below! Read on and discover how guest posts and guest post services can give your business a much-needed advantage:

What is Guest Blogging?

Guest blogging is exactly as it sounds — you’ll create blog posts for someone else. You’re the “guest” and the other website is the “host.” It’s as simple as creating blog posts for your site, except it’ll go on someone else’s platform.

Does this benefit both parties? Some people assume it only boosts SEO efforts for the host but the truth is it assists both. You can enjoy a ton of benefits from reaching out to other websites and companies and asking permission to guest post.

It’s a two-way street, after all. They’ll provide exposure and boost your backlinking profile — we’ll tackle this more in-depth below — and you give them more content for their audience. Guest blogging counts as one of the 6 main types of content you should focus on!

How Does Guest Blogging Help?

Let’s dive into the benefits a bit more. How does guest blogging help you and the host?

Let’s get the biggest benefit out of the way first. Every time you guest post, you should include links back to your site. This counts as a way to boost your backlinking profile.

The thing is, your backlinking profile is one of the 4 main ranking factors calculated by Google and its algorithm. If your host is a reputable site, those backlinks gain more authority and thus further boost your site’s rank. 

However, it doesn’t end there.

Guest posting also widens your brand reach. Think about it this way: let’s say your website has no traffic but the host sees an average of 5,000 visits per page daily. Your guest post exposes your brand and the backlink to your website to all those visitors. 

Their audience can become yours. 

You also gain authority. People visit the host because they’re an established authority regarding a specific niche. Visitors will read your guest post and immediately trust the content because they trust the host.

What about the host? How does guest posting help them?

They don’t have to worry about writing the content. That’s your job as the guest. This frees up their time to worry about other details, such as their social media marketing or paid ads. 

It’s like getting free content to entertain and educate their audience and all you ask in return is the chance to add a few backlinks to your website. It’s a win-win situation for both.

Understanding Guest Blogging Services

Now that you understand how guest posts work, what are guest blogging services? Why do many SEO experts offer this?

If you plan to approach websites by yourself, it can take up a lot of time. You might get rejected more often than you’d think. Others might require payment.

However, SEO companies and experts already have deals and partners. They might already have a network of 10 or more websites that accept guest posts. The hard part of the work is already done and you simply have to hire the SEO company to grant you access to that network.

Benefits of Guest Blogging Services

Why hire experts for guest blogging services? Let’s break down the different benefits here:

First off, you don’t have to waste time going around approaching different websites and companies. The SEO company already has a network and you simply have to get in touch to gain access. Of course, you and the SEO company need to make sure your content matches the needs of the websites in their network.

Secondly, you can save money. Some websites and companies demand a high price before they allow others to guest post. Hiring an SEO company with access to a wide network of guest post-friendly websites is considerably cheaper.

Third, you gain wider exposure. Instead of reaching out solely to one website to submit a guest post, you can get multiple posts submitted to a dozen different hosts. This means you get exposure to all their visitors simultaneously!

Finally, there’s the benefit of letting the experts create the content for you. If your business doesn’t prioritize blogging, keyword research, and other SEO aspects then it’s better to let them do the work for you. You get the guarantee that they’ll pour all their resources and tools to get it done right.

Should You Hire Experts?

Is it worth the time and money to hire SEO experts and avail of their guest blogging services? 

The short answer is yes! The benefits listed above heavily outweigh all the downsides. After all, spending a little bit to let the experts handle guest blogging is a lot cheaper compared to the losses you risk if you do it by yourself. 

What happens if you get scammed? What if you approached a website without a large audience or isn’t an authority for their niche? You’ll have to start from the beginning, all over again!

Hire the Best Experts Today!

What are you waiting for? Consult experts today and avail of the best guest blogging services available. This is the best way to help build backlinks, gain more traffic, and boost your site’s ranking on Google search.

Of course, we offer more than guest blogging services. If you want more advice and expert tips and tricks, why not check out our other guides here? You can start with this one discussing how to build better transition sentences!

how to make your website popular

How to Make Your Website Popular: 7 Ways to Increase Traffic

Do you have a pretty, modern-looking website? Do you sell the hottest products or do you have a service you know people need?

That’s all fine and dandy until you realize no one visits your site. You’re sitting on a gold mine but there’s no one to sell to.

But, don’t fret. Understanding how to make your website popular and see a steady flow of traffic isn’t too difficult to grasp. We’ve got 7 tips right here for you to start learning the most efficient ways to succeed:

1. Prioritize Profitable Traffic

Getting more traffic isn’t the end-all goal. There’s no point in getting more traffic if you’re not seeing an increase too in conversions. You’ll be spending all that time, money, and effort without seeing an increase in sales, inquiries, or subscriptions.

Learn how to drive traffic to your online store by tracking ROI-related metrics. Monitor things like the total sales on a product landing page, conversions per ad clicks, and the conversions-to-traffic ratio.

Monitoring metrics like likes and shares is important to some extent but it doesn’t directly correlate to profit. Focusing too much on vanity metrics won’t get you popular; it’ll run your resources dry.

2. Guest Blog

Want to know how to make your website popular? One of the most important factors is your backlinking profile. The more reputable backlinks you have, the higher you’ll rank on Google searches and the more traffic you’ll get too.

You can build a strong profile by guest blogging. People will let you guest post — it’s one of the most important types of content, after all. You’re creating content for their site and in exchange, you get a good backlink to your site and you get exposure to their audience.

Blend this tactic with some of the others on this list. Make sure your guest post remains relevant for months, use long-tail keywords, and see if it answers a specific, niche question or concern.

3. Target Long-Tail Keywords

Gone are the days when you can rely on short keywords. The competition and Google’s changing algorithm demolished that system. Nowadays, it’s all about providing content related to specific, niche inquiries.

This means you need to utilize specific, niche keywords too. Don’t simply try to rank for “best HVAC repair company” and instead aim for “HVAC repair company in Tallahassee, FL.” The latter caters to a specific crowd, meaning you’re hyper-focusing your content for that audience.

Targeting long-tail keywords also help you stand out. There’s a lower competition but you still get a high search volume. It’s a win-win situation as long as you use those keywords right.

4. Evergreen Content

Hoping to generate free traffic sources over time? Create evergreen content!

This refers to content that remains relevant long after you initially uploaded it. This type of post doesn’t lose value and it doesn’t rely on things like current trends or pop-culture. It might even gain more traction as time passes.

Why is this helpful?

You can always share evergreen content repeatedly and so will others. Other websites and blogs might feature it in their posts. People might link to it in social media.

Because the content will remain relevant, this cycle can keep going! You might have one blog post that becomes viral and will skyrocket your site’s popularity through the roof! It’ll turn your site into the go-to authority for your niche.

5. Take Advantage of Email Marketing

Sometimes, it’s not about increasing raw traffic. Gaining popularity and meaningful traffic can sometimes come from people who already showed interest. After generating interest, make sure you follow-up by taking advantage of email marketing.

Modern email marketing is nothing like how it started years ago. You should prioritize dynamic, personalized messages.

Let’s say your business offers a subscription for a document editor tool similar to Google Docs or Microsoft Word. You can include personalized information in the email, such as letting the recipient know how many documents they created or how many words they typed within the past 30 days.

6. Utilize Social Media

Social media isn’t a ranking factor for Google. This means social media doesn’t affect SEO directly. That said, it still boosts your SEO efforts and increases brand awareness in many discreet ways.

For example, you can get on Twitter and share a link to your latest blog post. The link itself won’t affect search engine signals but you still get to showcase your post to the hundreds or thousands of people following you on Twitter. If a majority of them click on that link, you’ve already gained high-value traffic.

Now imagine if someone retweeted your post. This means they exposed your new blog post to their followers too. This cycle can keep going and this is how powerful social media can become.

It’s the modern form of word-of-mouth marketing and you shouldn’t ignore it!

7. Paid Ads Combined with SEO

More free traffic is always appreciated but this doesn’t mean you can rely solely on SEO. You’ll still struggle even with the best content, solid guest posting strategy, and smart use of social media platforms.

Boost your efforts with a well-planned paid advertising campaign.

Set a budget, take the time to craft expertly-designed ads, and manage your campaign with meticulous care. You might need to outsource if you’ve never handled a PPC campaign before but it’s a worthwhile investment.

Instead of focusing entirely on SEO or entirely on a paid ads campaign, try to strike a balance so you can do both.

Learn How to Make Your Website Popular

Knowing how to make your website popular isn’t rocket science. Simply keep these 7 tips to heart and you’ll be well on your way to boosting meaningful, profitable traffic.

However, gaining more traffic is only part of the struggle. The good news is we’ve got you covered!

Why not check out our other walkthroughs today? Here’s one discussing how often you should write new blog posts!

creative blog titles

How to Come Up With Catchy and Creative Blog Titles: The Best Tips

There are 4 million blog posts published on the internet every day, fighting for people’s attention and reading time. Luckily, not all articles are created equal, and how they perform depends largely on the blog headlines.

Maybe you’re an expert in your field and have tons of valuable information to share. Or maybe you want to be a blogger and write about your life and interests. In any case of writing content for the web, it’s catchy and creative blog titles that make the readers click and share.

Wondering what makes people click on a blog post headline? Well, you clicked on this one to learn the best tips, so keep on reading.

Follow a Headline Formula

Most bloggers and professional writers with successful headlines follow a simple copywriting formula that gets them clicks. Some of the best-performing blog post titles include:

  • How To…
  • The Ultimate List/Guide To…
  • The Proven Methods To…
  • The Secrets To…
  • The [number] Mistakes People Make…
  • [Someone] Did [Something Unusual] + [Timeframe]. Here’s What Happened.
  • Stop [Strong Command]
  • What You Should Know About [Topic of Choice]
  • [Number] Little-Known Ways To…
  • Are You [Question]?

Using these formulas, you can make a long list of catchy titles and refer to it whenever you’re stuck and need some inspiration. You can always use A/B testing to see which titles perform best.

Study Successful Blog Post Headlines

The best way to learn how to write good titles is to analyze what’s already out there. Study successful blogs in your niche and see what types of headlines they publish. Watch what gets shared on social media and whether the content actually delivers on the promises in the title.

You’ll notice a lot of similar titles out there, but to be on the safe side, try to think of your own unique ones. It’s important to be original because search engines and readers can smell a bad copy from a distance. You can also use online tools and research reports to see which headlines perform the best.

Deliver What You Promised in the Headline

The number one rule of successful headlines is to deliver on your promise in the content. When readers click on a title, they want to get some information on a particular topic. The majority of online readers have an attention span of around 5 seconds and they’ll quickly skim through your article to find what they need. If they don’t, they’ll leave and won’t come back.

This is why you need to make things easy for them and use the right formatting for your blog posts. Headings, bullet points, quotes, images, and short paragraphs are a must for online content, both for SEO purposes and your readers.

Steer Clear of Clickbait Titles

You’ve seen clickbait titles all over the internet saying things like “you’ll never believe what happened next” or “this simple trick will shock you and change your life“. While some clickbait titles are good, others are just sensationalist and the content they offer is fluffy and nowhere near as shocking.

Luckily, readers who need value and knowledge know a clickbait title when they see one. The reason why clickbait doesn’t perform well in professional industries is because it sounds like gimmicks and readers don’t want to waste their time. Instead of trying to lure readers in with clickbait, offer real value in your headline and deliver on your promises.

Use Keywords in Your Headline

Google and other search engines have algorithms that analyze your headlines and content for quality, backlinks, and keywords. If you want to rank your content high on the SERP, you need to implement a valuable keyword into the title and then into the article. Keywords should fit the title naturally, not be awkwardly placed just to be included.

Make a list of several keywords that your target audience is searching for and play around with title combinations. You can also type in the keyword in your search bar and see what headlines come up. You can then analyze them and see what performs best.

Make It Personal

Even though your headline is meant for thousands of people, the reader should still feel like it’s addressing them personally. You don’t have to (and realistically you can’t) use personal names in the title, but you can use personal pronouns like ‘your’ to make people feel like the content is all about them.

A good headline example is “Your Ultimate Guide to Backlinks” instead of “The Ultimate Guide to Backlinks“. For this to work, you need to know your target audience extremely well and talk directly to them instead of the entire internet.

Appeal to the Reader’s Emotions

Headlines that appeal to the reader’s emotions have better chances of performing and getting clicks than dry data. In fact, BuzzSumo analyzed 100 million headlines and discovered that the most shared and clicked on headlines appealed to the reader’s emotions.

However, this can be tricky because you don’t want to overpromise in the headline and fail to deliver in the content. For example, if your headline contains the phrase “you’ll be shocked“, your audience will expect to be shocked. Otherwise, your title is clickbait.

Practice, Practice, Practice

For every blog post headline you think of, you need to write at least 10 more before you choose the winning one. Learning how to make a good title takes time and practice, but you’ll soon get a good feel of which headlines resonate with your readers.

There are also online blog post title generators that can help you come up with ideas and word combinations. Remember to avoid clickbait titles, overly-promising headlines, or titles that contain jargon your readers can’t understand.

Coming Up With Creative Blog Titles Is Easy With These Tips!

Whether you’re a business owner, a blogger, or just someone who enjoys publishing content online, a good headline can attract the right audience to your blog.

These tips will help you create catchy, valuable, and creative blog titles that your readers will love and happily click on.

Need more writing and headline inspiration? Here are 6 types of blog posts you should try today and wow your audience.

inbound lead generation

A Beginner’s Guide to Inbound Lead Generation

Did you know that only 18% of marketers value outbound sales strategies for providing qualified leads? 

Inbound lead generation has taken over not only digital marketing but marketing as a whole. But what is it exactly? 

 The idea of what inbound sales is, often gets lumped into the stereotypes of traditional lead generation. But inbound lead generation stands alone. 

Here’s everything you need to know about inbound lead generation. 

What Makes a Lead? 

So what makes something a lead versus a contact or a simple email? The answer is interest. 

A lead is someone who has expressed interest in your business through many forms, like signing up for a newsletter, downloading an ebook, and browsing your website. 

Cold emailing a person you’ve found on the internet, or purchasing a large contact list does not qualify as “lead generation.” The lead must be the one to initiate the conversation with a business. 

Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. If you recently watched a free webinar from a company and received an email follow-up asking how it was, and if you would be interested in more products, it wouldn’t feel intrusive. But, if a company were to suddenly start emailing you, asking if you’d like to see their products, it would feel a little invasive, and even desperate. 

Understanding the Types of Leads 

All leads aren’t necessarily the same. Different leads fall into different parts of the buyer’s journey. There are four main types of qualified leads, or leads that are “actually” leads, they’re listed below. 

  • Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL). These are the people at the beginning of the buyer’s journey, who have expressed indirect interest, like through an ebook download. MQLs are in the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey. 
  • Sales Qualified Leads (SQL). These leads have directly expressed interest in your product by engaging with your company, like through a Facebook message asking about a product. SQLs are in the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey. 
  • Product Qualified Leads (PQL). PQLs are also in the consideration stage. They are potential clients who have tried your product but have not actually purchased it yet. Think free trials and free samples. 
  • Service Qualified Leads. These are institutions or individuals who have decided that they want your product, and have reached out to your team to express so. 

What is Lead Generation? 

Lead generation is the act of curating qualified leads. Lead generation is not cold emailing or email blasting thousands of random contacts. It’s the “art” of making people genuinely interested in your product or service and converting them into customers. 

To understand what is truly interesting to your target audience, you need to understand them. You’ve got to think about the challenges they face and the solutions you can offer them. An Instagram post, an event, and a press release are all examples of lead generators. 

Think of it as if you were trying to make connections at an event. An almost guaranteed way to turn strangers into friends is to fulfill a need they have.

Pointing someone in the direction of the room their looking for, helping someone get their order in at a crowded bar, and complimenting someone are all ways to break the ice. All of these examples fulfill an intrinsic need. 

The same is to be said for lead generation, get people aware and interested in your company by giving them something they need. Provide a tutorial video on a common question you receive or see in your industry, give them something like an invite to a free event, or a free online course. 

Understanding Inbound Lead Generation

By now you might have realized that inbound lead generation takes many forms. The most successful strategies are embedded in all aspects of a company’s inbound marketing strategy. 

For inbound lead generation to be successful, there needs to be a central inbound strategy that connects all inbound marketing channels. Each method should work together to enhance each individual strategy, not work against one another or in a detached manner. 

Email, content and social media marketing, along with a company’s website are all essential tools at the center of an inbound sales strategy. 

How to Use Inbound Marketing to Generation Leads

Create high-quality content that serves a purpose. Don’t just regurgitate information from across the web onto your website. 

Think about what unique angle your company can bring to a topic. Think about the topics you’re authoritative in and how you can be of service to your target audience. Create a resourceful blog, or YouTube channel or guide book for completely free. 

Stay relevant by sharing a newsletter with your current lead database. Segment the database by the type of leads they are. Share relevant news and solutions, and use email as a tool to distribute your content on. 

Use PPC and paid search advertising to capture the interest of your target audience for inbound lead generation. Bring users who click to a resourceful landing page where a potential lead must fill out a form to access exclusive content like a product trial, coupon or other freebies. 

Consistently manage your social media profiles. Make sure that your company information is updated and that photos and imagery are consistent with your brand. Consistently update your social networks with content that’s interesting and relevant to the audiences of each independent social network.

awareness campaign ideas

10 Innovative Brand Awareness Campaign Ideas

A good brand campaign can work wonders. It can help grow your business, take you from an unknown to a well-known name in your industry, and even help you become President of the United States.

There are lots of ways to run an effective branding campaign but the key is to find the people who are most likely interested in what you have to offer and engage them where they hang out. Let’s look at 10 innovative brand awareness campaign ideas.

What Is Brand Awareness?

Brand awareness is what it says in the name – getting people more aware of your brand. This is a form of marketing but there’s a subtle difference from how most businesses market themself.

Instead of trying to convince people to buy your products or services, brand marketing is all about getting your name out there. You might not get a single sale as a direct result of the campaign but if you do it well, you’ll be the first place they think of when they’re in the market for what you have to offer.

Make It Personal

A common mistake a lot of brands make in their awareness campaigns is making it too “corporate”. Your customers know you’re running a business but they still want a personal connection with the people in that business.

Even if the only person in that business is you.

Socialize with Your Audience

Interact with your audience on a personal level. Take social networks like Facebook and Twitter literally and socialize with people. Build a rapport with them and they’ll remember you.

Even if you can’t connect with everyone in your target audience, they’ll see how you treat other people. Those one-to-one connections can multiply to one-to-many even if you don’t see it happening.

Tell a Story

Everyone loves a good story. The most successful movies, TV shows, and companies have a story to tell. For example, Apple’s story is about its rise, gradual decline to near-bankruptcy, and how its returning founder turned it around and it became one of the world’s biggest companies.

Create a memorable story about your company that people will immediately think of when they hear your name. Make that a part of your company’s identity and share that story at every opportunity.

Develop a Personality for Your Brand

Along with a story, your brand should have its own personality. It might be quirky, funny, adventuresome, or conservative. It should be something that will resonate with your target market but exactly how you want to be seen is up to you.

People will remember you if you express an opinion. If your image is bland and doesn’t make you stand out, your brand won’t stick in their memory.

Use the Freemium Model

If you sell a product or service, consider using the freemium model to build brand awareness. This means you give your product or service away for free, with a paid option that adds features or makes it better in some way.

Smartphone apps are one of the most common examples of this model. A lot of these apps are free to download and let you use a limited set of features or use the app for a limited amount of time. They have a paid upgrade that either unlocks extra features or gives the users some other benefit.

This can help build buzz for your brand by getting people talking about it and sharing it on social media sites.

Offer Free, High-Quality Content

This is like the freemium model in some ways but instead of giving away your product or service, give away your knowledge. Share helpful information with your audience to help make your brand more recognizable.

If the content is good enough, your readers will share it with their network, those people will share it with their, and so on. If this happens on a large enough scale, you’ll end up going viral.

Become a Multimedia Producer

Written content like blog posts and email newsletters are important but in today’s world, you need to offer multimedia content as well. Podcasts get more popular every year and it’s easy to produce your own show. The costs are minimal but can help get your brand in front of a lot of people.

YouTube videos can do the same thing. Creating video content is a bit more complex than podcasts but it’s still relatively inexpensive and easy to do. This is particularly important if you target a younger audience since YoUTube is one of their most-watched sources of entertainment and information.

Partner with Influencers

With the growth of YouTube and other social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, some publishers have become celebrities in their market. These people are known as “influencers” because of the power they have to influence their audiences.

A lot of these influencers make a living by partnering with brands to promote them to their audiences. This can be a great way to get exposure for your brand, with people who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer.

Create a Brand Hashtag

Brand awareness is built into most social networks. Trending topics are the things that people are talking about the most and once something starts to trend, it snowballs from there. As people see it trending, they start talking about it, which makes it trend even higher.

If you can get your business into those trending topics, you can reach a huge new audience to get your brand in front of them. Creating a hashtag for your brand can help. Add it to every post you make on social media and encourage your audience to do the same whenever they talk about your business on social media.

Attend Industry Conferences and Workshops

This idea is a little more old-school but it still works as well as ever. Attending industry conferences and workshops will help you meet people in your market and get your brand in front of the people who are most interested.

If you have a chance to sponsor the event in some way, that’s even better. This can get your name in front of every attendee and potentially their networks. If you provide giveaways or samples of your product that they can use, it can pay back several times over through the extra exposure.

Putting Your Brand Awareness Campaign Ideas into Action

Hopefully, some of these brand awareness campaign ideas struck a chord with you. If so, don’t feel like you have to do them all at once. Take it one step at a time. Start with one campaign idea, get it up and running, and see how it works. If it works well, scale it up as much as possible and then add another idea to the mix.

Another effective way to build your brand is through search engine optimization. Getting your site ranked near the top of Google will put your website and name in front of all the people searching for what you have to offer. And those are the perfect people to target since you can offer a solution to their problem.

There are several factors in getting a top ranking in Google but one of the most important is links pointing to your website from other sites. Backlinks.com can help you build those links without spending a huge amount of time and effort on it. Get in touch with us today for a free link building consultation and find out how we can help you build your brand.

digital content strategies

Digital Content Strategies to Use in 2020

Around 34% of consumers are more likely to make unplanned purchases from brands that personalize content. Learning more about trending digital content strategies will give you the competitive edge you’ve been looking for.

Different audiences engage with digital content to different degrees. The average American spends 8.8 hours daily engaging with digital content. Millennials, on the other hand, tend to spend around 11 hours per day doing the same. 

Sure, it’s true that content is king in SEO and digital marketing. But developing a content marketing strategy will ensure that you create the informative, and marketable content your audience desires.

Here are some digital content tips you should consider using in 2020.

Long-Form Blog Posts

If you’ve noticed your competitors’ blog posts getting longer, it’s not your imagination. In fact, the length of the average blog post has increased by 41% in the past 3 years. 

Articles around 500 words were once average and ideal, but the standard has since changed. Now, the highest-ranking blog posts contain about 1,142 words.

Blog posts give you the opportunity to create branded content that’s useful to your audience. In Google’s eyes, longer blog posts tend to be more informative than shorter ones. That’s why long-form blog posts are reigning supreme in the worlds of SEO and digital marketing.

Long-form blogs let you delve deeper into topics that matter to consumers. This allows you to include new information that your competition isn’t talking about and update it as time passes. If your blog post is more recently updated and longer, it’s more likely to be a valuable resource than your competitors’ blogs are.

No matter how good your blog posts are, consistency is the key to achieving success in blogging. Learn more about how often to write blogs to get a better idea of what your content schedule should look like.

Search Intent Matters

Building a content strategy that works in 2020 involves taking users’ search intent into consideration. In turn, knowing more about search intent will help you create more targeted content for your audience.

A user’s search intent is the intention behind their search. Are they seeking information, trying to find a certain website, or looking to buy something? Finding out this information will clue you in on what kind of content to market.

The keywords a user chooses will usually clue you in on their search intent. For example, a user who googles “best moisturizers of 2020” is probably looking to compare products. Another user might google “moisturizer reviews” with a similar intent.

Some of the best examples of content marketing zero in on search intent. At the very least, the result is content that’s more useful to consumers.

After learning the important SEO terms you must know, create digital content around the search intents that arise in your audience. It’ll be easier to market and make your website more visible in SERPs (search engine results pages).

Video Content, YouTube, and Live-Streaming

Don’t forget to incorporate videos into your online content strategy! Next to blogging, video content is the second most popular form of branded content. 

Internet users are more likely to share video content than written content. Videos also hold the average person’s attention for longer periods of time than written content does.

By not creating video content, you could be alienating an entire group of people without realizing it. Not everyone is up to the task of reading a lengthy blog post. Many people would rather watch a 5-minute video about a product instead of researching it.

Plus, video content is more accessible to people with learning disabilities that make reading more difficult for them. 

YouTube is one of the hottest platforms for brands to post videos on in 2020. Not only is YouTube a great source of publicity, but it’s also good for branding and marketing.

Once you upload a branded YouTube video, it can continue generating revenue and plenty of views for years after the fact.  This is especially the case for videos about evergreen topics.

Live-streaming is also getting hotter by the second. Live video streaming gives you the chance to connect with your audience more, answer their questions, and generate leads. Consider hosting live webinars, product demos, and other live video events. 

Live-streaming also helps you boost your brand’s social media presence.

Pillar Content and Filterable Posts

Pillar content is some of the most strategic content you’ll find on the internet in 2020. It’s a piece of content with a central theme that’s broken down into different sections and materials. The user clicks on the different sections to explore the information.

Why is pillar content becoming more popular? Because it provides a more personalized user experience. It also makes the buyer’s journey more seamless. 

This kind of content is also highly organized. People enjoy digesting content in sections rather than all at once. For this reason, filterable posts are also useful to consumers.

Filterable posts let you filter what kind of content you’re looking for. Users simply click on the boxes that apply to their needs and voila! The content is now personalized.

People are more likely to buy from brands with personalized content, so jump on this trend as soon as possible!

Optimize For Voice Searches

Thanks to smart devices, voice searches are becoming more commonplace. Optimizing your content for voice searches will help you tap into a market that many other brands are neglecting.

You see, voice searches are a recent phenomenon. Sure, Alexa is a household name, but many brands haven’t caught up with this trend yet. That means it’ll be easier for you to stand out and attract buyers!

Use The Best Digital Content Strategies of 2020

Out of all the people who responded to a recent survey, 70% conducted voice searches at least a few times each week. Jump on these fresh digital content strategies like voice search optimization before other brands do!

The more you know your audience, the easier it’ll be to create compelling content they enjoy. Either way, it will result in more sales or brand awareness.

Make your content more visible in search engines—buy text links today! Your business’s website will thank you for it.

types of blog posts

Mix It Up: 6 Types of Blog Posts You Should Try Today

Every man and his dog has a blog these days.

Look, we don’t blame them.

Despite all the toing and froing of the internet, blogs have been, and continue to be, a cornerstone of content marketing.

But 4 million new blog posts are now published every single day.

The success and ensuing popularity of blogs combine to make writing a successful blog one helluva competitive task. These days, it isn’t possible to just write an article and expect people to find and read it. It’ll just get lost online.

Mixing up the types of blog posts you create is one way to help yours stand out.

Variety is the spice of life, right? Writing alternative forms of blog content prevents your posts from becoming stale and ordinary. You cover different bases, entertain in novel ways, and set yourself apart from other blogs out there.

Sound good? Read on for 6 types of blog articles to try out now.

1. How-To Guides

Okay, so this one’s nothing revolutionary.

But the success of how-to articles on the internet means it deserves a place on this list.

People use the internet to solve their problems. Thus, writing easy to understand, step by step how-to guides almost always go down a treat.

The exact topic, of course, depends entirely on your niche. A plumbing business might write how-to guides about fixing common household plumbing issues; a dentist’s office could create guides for cultivating better oral health.

You get the idea.

Think about your area of expertise and use your insight to create instructive posts. Doing so helps establish you as an authority in the niche. Help somebody do something for themselves, and, ironically, they may solicit your support later on.

2. Listicles

Here’s another type of blog post that’s hugely popular online.

You can’t beat a good list.

People are impatient these days (our attention spans are literally less than that of a goldfish!). They don’t want a giant wall of text to go through. Present them with it and they’ll almost certainly look elsewhere for their answers.

Lists are a top method of summarizing masses of content into key points. Trust us when we say this goes down better in the fast-paced, impatient world of the internet.

Streamline your content in this way and you’re on your way to a winner. Even better, they’re often far quicker and easier to write.

It’s a win for everyone involved.

3. Guest Posts

Here’s a quick one for any lazy webmasters out there (just kidding…).

Assuming the quality of work is up to standard, guest posts are a brilliant way to get new content, for free and with zero effort. In exchange for a backlink or exposure to your audience, someone else volunteers a blog post for your website.

They write an article on a given topic and you host it!

4. Review Articles

Remember: people go online for answers.

Combine that with an unparalleled urge to buy things, and you have a need for review-type articles. In simple terms, people want to know about the pros and cons of the products they’re interested in buying.

Are you up to speed with your gear, tech, household appliances, or what-not? Well, writing accurate and impartial reviews will address this demand for answers.

Of course, the desire for quality reviews doesn’t stop at products. Services are just as much of a priority.

Take TripAdvisor as a case and point. People want to know about the standard of restaurants, hotels, attractions, and so on before frequenting them.

Set about writing these reviews and ranking them on Google.

5. Curated Content

Curated content encompasses a broad spectrum of specific content possibilities.

Nonetheless, it’s often ignored by content creators, meaning it’s worth mentioning here.

Indeed, the very notion of being a content creator is at odds with curation. Here, instead of creating something from nothing, you pull together a post based on what’s already out there.

Shocking as it might sound, your next blog post doesn’t have to be original content!

Heck, you could even ask permission to host a favorite blog post from a competitor on your site. Credit the source and you earn a popular pre-written post with (almost) zero effort.

Resource pages are another example of curated content. A marketing firm could write an article about ‘the best marketing resources on the web’, which simply includes links to, and a description of, each resource found.

Regardless of the exact format, assembling a post based on pre-existing content can be both helpful to you (it saves writing something from scratch!) and your readers.

6. Interview Posts

Any narcissists out there should close their ears now:

You don’t have to be the center of attention in your blog posts.

Why not interview experts in the field or people of interest to your niche? Your readers gain a fresh new perspective and useful insight into a certain topic.

You could record the interview too and write a transcript of it. Doing so earns you two brand new forms of content for the website, opening the door to a wider audience.

Moreover, this is a great way to earn newfound organic traffic and interest- the interviewee is likely to share the interview with their audience too.

Time to Try These Different Types of Blog Posts

The internet is awash with blogs just like yours.

Even if you’ve seen some success already, there’s no time to rest on your laurels. The sheer mass of new content that’s published daily means you have to go the extra mile to stand out.

Posting different types of blog posts will be a helping hand in that endeavor.

Doing so keeps your writing fresh, your audience on their toes, and readers more actively engaged. After all, not all content is created equal and a one-size-fits-all approach won’t cut it; different topics demand alternative approaches.

Hopefully, this post has provided a selection of top ideas for successfully mixing your blog posts up.

Tired of waiting months for your blog posts to rank? Click here to get some quality backlinks to help drive juice your way.