Tag: Blogging

Categories
Content Marketing

Using the News to help with Content Marketing and SEO

Frustrated blogger

Knowing what to blog about, to create content about every day is a bit of a task. It’s hard, but it’s not impossible. Of course you need content that works rather than the filler that most other blogs and websites churn out. You need to create content for people rather than the Google bot.

One effective way to keep the content ideas fresh, is to create content around the news.

The news has a few things going for it from a content marketers perspective.

  • It changes every day
  • People talk about it on social media
  • People hunger for more detail about a specific news story
  • Not all news is bad, negative or depressing

There are many examples of succesful content marketers surfing this news wave every day. It’s not exactly newsjacking, that’s another thing, but it is using that jump off point of the news to further the narrative.

Examples of last week include fly tipping in Essex, the latest Kim Kardashian story (remember your content is competing with Kim Kardashian’s Ass), Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Halloween, and lets not forget Star Wars.

Black Friday was interesting, especially in the UK. There were a large number of people in the “megh” camp, who just couldn’t be bothered to get excited about saving money on a bargain. And even in Cornwall the excitement was in the barely bothered camp.

I talked to traders about this, Bakery 46 and Near and Far Nepalese Clothing and Bakery 46 both said it was pretty much like any other Friday and not much difference. You may argue that such small traders cannot climb onto the Black Friday wagon, but there there is news there is content marketing opportunities and small traders can absolutely benefit from a relatively cheap form of marketing.

Image source

Categories
Content Marketing

Quick Few Thoughts on Content Marketing Before I finish my Porridge

The online marketing industry is using the term “content marketing”, widely and consistently. Which means I must use it too, even though I have an urge to write a 10k word essay on the subject of why it shouldn’t be used.

Thinking, rather than acting can sometimes (not always) hurt the bottom line.

As Linkbait Coaching 3.0 is about to launch it makes sense to start a Content Marketing course.

Most people still don’t get blogging.

Deeper thinking about the technique will always win, unless you are selling a content marketing course and then it makes more sense to say the stuff is easy. I can’t do that, which I understand does affect business and I really have tried to sell out and be a commerce whore but it goes against my OS. So, always market to those who seek high ability over a quick fix.

All online output is communication and all communication is marketing, even down to the privacy policy.

Basic, bog standard link building still works. Get in touch and I can sort you out with something very tasty.

Categories
Blogging SEO Discussion

Is Blog Commenting Useless for SEO

The difference between an SEO who has tested commenting on blogs and one who hasn’t is that the one who hasn’t says it doesn’t work and the one who has keeps quiets about it and keeps commenting.

As an SEO it also marks you out as to whether they are in the Premier League or still slugging it out for the pub team.

Some SEO “experts” will see say, “nofollow”, doesn’t pass juice. End of.

This is a mistake.

A blog comment is an advert, it is a branding tool, it will add to the sum of how people perceive you. How people perceive you has a direct impact on whether they will link to you.

For example, when SEO “experts” say blog commenting is useless, my perception of their skill as an SEO is further informed.

It’s well known that blogs and their comments get scraped and nofollow removed.

A visible link means that a human can visit the site and drop a dofollow if they like what they see.

Blog owners tend to check out the links left in the blog comments, which means you can get very important bloggers to come to your site.

A blog comment can demonstrate your skill in an area and make people go, “ooohhhhhh, she’s good.”

If blog spamming did not work, do you really think it would still be happening? What’s interesting about the nofollow that was introduced to blogs to stop spamming is that it hasn’t done anything to stop it.

Also, even when the link was dofollow and SEO’s would look at a blog and say, “but it’s not a real website”

Does this mean that you should go out and leave “Great post”, in the comments of as many blogs as you can find. No, because there is a way to blog comment and there is a way to not.

Blog commenting is a tool in the tool box, brought out for specific tasks and for specific reasons. I’m not not going to give you a step by step guide of how to do it as you probably have a massive brain (you’re reading this blog) and have worked it out on your own by now.

However, I am always willing to listen to the other side of the argument and so if you have data on to show that blog commenting is useless I would love to hear it.

One of the problems of course is that it can be really boring if you hae no opinion and that outsourcing it can lower the quality.

It’s tricky, which means if you hit the sweet spot there are few others creaming it.

Categories
Link building

How to get links by gently farting into a leather sofa

In a recent post I mentioned that “some bloggers only have to fart softly into a leather sofa to get links”. This wasn’t an attempt to get links to a leather sofa site, although now I think about it…..

It was to highlight that some people got it and some people ain’t got it.

So the questions that are important are.

  • What is it that they got that others ain’t got?
  • Can what they got be got by others?
  • Can what they got be taught by those that got it?
  • How do I know if I aint got it
  • Will listening to the Bangles, “Manic Monday” help in any way?

The zen part of this post is that even if you have the answers to all these questions you will be no closer to getting what they have got.

Which makes me wonder about the efficacy of all these, “Give me $1,000 a week and I will show you how you can charge $1,000 a week showing people how to make $1,000 a week from showing people how to make $1,000 a week” type sites.

Before you spend the $1,000 a week to find out if you got what they have got , spend £12.99 and £16.99 and book yourself 2 weeks in that Scottish Highland croft.

I know I’m mixing currencies here, but I live in multi currency world. And no I am not trying to rank for “multi currency”.

The £12.99 is for, Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin.
The £16.99 is for the hard cover of Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell.

The 2 weeks in the Scottish croft is to give you time to read and let the information sink in without you being distracted by wanting to tweet that you just ate a corned beef bagel with dijon mustard.

The point is….

What I hope will happen is you come to a realisation that you don’t really have the desire to do what it takes to get what those have got and to spend your cash and time on something more useful like making a model of Hugo Chavez out of the sticks you get from Starbucks to stir your liquid caffeine delivery product.

In conclusion….

Those bloggers who get links are those types of people who get it. Most of the time they don’t even understand why they “get it”, they just get on with it.

And if you are thinking right now that, “I don’t get it.” Then you are probably right.

Categories
Blogging

What is Blogging but simply a communication tool

Some people over complicate things.

Blogging is simply a communications tool.

Once the piece of information you want to communicate is acheived, its purpose is done. Therefore the length of the blog is merely something for the aesthetic.

Of course it could be argued that a blog is also an “emotional delivery machine”, or an “action encourager”. But these still use communication to happen.

So when a blog post is written in a terse fashion, being economical with words, as long as it acheives its purpose it matters little that verbosity is ignored.

Writing less, means writing better.

Categories
Blogging

Blogging blogs, and the blogging bloggers that make them

Is it better to be the consumer?

Or the creator of the consumed?

Are truly successful bloggers both?

Categories
Blogging

Getting the Blogging Mojo Back

For one reason or another I stopped blogging, stopped writing.

Which is a shame as I really like the process and it’s something I do well (haven’t the time to be modest this morning).

Most of the problem is simple distraction, too much going on, too many possibilities, even too much success.

Sometimes you have to reduce. Simplify. Not use the, “but it has to be perfect before I publish” excuse.

So, to get the Mojo back I’m just going to blog. Post a blog every day for 14 days.

It may not be linkable, but from a creative point of view it helps crank up the engine.

And you never know, something juicy may come of it.

Categories
Website marketing

Mark McGuinness Reveals the Truth about Internet Marketing

Mark McGuinness has a new fan.

I read this post on Creativity in business and it rocked my socks.

It’s the price of doing business that you have to wade through thigh high rivers of steaming….. before you get something that resonates, something that connects. Something that makes you blog and inspires you to write and freely give a bit of link love, which is of course is the essence of what linkbaiting is about.

There are two quotes in the blog post that underpins the article for me.

the less your media content looks like advertising, the more effective it will be as advertising.

How cool and zen like is that and how counter intuitive the way most marketing and business people think. Now I am not naive, the blog post that Mark wrote is 100% marketing, I am sure intention was to have people talk about it, link to it, pass it around.

It’s internal and external link structure follows best practice of bigging up your mates and business collegues without breaking the narrative flow, and providing sweeter than sweet anchor text.

It is a joy to experience such a well put together blog post and the fact that I found it connected on an emotional level is testament to the quality of the writing.

The second quote is,

If you really want to succeed online, it will take a lot of time. Let?s face it, if you want to succeed at anything worthwhile, it?s going to take a lot of time.

I realised a long time ago, if I practiced the guitar and hour a day for a year I would be OK. Which I did, but if I practiced it for an hour a day over ten years I would be excellent.

99 out of 100 are good.

But only 1 out of 100 are excellent.

Excellence cost 9 years.

These figures are illustrative of one element of becoming successful. The problem you may have is not one of giving up and failing, but one of getting bored, distracted and trying to do a million other things a the same time.

Don’t believe me? How many windows does your browser have open right now? I have two browsers open and over 30 windows open. Unnnngggg.

What I take from Mark’s blog post is to revisit the ass-achingly simple truths that must be burnt into the brain with a hot branding iron at regular intervals of the journey.

All this of course raises more questions than it answers, but that is what good teaching does.

Cheers Mark, I’m going to check out your Workshop for creative people, looks very interesting.

Categories
Blogging

Long Copy Short Copy

OK, I admit, my post on social bookmarking was a little tongue in cheek. Designed possibly to raise an eyebrow or two? Most likley, but I also like to play around with the medium of blogging. I was just about to call it an art form, but noooooo.

Posts like that are designed to get you thinking. How long does a blog post have to be. My answer to that is “as long as it needs to be”. The style and objective of the blog will help define, plus the nature of the post. Are you trying to sell, inform, argue?

People bang on about the short attention span of internet users, I do this when talking about crafting headlines. But sometimes a long post is needed to lead people through an arguement to help define the points of view. I have seen successful blog posts that are similar to academic essays. Offering meat when everyone if offering lettuce is an interesting tactic.

This post could be quite long, but I have to go and get some sausage rolls from Truro.

Categories
Blogging

Short is not simple, it's essential

Should we twitter like we blog and blog like we twitter?

Is brevity needed to cut through the information haze?

If my twitter stream becomes a stream of consciousness, my blog can be more like my twitter stream used to be.

  • I’m shortening my blog posts
  • Reducing the amount of links in my twitter stream
  • Twittering what I think I want to hear
  • Increasing more links in my blog post
  • Sending out as many twitter posts until my thoughts are finished
  • Using the blog to communicate the most useful information in the shortest way possible
  • Ignoring the number of followers I have

Screw those who tell you there is only one way to use twitter, it’s a tool, the way you use it entirely depends on your objectives.

A twitter manifesto? No, it’s way more than that.

Categories
Blogging

Keeping up with seo blogging

To me, blogging has been a means to an ends. Get clients, establish the brand, wind a few people up. The problem is of course when you get the clients you no longer have the time to blog.

But, I think you still should.

It keeps the mind focused, it keeps the creative gene fed with blood and oxygen, it enables you to start conversations on topics you are interested in. Problem is, if you are late for a client, which I am 80% of the time (have difficulty letting go of the work, just one more tweak) then they may get pissed at what they see as you goofing off on your blog. When in fact it actually helps get the juices flowing and helps you serve the client better.

Continue reading “Keeping up with seo blogging”
Categories
Blogging

Don't be Useful, Make Me Think

What makes me link these days is not something that is obviously useful, but rather something that gets me to think. Members of Linkbait Coaching, hopefully know that if they want a to linkbait me, this is what they have to serve up.

So what got me thinking this morning was this post, titled, Don’t Be Popular, be Useful, which in turn is a response to a Jonathon Morrow at Copyblogger titled, How to Stop Being Invisible.

I also read an article in Wired about Juliet Allison, someone I knew nothing about till today. Maybe I should read Gawker more, yeah right.

The Barone article, crystalised a lot of what I had been thinking.

Continue reading “Don't be Useful, Make Me Think”
Categories
Blogging

Is Blogging the Answer?

Patrick Altoft continues the conversation started over at Louis Gray

Basically, the word on the streets is that getting links from blogs is less effective than it used to. This may be true amongst the uber bloggers, but I think it’s still very effective lower down the food chain. And lets face it, if you produce information that is going to solve peoples problems you are going to be popular and get links.

The more narrow the blogs focus the more obvious that it can solve specific problems and so attract a niche audience. The problem with most blogs is they are not narrow enough. If there are not enough bloggers in your niche, attract those who are not. Go sideways, think lateral.