10 Link Building Strategies for Small Businesses

♠ Posted by Unknown in 10 Link Building Strategies for Small Businesses

Not every website is the same, thus not every website’s link building strategy should be the same. To come up with your strategy you can study the link profiles of major competitors that established themselves in the niche before you did.

Below is a sample backlink analysis from a WooRank Website Project that shows backlink information in the form of a page URL, page title and linking anchor text.

The following are some legitimate link building strategies that have been tried and tested for small businesses:

1. Get a Blog:

Using a blog for link building is one of the latest trends in SEO. What makes you stand out in your niche is the quality of your content and the topics of your blog posts. Informative blogs on ‘useful tips’ and ‘lists of useful tools’ are usually a hit and creating blogs on controversial topics once in a while will grab the attention of fellow bloggers. Your blog page could invite both positive and negative views from experts in your niche, with the goal of setting you apart from all your blogging competitors. Writing on controversial topics may generate a buzz in your niche; ideally the content will then get shared on social media sites and receive many comments from readers. This increases the popularity of your blog. Read more about Blogging for SEO in one of our previous posts.

2. Internal link building:

Having a blog page associated with your website as either a subdirectory (www.yoursite/blog), a subdomain (www.blog.yoursite.com) or a separate domain (www.blog.com) gives you plenty of opportunities to link your content with your main site or link your blogs with each other. This internal link building is completely under your control, where you can choose your own anchor texts. This strategy also helps to promote your site for the targeted keywords found in the anchor texts interlinking your blogs.

3. Promote your blog’s RSS feed:

If you have a blog, you must have an RSS feed for it. Distribute your blog’s RSS feed in the following directories for free and earn links in return:

Blogdigger

Chordata

Feedagg

Feedburner

Feedage

Feedlisting

Feedmailer

Feedplex

Oobdoo

Plazoo

4. Guest Blog:

When you have your own blog it becomes easier to approach owners of other popular blogs in your niche, in order to gain guest blogging opportunities. Guest blogging is here to stay, as building links is not easy and this is a natural way to do it. Once you have built an initial reputation with your blog, you could showcase your expertise by sharing the link to your blog with webmasters you would love to guest blog for, thus gaining a link back to your website. Having your own blog also creates opportunities to exchange posts, thus building a mutually beneficial relationship.

You can find guest bloggers on the following sites:

MyBlogGuest

BloggerLinkUp

GuestBlogIt

BlogSynergy

GroupHigh

Guestr

BlogDash

PostJoint

CopyforBylines

BlogZone

Fizzniche

Triberr

GuestBloggingWebsites

5. Blog Commenting:

With Google Blog search you can find bloggers in your niche that share the same interests as you. Make a habit of leaving relevant comments on their blogs, in the form of praise or suggestions, in order to gain exposure in your niche community of bloggers. You can also occasionally drop a link in their comments, suggesting similar content featured in your own blog. Note: Dropping a link that connects to a content page is better than leaving a link back to the main, sales-driven part of your website. This can increase traffic to your blog and eventually increase link juice to your site as a whole.

 6. Article Sites:

Article directories were penalized as content farms when a lot of webmasters submitted the same low quality content to hundreds and thousands of article sites. The trend of mass article distribution is outdated but with a blog page of your own, you own the copyrights to your article and can syndicate shorter versions of your article on these article sites. There are some high quality article sites on the web where you can distribute segments of content from your original blog posts, written as teasers, and providing a link to your blog in the resource box to encourage visitors of the article sites to read more of your content.

Some of these article sites are as follows:

HubPages

Examiner

Buzzle

Technorati

Squidoo

eHow

EzineArticles

BrightHub

IdeaMarketers

7. Document Sharing:

Share content on document sharing sites. This is not limited to blogs but includes other promotional content that your company has produced as well, in the form of whitepapers, e-books, PDF’s, case studies or even restaurant menu cards. Drop a link in these shared documents, add relevant tags, give an apt title and description containing your target keywords and, on some sites, you can even write transcripts of your document with relevant keywords inserted in them.

Some of the popular online document sharing sites are as follows:

Slideshare

DocStoc

Scribd

Issuu

Esnips

AuthorStream

8. Press Release Marketing

Feature in Google News by releasing news about your company, product or service. You could also write a press release on a trending topic. Create a buzz at the right time by keeping an eye out for trending keywords on Google Trends. Press releases are often featured in the ‘News’ section on the first page of Google search results:

News on the First Page of Google Search Results

News on the First Page of Google Search Results

After you have created a press release, submit it to press release sites to gain links from them. The following are some reputed press release sites:

Webwire

Information-Online

BusinessWire

i-Newswire

PR

SBWire

PRNewswire

9. Infographics:

Although small businesses may not have time to strategize with content by planning designs for infographics, they can still use services offering free infographic templates. If you have some useful industry statistics or if you have data from conducting your own industry survey, do not bother explaining it in a boring, text-only blog. Use free infographic templates and offer your audience a colorful representation of the statistics. You can then post the infographic to your blog. Anyone else choosing to use your infographics can do so by embedding the code you provide, thus automatically producing a link back to your website. Here is a great post on the Top Three Infographic Tools for small businesses, all offered at no cost. You can gain more links by distributing these infographics to directories, such as:

InfographicsArchive

CoolInfographics

Infographicsshowcase

SubmitInfographics

Infographicsite

Visually

Reddit

Nerdgraph

InfographicLife

10. Get Social:

It is essential for every small business to have a blend of social media links in their link profiles because social signals play a very important role in boosting your search ranking. This is because social media involves real people and becoming popular among real people requires effort that is recognized and rewarded by search engine crawlers. There are many ways in which you can gather social signals. Some of them are listed below:

Social bookmark your blog or website on the following sites:

StumbleUpon

Reddit

Tumblr

Digg

Delicious

Create a brand page on the following sites:

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Google+

Get links from your Twitter profile by submitting it to Twitter directories. These sites are as follows:

Klout

Twellow

TwitterCounter

Twitaholic

Listorious

TweetLevel

FavStar

Here are some other miscellaneous social media sites where you can create a link back to your website from your profiles:

YouTube

Diigo

MisterWong

Pinterest

Flickr

Folkd

Ebaumsworld

Tagza

Newsvine

Blinklist

Chime.in

Bloglines

Netvouz

Social-Bookmarking

BuddyMarks

Oyax

SiteJot

Gozoof

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Actionable Ideas For Driving Traffic To Your Website

♠ Posted by Unknown in Driving Traffic To Your Website

Focus on long-tail keywords – 

The days of focusing on a single keyword for each page are long gone. Make sure your posts include all the relevant terms and phrases related to your topic. For help with finding long-tail keywords, see my post How to Find LSI (Long Tail) Keywords Once You’ve Identified Your Primary Keywords. Start a forum on your website – An active forum can quickly begin ranking for long-tail keywords. They’re also great for decreasing your site’s bounce rate, increasing time-on-site, as well as building a community. Start a Facebook group that drives traffic to your site.

Start a niche-specific group where members can ask questions and get support (and don’t forget to point them back to your site’s content where relevant). Submit your blog posts to StumbleUpon  

It works! Promote your blog posts to your email list – 

This doesn’t have to be the main focus of all your emails, but including a link or two back to your blog posts can considerably increase traffic, leads, and sales. Answer a HARO query – 

Answering a pitch only take a few minutes, and can result in great PR, high-quality inbound links and referral traffic to your site. Work on your headlines – 

Your headlines are what will get people in the door, particularly when you share your blog posts via social media; make sure they pique interest and clearly articulate the benefit to your readers. For help with that, see “The Online Marketer’s Guide to Writing High-Converting Headlines.” Join a blogging community like ProBlogger or CopyBlogger  – This is a great way to network with other bloggers, and to cross-promote each other’s content. Include links to other relevant posts on your blog – When you write a post, always be sure to mention other posts your readers may find helpful; this is great for SEO as well as for increasing time-on-site, conversion rates, and referral traffic. Guest post on relevant blogs – There’s not much point guest blogging on a site in an unrelated niche; make sure you only contribute to highly-relevant, high-quality sites in your niche. See “The Ultimate, Step-by-Step Guide to Building Your Business by Guest Blogging.” Become a columnist or contributor on a well-known website – If you can become a guest contributor on an authority site like Huffington Post or Forbes, you not only drive targeted traffic to your site, but establish yourself as an expert in your field. Optimize your existing posts – Comb through your old posts to make sure they have unique and relevant title tags, URLS and meta descriptions. Demote irrelevant Google sitelinks – While Google sitelinks are automatically generated, you can demote URLS you don’t want to show; this may increase the chances that the URLS you do want listed show up. You can do this from within Google Webmaster Tools. Arrange an advertising swap – 

Trade banner ads with a complimentary site in your niche. Post more frequently – Neil Patel of QuickSprout found that by posting high-quality posts 6x per week (as opposed to 5), blog traffic increased by 18.6%. Find your magic number and commit to seeing it through. Remember that in many cases, the traffic increases you see from blogging are scalable. Submit your posts to Reddit – Yes, this also still works. Mention influencers in your tweets – When you cite, quote or mention someone in a blog post, be sure to @ mention them in your tweet when you promote your post. Focus your energy on strategies that are working – You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing. Study your analytics to see your main traffic drivers, and focus on your energy on these areas. Build connections with others in your niche – I know this sounds cliché, but building personal relationships with other bloggers in your niche will often result in organic inbound links and referral traffic to your site. Make sure you have every relevant keyword you can think of on your site – I’m not talking old-school keyword spamming here. I’m talking about focusing on topical content; and making sure you at least have the chance of being found for all your relevant keywords, no matter how obscure they may be. Create a top 10 website post – Select the top 10 blogs in your niche, and write a post about them. You may also want to create a simple badge or banner those sites can embed to show off their award. Make the most of Facebook links – Be sure to include links back to your site in your About page, in your photo descriptions, in the comments of your posts (where relevant), and in your milestones. Get on YouTube – YouTube drives the most engaged traffic out of all social media sites, with an average of 2.99 pages per visit. Add text to your blog post images – Try including your post title and URL in your blog post images for optimal effect when pinned or shared. Become a member of industry Facebook and LinkedIn groups – Offer valuable advice and info to build relationships and drive traffic to your site. Connect with bloggers who are already sending you traffic – If someone has already linked to your site, they obviously like what you have to say. Contact them to see if there are other ways they could help promote your content (and vice versa). Ask a well-known blogger to guest post on your site – They’ll likely share the post with their audience, driving traffic to your site. Respond to blog comments – Respond thoughtfully to all comments on your blog. This is great for building relationships, as well as for driving commenters back to your site. Add your blog to Alltop – As an aggregate for all kinds of web content, submitting your blog increases your chances of getting found by people looking for content in your niche. Answer Questions – Visit sites like Yahoo Answers or Quora and answer questions relevant to your niche. Write a Response Post – Respond to a controversial post in your niche and then let the original poster know about it. Chances are good they won’t be able to resist responding to it on their blog. Contact influential bloggers – When you write a groundbreaking or newsworthy post, notify influencers in your field. You may be surprised at how many link back to your post. Make proper use of categories – If you haven’t already organized your content into relevant categories, now’s the time. Categories are great not only for SEO, but for helping your readers find relevant content. Write landmark posts  – Create at least a few long-form, authoritative posts that will organically garner links and attention over the long haul. Comment on industry blogs  – Become a regular commenter on a popular blog in your niche to help drive referral traffic and to establish relationships with other bloggers. Interview influencers in your niche – They will be very likely to promote the interview to their audience. Share your blog posts regularly on Facebook  – Post a short excerpt from your posts to entice them to click through. Share your posts on Triberr  – Meet other bloggers and share each other’s content. Add your blog to Technorati – As the world’s largest blog directory, claiming your blog should be standard procedure for all bloggers. 

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4 Reasons Your Blog Will Never Grow!

♠ Posted by Unknown in 4 Reasons Your Blog Will Never Grow!

First of all tell me why should anyone read your blog?

No idea?

Let me clear your doubt why should someone read your blog.

People read your blog to solve their problems not to listen your bragging!

Blogging is not only the best way to make money online but it also provide a better platform to share your opinions and to build a brand.

Isn’t it?

But only few bloggers succeed online. Well, most of the remaining bloggers quit blogging within 6 months, how terrible?

Why your blog will never grow and what can you do to stop it? Ready?

4 Reasons Why Your Blog Will Never Grow

1. Mediocre content:

If you have pathetic content and writing style then no one will be interested to read your so called blog.

Create something that you will be proud of.

Don’t post just another posts to update your blog. No post is better than the worst post. And I know it’s bit difficult to create great content especially when you are just starting out.

All you have to do to create better content for your blog is: being helpful to your readers. Know your targeted audience first. Then try solving their problems.

How to know their problems then?

Good question which I always love to answer.

Try solving your own blogging problems! I will explain you more better here.

If you are just created a blog and thinking what to write in your first blog post, you can write “How to write your very first blog post”.

You can rank more better in Google if you are the first person to write on the trending hot topics!

At the end of the day, you must create compelling content, readers will come one or other day for sure!

Read: 10 Crucial Points To Help You Write Better Blog Posts.

2. Terrible design:

Invest some money on buying premium themes like Thesis or Genesis, their coding is so simpler and easy which can make your blog to take next level.

Make your readers easily to read your content. Don’t make your blog design complex! If you strain their eyes, they will go away.

If you can’t afford premium themes, just make use of minimalist themes like pagelines etc.

They look simple and easy to read the content without having any strain.

Read: Selecting Your Blog Design Theme Design

3. You don’t network:

Creating valuable content alone is not enough, you must network with others in your niche. Spend some time to respond to your comments, email others to read your content, be in touch with your readers etc.

Blogging becomes much easier when you have like minded people around your network. If you have unique tone and content, you can absolutely stand out from the crowd to make a difference.

You don’t need to be creative marketer to network with others. Just focus on Win/Win approach i.e give and take policy.

It works better when you network with others. Try to help them and solve their problems, surely you will make positive impact on them.

Read: How to Create a SCADA System For Your Blog!

4. You spend time on wrong things!!

Instead of spending your time on blog commenting for 2 to 3 hours, spend that time to write quality guest posts for others. It can do wonders.

I’m not saying to stop blog commenting. But if you have less time to blog, spend time productively. And this is the best way to build your blog fast.

Guest blogging gives you:

Relationships with the author

Subscribers

You can steal their readers

Attract more traffic

Back links

You can be everywhere!

Do you know Danny Iny aka freddy krueger of blogging?

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20 Headline Writing Tips for More Clickable, Shareable Blog Posts

♠ Posted by Unknown in 20 Headline Writing Tips for More Clickable,Shareable Blog Posts

It’s easy to let headlines take the back seat in your writing process. Headlines can wind up as a quick afterthought, but really should be treated with much more consideration. In fact, your headline is arguably more important than the article itself. After all, who cares how great your blog post is if no one even reads it?

writing headlines online

Headline writing rules have changed quite a bit since the great online migration

Out of all the folks who read your headline, only 20% will read the article copy. Whether it’s for email subject lines, blog posts, ebooks, or webinars, you need a powerful, sexy headline to make readers swoon.

Modern online article headlines are tricky – they need to be SEO keyword friendly, but also should be unique and creative. The end result needs to be super clickable, irresistible headlines.

If you’re like me, your eyeballs encounter nearly a hundred headlines before you’ve finished your first cup of coffee. What makes you read one story over another? It’s all about the headline – that magical string of words that allures and excites.

What makes a killer captivating headline? We’re dishing out 19 headline writing tips to help.

1. Numbers, Digits, & Lists

We’ve talked before about how much readers are mesmerized by lists. Starting your headline with a number helps the headline stand out. Just as the human eye is drawn to contrasting colors, we’re also naturally drawn to the juxtaposition of digits resting beside text. A list also gives readers a clearer idea of what to expect in your post, as well as promising a quick, scan-friendly read.

headline writing rules

Some great list words to get you started:

ReasonsWaysTipsTricksSecretsIdeasTechniquesStrategiesFactsMethodsStatistics

2. Define What The Article Is About

While there’s much to be said for mystery and intrigue, you can’t leave readers hanging without a clue of what to expect from your blog post. Your blog post headline needs to clearly articulate what you’ll be covering in the article. No one is going to click a vague headline.

Bad Headline: Write a SongGood Headline: How to Compose Your Own Song: Songwriting 101

3. Demonstrate Your Value

In our post about social media landing pages, we talk a lot about pushing your value proposition – explaining to visitors why your offer is valuable. In a way, your article headline needs to do the same, although more subtly. You want to explain to readers, in so many words, why your article is worth reading.

Ex. Create an Eye-Catching Infographic in Minutes

The headline above promises a fast (and therefore, probably also easy) way to crate high-quality infographics. Sounds like it’s worth reading more about! Promising a desired result (eye-catching infographics) within a set time period (minutes) is a classic winning headline writing strategy.

They key is to prove that you are useful and that you are providing essential info!

4. Breed Distrust

Us humans can be a cynical bunch, and we’ll often jump at the chance to read about how we are being manipulated, deceived, or given the run around.

Headline writing examples:

6 Lies Your Car Dealer Will Try to Tell YouIs Your Doctor Telling the Truth About Prescribing Your Kids Ritalin?Sun Damage is Bad, But is Sunscreen Even Worse?

5. Educate The Masses

People often search online to educate themselves or learn more about a particular concept. They want to learn how to build a fire pit, where to see an off-Broadway musical, how to eat an apple core (hey, I don’t know, people are wacky!)

headline writing 101

Image from Team Treehouse Blog

Many successful headlines use the “how to” concept with some extra embellishment. Starting all your articles with “how to…” gets really boring really quickly, so think of creative ways to present a “how to” educational article, for example….

3 Best Methods for Peeling a Mango6 Strategies for Deterring BurglarsBuild Your Own Firepit: A Beginner’s GuideTeaching Your Dog to Fetch: Canine Training 101

Hot headline writing keywords like “101” and “Complete/Beginners Guide” are great to include in educational posts. Using words like these reassures readers that your article will be in layman terms that they can understand, marketed towards beginners. 

6. Readers Should Be EXCITED To Read Your Article

It’s your job to get reader psyched about reading your post. They should feel like a couple of kids at the entrance of Disney World.

web headlines

OMG, the momentous fantasy magic. [photo by Chris Harrison]

People aren’t going to read your boring, dry drivel. You are not on their summer reading list. If a 7th grader gets to choose between reading Great Expectations or Harry Potter, you can be sure as hell they won’t need to sleep on the decision. You’re going head to head with other snappy headlines, so you best bring your A game.

headline writing exercises

Where would you spend your summer? The waterpark or the shovel museum?

7. Don’t Be Afraid To Embellish

The best blog post headlines aren’t afraid to sell themselves. Embellish. Exaggerate. Entice.

Is substituting carrot sticks for potato chips a “secret” to losing weight? Not really, but you can act like it is in an article entitled “The Ultimate Diet Secrets for Shedding Serious Pounds.” Don’t be afraid to take a few liberties in headline writing.

A sense of urgency doesn’t hurt either:

Make the Most of Holiday Shoppers – Don’t Miss Out!Don’t Buy a Home Without Asking Your Real-Estate Agent These 8 Questions

8. Create An Eye-Catching, Unique Title

Captivating headlines are the ones that stand apart from the rest. Great headlines aren’t afraid to be a little weird. While it’s difficult to achieve, the best headline writing straddles the line between clarity and uniqueness.

9. Think About Your Audience And What Matters To Them

You know your audience. You understand their dreams and pain points. Make use of that knowledge in your web headline writing so that your posts truly speak to readers.

Knowing your audience lets you develop some smart, strategic headlines that capitalize on your audience’s wishes or fears.

Ex. 5 Practices That Make You Look Like a Blogging Newb

This headline would certainly have bloggers interested.

10. Remember The 5Ws

In grammar school you probably remember learning the 5Ws:

WhoWhatWhenWhereWhy

These engaging, interrogative words are used to gather information. By using them in your headlines, you articulate to readers the kind of information you intend to provide.

11. Address Readers In 2nd Person

While writing prose in 2nd person is infamously awkward, it’s the perfect form for headline writing, grabbing the attention of readers by calling them out.

You Think You Know Game of Thrones? Take Our Quiz and Find Out!3 Ice Cream Recipes You’ll Drool Over This Summer5 Emergency Tools You Should Never Leave Home Without

12. Break Conventions

Headlines that elicit controversy draw in curious readers.

Headline examples:

Why the iPhone 5 is a Piece of CrapWhy Your CTR Doesn’t Matter as Much as You Think

13. Brainstorm Lots Of Different Headlines

Some experts suggest that writers should devote 80% of their time writing headlines – put your effort into the most important element. Set aside time to brainstorm a healthy smorgasbord of headlines. For a headline writing exercise, try writing at least 10 headlines, each with a different structure or with verb and adjective variations. See which feels the most appealing and ask coworkers for their opinions.

You really need to sit down and brainstorm to get those snappy headline juices flowing. You might not hit that headline writing sweet spot until you’re a few headlines in – chances are the first headline you come up with will never be your best.

14. Use Strong Adjectives And Verbs

As Startup Moon notes, there’s a morbid fascination that seems to hang over us. Readers are often drawn to dark and violent wording. Some dark headline power words include:

KillFearDarkBleedingWar 

But it’s not just ominous words that allure readers – other viral headline words that appear in popular headlines include:

SmartSurprisingHistoryHacksBig/HugeShocking

15. Ask Questions

Asking the reader a question helps draw them in, and punctuation helps catch the eye, similar to the way numbers and digits do.

Think You Know SEO? Quiz Yourself and Find Out!Do You Want to Build a Snowman? Read This Guide First.

16. Use Keywords

Be sure to use topic keywords in your headline – it will help your blog post rank better on Google, as well as make it clear to readers what you’ll be discussing in your post.

17. Keep Headlines Under 70 Characters

If you want your headlines to look good in Google and prevent them from being cut off, make sure your headlines stay under 70 characters.

best headlines for blogging

We don’t get a full understanding of what this article is about due to the chopped headline.

18. Don’t Forget To A/B Test

Buffer did a great study showing folks how to easily A/B test headlines. How? It’s pretty simple:

Take two headlines that could potentially perform well.Schedule two tweets to be sent out with the two different headlines.Send the tweets one hour apart (keeping both tweets well within in the AM/PM period – 9am and 10am for example).Whichever tweet performs better earns a place as the permanent blog post headline.

how to write headlines

19. Use Images To Complement Headlines

Headlines are a big deal, and in many cases on the web, they are the one and only way to introduce your article to the world. However, many social sites like Facebook, Instagram, Pintetrest, and, more recently, Twitter, make it easy to add images alongside your link headlines. This is awesome news because images are insanely powerful and can do a lot to boost the success of your headline.

As Buffer notes, you can’t just use any old image to compliment your headline. The image you should provide a strong visual clue to the topic of the article.

Some image headline examples:

headline writing examples

The image accompanying this post by Mashable is an excellent choice – it visually illustrates that the article is about Facebook and political partisanship. 

greatest online headlines

This Wildfire image is simple but effective – it singles out one powerful statistic from the article in a visual asset, sparking our attention and encouraging us to read more.

effective headline writing

This image by Intel is an excellent example of how a picture can serve as a perfect visual headline. Without reading any text, we get the message.

best blog headlines

Overlaying a relevant image with the main headline or message of your post is an excellent strategy to make the most of a social media photo post. (Full disclosure, this is an article I wrote about buying Twitter followers.) 

Be sure to set aside time to focus on good headline writing. Don’t rush through it – choose a few favorites and consider which will work best. A headline can make or break your article, so give it the time and attention it deserves!

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