5 Link Building Characteristics As They Appear In The Natural World

Posted: 05 Feb 2016 10:51 AM PST

Link building has come a long way over the last few years. Buying 100 backlinks from individual ip's from an overnight backlink source in no longer "shady", it's down right stupid.

The truth is, link building isn't really link building anymore. When done correctly – link building is just good old fashion website promotion. Website promotion at its roots can be described in this way – endeavoring to becoming an authority in your niche, making your brand more recognizable and making in easier for users to find you.

When promoting your business online it's inevitable that you'll have to acquire inbound links to your website. When you market your business online finding links of all types is just something you have to do. And I'm going to tell you how to do it right!

Understanding Inbound Links

Inbound links (of all types) help you to naturally promote your business, even if you're not trying to cheat search algorithms. It just so happens that some of those links also increase your rankings in search. The trick is to do the first so well that they both benefit.

Personally, I like to refer to the process of building inbound links as "organic marketing". The reality is, if you're actively marketing your business you are naturally going to acquire backlink. Matt Cutts himself has referred to this methodology in the past as "organic link building".

Inbound links come in all shapes and sizes and that’s a good thing. Each type of backlink serves a very unique purpose, initially. When done right, an organic inbound link building campaign can help you to promote your online business directly, and indirectly, from natural search traffic.

What does an organic link profile looks like, in the 'natural' world? Here are a few tips that are most definitely going to keep your website out of Google's algorithm update cross-hairs.

Anchor Text

Google's old metrics basically calculated how many times a single keyword was used as an anchor to link to your website and ranked you accordingly. Once you bought a thousand links with the anchor “cheap wedding dresses” you were #1 but those days are gone. Not only have many more ranking factors been brought into the equation but now it's even more important than ever to make sure that you're anchor text profile is natural. Not because it will hurt your rankings – but because without a natural anchor profile you can’t rank.

A well balanced inbound backlink profile has a variety of anchor texts linking to your site including; your brand name, variations of your brand name, your url, variations of your url, blog post titles, target keywords, long tail keywords and even call to action text (click here, our website,etc).

Many SEO professions would say that having a large variety of anchors in your backlink profile is not just safe – it’s beneficial.

Location, Location, Location

In the real world your website is not only going to get links from high profile websites. A legitimate online business is going to have even lower authority sites linking to them as well. In this regard 'where' your links come from should vary.

Article sites are going to link to you if you provide a valuable resource. Local directories both small and large are going to naturally link to you if you have a business in any of the services industries. You can use guest posting to paint yourself as an expert in your industry and get natural links from related websites. Natural links do, and always will, come from a variety of different places and so should yours.

Landing Pages

Are all of your inbound links going to your homepage? Is your homepage the only thing that's awesome about you? No, it’s not. If you're adding valuable content to your website then it shouldn’t be.

If you have multiple products or services those pages would naturally get love once and awhile and so they should. In the real world it's actually more common to get links to your content.

Inbound links to your website should never overwhelm a single page. An established online business should promote the many aspects of its business that make it exceptional and unique. Promote every part of your business. Buy ads on Facebook every time you publish a new post. Increase visibility with Google Ads for each of your specific products or services.

Naturally promote your site and you’ll naturally get links.

Types Of Backlink

As I said earlier, backlinks come in all shapes and sizes. Text links have 'follow' and 'no-follow' attributes, banner ads sometimes include alt tags and are sometimes left without them.

Adhering to Google's guidelines regarding the proper time and place to use 'no-follow' or a ‘follow’ attribute is smart. Why? It won't hurt you if you do, and it could hurt you if you don't.

Don't obsess over any one type of backlink or it's correlating attributes. If you find somewhere to promote your online business then do it. If you find someone who will willingly write a review about your product or service – let them.

Get your name out there any way possible! Every natural link counts.

Natural Volume

Every business is different. It's expected that some industries, like the SEO industry for example, are always going to be throwing links around. Therefor someone in the SEO world is always going to be acquiring those links.

Some industries like plumbing for example, may acquire few links in its lifetime. Not having a ton of links is ok. Promote your business regularly and links will come.

Remember, a backlink is more than just a backlink to boost your rankings. It's an endorsement that will help you get more visitors and promote your business. It just so happens that it will also help your rankings – wink.

Jeff Millett is a professional SEO consultant at The SEO Whiz. In 2010, just after launching his own SEO brand, Jeff "The SEO Whiz” quickly moved to the top of search gaining his reputation as an SEO expert in the midst of numerous catastrophic search updates. Jeff attributes his success to "keeping his nose clean" utilizing only white hat SEO methodologies.

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

7 Tips to Supercharge Your Blog Growth in 2016 - DailyBlogTips

7 Tips to Supercharge Your Blog Growth in 2016

Posted: 04 Feb 2016 04:50 AM PST

Do you know that a simple tweak to your blog can double, triple, or even quadruple your blog growth?

In 2015, I made slight changes to my blogging strategy and saw some massive results; for example, installing a simple plugin resulted in over a thousand extra subscribers to my blog every month, and I was able to get hundreds of subscribers from several of my guest posts even when people were crying that guest blogging is dead.

With the right plan, you can supercharge your blogging and take your blogging from nobody to superstar status. In this article, I share 7 tips guaranteed to supercharge your blog growth in 2016; these tips worked really well for me in 2015, and I plan to use them even more this year. Enjoy!

Tip #1: Revise Your Guest Blogging Strategy

While many people claim that guest blogging is dead, I got thousands of visitors directly from my guest posts in 2016, and I got hundreds of subscribers each from several of my guest posts. In fact, I got over 1,000 subscribers from one of my guest posts. That was in 2015, when many people regarded guest blogging – especially for traffic generation – to be dead. Here are some of my tips to help you create a revised, effective guest blogging strategy:

1. Choose Your Target Publication Wisely: While I did a bit of guest blogging in 2015, my most successful guest posts were on blogs much bigger than mine: blogs like JeffBullas.com with hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors, ThePennyHoarder.com with millions of monthly visitors, etc.

The key to success with guest blogging lies in making sure you choose a blog that has an audience big enough to impact yours, and to ensure that the blog has an audience that will be interested in your blog because there's relevance between the topic of your blog and that of your host blog.

2. Submit Resource Content as Guest Posts: I'm a huge advocate of publishing resource content, but I decided to take it to another level in 2015: I started submitting resource content as guest posts to other blogs, and the result was massive. Several of my guest posts had thousands of shares, resulting in thousands of visitors and subscribers to my blog.

Here are just a few examples:

15 Websites That Pay Writers $200 or More Per Article (over 2,600 shares)
20 Amazing Websites that Pay $100+ Per Article (over 2,000 shares)

Resource content can be very powerful. Imagine what can happen when you amplify the power of your resource content by publishing it on a blog much bigger than yours.

3. Implement a Content Upgrade in Your Guest Posts: I believe guest posting should always be a win-win situation: both you and the host blogger should benefit. Oftentimes, it takes significant effort to create a winning guest post, and one of the best ways to make best of this is by introducing a content upgrade inside of your guest posts. I did this in 2015, and the worst that happened was that editors of some of the blogs moved my content upgrade to the bio section. Even with that, those guest posts resulted in hundreds of subscribers.

Whether it is in your bio or directly at the end of your guest post, having a content upgrade will always lead to more traffic and subscribers for you. My student, Clement Lim, can testify to this: he started noticing an improvement in traffic and subscribers from his guest posts simply by implementing content upgrades in them.

Tip #2: Increase Your Blogging Frequency

For a very long time people have been debating whether it is better to publish content more frequently or to simply focus on publishing quality content whenever you feel like it.

If observing the successes of highly successful blogger is anything to go by, we realize that "blogging when I feel like it" does not a successful blogger make.

Seven-figure blogger Neil Patel gets over a million visitors monthly between his two blogs, and he has repeatedly documented that increasing blogging frequency led to significant traffic gains. This was also corroborated by data from Hubspot that revealed that blogging more frequently leads to more traffic, and that it's better to publish 16 or more articles monthly.

If you want to grow your blog in 2016, you need to work on your blogging frequency.

Tip #3: Publish More Comprehensive Articles

Resolve to publish more comprehensive articles in 2016; gone are the days where you can just slap articles of 500 words on your blog to meet some content schedule. Various sources have shown that content length matters, and high-profile marketer Neil Patel has repeatedly featured studies to show that content length influences traffic and blog growth. Neil recommends publishing content no less than 2,000 words.

Tip #4: Create a Resource on Your Blog

In 2015 alone, resource articles resulted in hundreds of thousands of visitors to my blog; in fact, most of these visits came from resources I had published years ago.

The average article on my blog has a short shelf life, and traffic usually dies down within months of publishing an article. Things are different with resource articles, though: with every resource article I publish, traffic never dies. In fact, after some time, with almost all of my resource articles, traffic starts to pick up, eventually surpassing the traffic the resource generated when it was first published and heavily promoted.

Here are some good examples of resource content to inspire yours:

The above examples include resources from 4 different categories: writing, education, web hosting, and marketing. It goes to show that you can create a resource for your blog no matter your niche.

Here are some tips:

Identify a common pain point in your niche that people need a solution to
Instead of giving people tips to solve this pain point, give them a solution. For example, instead of telling people to do outreach to promote their business, give them several outreach templates that they can use
Make sure your resource content is specific; the more specific a resource is, the more likely it will spread.

Tip #5: Install the SumoMe App

If the only thing you can do this year is to install and properly configure the SumoMe app, your blog will thank you for it. In 2015, installing the SumoMe app resulted in thousands of extra email subscribers from my blog EVERY MONTH. Here are two key SumoMe apps I recommend installing:

1. The Welcome Mat: The SumoMe "Welcome Mat" shows a full-page opt in form that takes over your screen immediately people visit your blog. They can either cancel the form, scroll down to continue reading, or opt in to your newsletter. Usually, though, a good percentage of your readers will opt in; I get an average of 4.4% conversion rate, site-wide, from the Welcome Mat installed on my blog. For me, that's over a thousand extra subscribers monthly.

Below is an example of a Welcome Mat in action – screenshot taken from Zac Johnson's blog:

Zac Johnson Welcome Mat

Here's a screenshot showing options I've gotten through my Welcome Mat:

Bamidele Onibalusi Welcome Mat stats

Here's a nice tutorial from WPKube.com on how to create a Welcome Mat.

2. The Scroll Box: The SumoMe "Scroll Box" introduces an optin form that is triggered when readers scroll through your blog; you can configure your optin form to trigger after readers scroll to a certain percentage of your blog. Because the form is only triggered when readers scroll, it will only appear to engaged readers, leading to an improved conversion rate.

Tip #6: Create a Content Upgrade

I created my first content upgrade early 2015 and, thousands of subscribers later, it's contributed immensely to the success of my blog.

I wrote an article here on DBT about my experience with content upgrades early last year, and, needless to say, it's a strategy I'll be leveraging for increased blog growth this year.

Here are some tips to help you with your content upgrade:

1. It Does Not Have to be Complicated: Most people fail to create content upgrades because they assume that it has to be complicated. No, it doesn't. Most likely, people aren't interested in your free 165 pages ebook. Instead, they'll appreciate your short report, compilation of your best blog posts, a quick resource or tool, or even a video.

2. You Don't Have to Create New Mega Content: The first month of creating my content upgrade last year, I got 700 subscribers directly from the content upgrade; within two months, I already had 1,200 extra subscribers. This wasn't because I published new content that was a big hit; instead, it was because I updated existing content – popular content I published years ago – to feature my content upgrade.

Simply update some of your popular old articles to feature your content upgrade, and you're good to go.

Tip #7: Ensure a Faster Website Experience

Research shows that 40% of people will abandon your website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. It has also been established that Google uses site speed as a ranking factor.

A slow blog can cost you half of your traffic. Having a faster website leads to better user experience, more traffic, and improved search engine rankings, and it's one way to take your website growth to the next level in 2016.

Bamidele Onibalusi is an entrepreneur, blogger and freelance writer. He helps people build profitable businesses through his blog, EffectiveBusinessIdeas.com

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Social Media and Branding

Posted: 03 Feb 2016 01:55 PM PST

We think it's safe to say that everyone probably uses some form or another of social media in their daily lives. No matter what forum, the techs in Silicon Valley make sure there is something to appeal to everyone. Social media, whether we like it or not, has become a part of our daily lives.

With social media, you have a voice and an opinion. You are able to share news with friends and family or create the image of what you want to be seen as. You promote businesses without even realizing it. You can leave reviews, check in, and share what you've purchased, all from your smartphone. This obviously helps all companies, from small businesses to big corporations.

When your "friends" see that you have eaten somewhere, that you found great deals at a boutique, or loved your salon experience, they are more likely to trust that business because the good review came from a friend or family remember. It's today's means of word-of-mouth promotion.

Now, obviously, this all applies to personal social media use, but what about the effect of social media for businesses? Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few years, you're aware of the impact social media can have on your company and its brand.

Social media is a great tool to reach out to your customers and develop a brand successfully. However, you have to correctly use the tools to see positive results. Keep these things in mind when managing your brand and its social impact:

1. Strategy Development
This is where you determine what your brand will benefit the most from. Do you need to build brand awareness? Improve customer service? Are you trying to start online engagement?

Once you narrow down the following, you can better develop an appropriate strategy:

Know your audience.
You need to determine who your audience is, and their needs, before you plan to engage with them.

Network with like-minded businesses.
Build a good reputation with complementing businesses. You never know how far a mention or promotion on another's business page will take you. Just make sure to always return favors.

Figure out the right platform for your brand.
It won't do you much good if most of your target audience uses Facebook, and your company is only found on Twitter. Determine what platforms are best to promote your brand by researching what your audience uses, along with what others in the industry use.

2. Know the criteria for success
Lastly, make sure to have fun! No-one will want to engage with a stuffy account. The whole point of social media is to create fresh content that connects people in a fun way.

What you aim to do depends on your strategy. There are tons of options out there, such as host events, launching viral videos, etc. Just make sure to stay on top of trends and appeal to your market.

3. Have fun
Lastly, make sure to have fun! No-one will want to engage with a stuffy account. The whole point of social media is to create fresh content that connects people in a fun way.

What you aim to do depends on your strategy. There are tons of options out there, such as host events, launching viral videos, etc. Just make sure to stay on top of trends and appeal to your market.

About the author: EYStudios is best at creating e-commerce experiences that will delight your customers and run circles around your competition. While ordinary stores simply list a product, an EY design sells the product through pro-active merchandising and cutting-edge usability.

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