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We all love ourselves some guru, and for us, it’s Neil Patel. In one of his articles, Neil talks about the times when a company must absolutely hire an SEO consulting services. It may not necessarily be an agency; it could be an in-house SEO. Then again, Neil also shares insights on why you must not hire your own SEO experts, that is, in-house. Here’s our take on these issues.

When do you need the help of an SEO company?

1) While planning a website

Is your company planning to launch a website soon? Some experts such as Bruce Clay advocates as early as 2012 the need for SEO web design. Yes, there is such a thing. A website that is built from scratch should be also optimized from scratch. While there could be some conflicts regarding structuring and programming the site, a website that is optimized from the ground up performs best SEO-wise.

Unfortunately, not all companies fail to realize this. The most often route taken is designing and developing the website before optimizing it instead of optimizing the design first before it should be developed. Since the website will be optimized eventually, there is the apparent redundancy in cost. Thus, for seamless integration, SEO must be considered early on the planning stage.

A website is an essential aspect of any digital marketing strategy. There is no single digital marketing campaign we’ve encountered that doesn’t involve a website. Even the content marketing is funneled down to and through the website. Website development is inescapable, and so does website optimization from the bottom up.

2) While redesigning a website

A website redesign is almost always considered due to performance issues particularly those that are hurting the user experience (UX). Come to think of it. You won’t be redesigning your site if it is performing to every expectation, right? However, a website redesign is a black hole that sucks whatever ranking and traffic you have built over the years. Would you risk losing such because of a redesign? Definitely not!

SEO should be your number consideration at this point. The experts can conduct a thorough website analysis specifically identifying which among the pages will be affected the most. The covers all aspect of SEO from inbound links to images. Afterward, the expert will come up with recommendations that can be integrated into the redesign. They call these technical SEO.

If you are thinking of doing it on your own, don’t. You cannot wing it; let an SEO company help you with this one the way you would commission a web design company to redesign your website. Just let them do what the SEO company does best. You might be surprised to know just how un-optimized your website is.

3) While recovering from a penalty

Most of the website owners only approach an SEO company when their sites were hit with a Google penalty. A sad truth. Although some site owners would learn a link building strategy or two, they don’t know any better. They won’t know that what they are doing is actually against the guidelines set by Google. In fact, some website owners don’t even know that these guidelines exist.

Recovering from a penalty, regardless of its severity, can take up to 9 months or even more, depending on the strategies and tactics employed to ‘clean’ the website. The fact that websites heavily rely on traffic to rank high cannot be emphasized enough. Technically, your site will receive low traffic volume if Google de-indexed the site. Now, you are seeing the criticality of recovering from a penalty.

The question now is if you are responsible for the de-indexing of your site, should you be the one to recover your website from the penalty? If you insist, you can do it on your own. However, don’t expect any immediate result more so if you have no idea whether the strategies you implement are effective enough to remove the penalty or not. That’s the main difference unlike when you hire an SEO to do the recovery for your website.

4) After conducting a search

That’s very simplistic. Nonetheless, what we mean is if you are doing a simple keyword search and you cannot find your website on the first page of the search results page and not even on the fifth page, then you are definitely doing something very wrong. It is either you are targeting the right keywords, but your website is ranking for the wrong keywords or that you are targeting the wrong keywords. Period.

There are two things that are evident; one, your rankings are declining and two, your traffic volumes are declining as well. These are just two of the things that SEO experts have learned to deal with with utmost eagerness and urgency. Why? Because every single traffic that your website is not able to convert is a lost opportunity. Adding insult to injury, you are losing each of them to your competitors.

Further, there are also two things that an SEO service provider possess namely recommendations and deliverables. Again, after conducting an SEO audit, the SEO specialists will give you a list of recommendations on how to improve your websites along with the target deliverables and timeline. If you or you will allow the agency to do the changes for you, then there is no reason your website should not rank in the very near future. A quality SEO company can rank your website in just three months.

Now, you can see clearly why you should not underestimate the importance of hiring an SEO agency and SEO per se. An agency is there to help, not to scam you. And don’t you ever believe the most common misconception that SEO is dead because it’ll never be; it’s so alive otherwise you won’t be here reading this article. There could be some changes in terms of algorithm updates as Neil points out. However, the core of SEO will remain the same for the years to come, and it’ll only get stronger as competition gets tougher.

Deadly Excuses That Hold You Back

She sat at her desk working a 9-to-5 job. As she perused her old photos lifted from an album on social media, she saw herself happily mixing batter in a silver bowl making Christmas cookies. She sighed as she had envisioned herself being a prominent chef with her own cooking show or at least her own restaurant.

But instead she works in finance sitting behind a desk taking calls day by day. And by this point in her life, she doesn’t see any of her dreams materializing anytime in her future. Besides, dreams are for the fresh and young people. Old people, way past their prime, have no business in making dreams. Dreams are for those who can afford them, and the endeavors entailed in reaching them.

What erroneous notions those two are.

Dreams are not exclusive for the wealthy but are accorded for anyone who is willing to make the struggle in accomplishing them. However, this misguided belief and statement becomes a justification for those who have failed themselves and their ambitions. Such misleading impression and belief of dreams being exclusive for the wealthy is a prospective threat to the doe-eyed people intent on attaining success.

What keeps us from progressing in our lives? What are the obstacles that hinder us from realizing our true potential? Are the things that impede us from our achievements truly innate in us?

All of us, if not most, have imagined futures where we see ourselves succeed. We all have dreams, aspirations and various goals that we all hope to come to fruition one day. Only the road to achieving these is not set on a straight path. That path is littered with many trials. Humans as we all are, we are not proof against committing errors in our day to day activities.

Some of us will try our hardest to make sure we reach these dreams. Some of us think of excuses on why we never got there, doing a great disservice to oneself shall you proffer inexcusable reasons for failing to reach our dreams. Some of these reasons are deadly, and here are some of them that may be keeping you from achieving your dreams.

“I do not possess an impressive work experience.”

This is a deadly cop-out and is almost synonymous with saying you do not find yourself worthy of your own dreams. You might not boast stellar credentials and impressive work experience, but that should not be a roadblock in chasing your dreams. Additionally, this excuse also becomes the reason some people settle for less than what they are truly worth. They slave for hours on minimal compensation without stopping to consider that they might be qualified for a higher position and a better salary bracket. Never let this excuse restrict you from attaining your goals. In one way or another, we have had all the experience we need, and this is called ‘life experience’ that can be utilized for any work we are involved in.

“I am too young or old.”

As the adage goes, “Age is just a number” and in this case, it still is. Age is no basis of whether you should start or cease chasing success. Either way, whether you are young or old, you possess innumerable advantages. When you are young, you are filled with boundless enthusiasm and energy. Whereas, when you are old, you are more knowledgeable and experienced which will work to your advantage. Don’t let this excuse serve as an obstacle to achieving your dreams. After all, age should not matter.

“My education is unremarkable.”

A common reason for delaying the chase of dreams is people lamenting the fact that they do not possess a college degree. Most of us were misled to believe that to be truly successful in life, we should go to school and get a job – a rather formulaic take on success. Because of this misguided belief, people are committing themselves to a self-imposed prison and have ultimately disabled themselves from a race where they could have won. Possessing a college degree in no way makes you smarter than anyone else; we are all smart in our own way. Proper application of our intellect will take us places, and that in itself is more than enough.

“Time is not on my side.”

In essence, it is like you are saying that you do not have time to achieve all that you envisioned for yourself. This deadly excuse is the lamest one among the ones listed in this article. Achieving an ultimate goal is not set in stone, and the logistics involved in it is not always the same for everyone. There is no definite time frame for it. So, if anything, you should be navigating the road to achieving your dreams today. You may not possess all the needed resources you want, but there is no harm in starting small today which would eventually get bigger day by day. Remember, there is no effort so small as to render it insignificant. Every little thing you do today counts tomorrow. So start now.

“I do not have enough support.”

This excuse shifts the blame towards others rather than focusing the blame on yourself. The truth is, you need to have a proper self-awareness before you can truly attain your dreams and succeed in life. You do not need to source support from others in achieving your dreams. In lieu of garnering support, you should create and find it. There are a lot of people out there who will be more than willing to see you accomplish your dreams and succeed. You just need to find the right kind of people whose dreams are in line with yours. They are looking for you as much as you are looking for them.

“I do not have the necessary finances.”

Money is a tight issue and remains to be one of the biggest reasons people would neglect chasing their dreams or avoid them altogether. We may not possess sufficient funds today, but are capable of generating those funds and saving them. We should be wise about the money we earn and be creative with the money we have saved. In time, when enough finances are accumulated, you can start making your dreams come true. There is no exact formula for success, but one way of doing it is to attain money sufficient enough to sustain your dreams.

These are the biggest deterrents and excuses in achieving one’s dreams. More often than not, you may have heard it or even used it yourself. Consider these if ever you feel the need to chalk it up to these reasons when you are in the midst of an impending surrender:

  • A dream remains a dream if you have no intent on achieving them.
  • An aspiration becomes an inspiration when a plan is thoroughly laid out in achieving it.
  • A goal is a dream with a deadline.

Remember, your dreams are your grandest possessions today and realizing them and having them come true will be your biggest accomplishment. Time, age and money are not your enemies. Your excuses are. So, it is up to you how you can change that.

How Much Time Do You Really Need to Do SEO?

how much time do you need to do seo

Search engine optimization (SEO), which some of you dread (of course, we know), seems like a daunting task. Well, it doesn’t seem so because it is really daunting. If you aren’t doing SEO yourself, you might not understand the dauntingness (love this word) of it all. This is particularly if you are letting an SEO company to do all the optimization works for you, which is completely a-okay.

Lucky for you, but if you want to know what you are paying for the man-hours involved, here’s a simple walkthrough.

 

The simplest answer

To answer the question, you will need A LOT of time to do SEO.

SEO is a multi-factored activity. It also depends on what optimization works your company needs. For example, a website that is nowhere near the top 10 search engine results page (SERP) requires more time than a website that is already ranking on positions 11 to 20 for specific keywords. These are your factors; I haven’t mentioned competition yet. Definitely, at least one of your rivals are implementing their own strategies. Likewise, the competition against top ranking keywords is another story.

Thus, an answer applicable to all companies is difficult to come by. All we can say is… it depends.

 

The work required

There are three major opportunities to optimize a website and each opportunity involves man-hours of its own. These are on-site, on-page, and off-site.

On-site SEO

Audit

On-site optimization always starts with a website audit to determine how it is currently performing SEO-wise. Optimizers need to know how does the website appeals to both users and bots. A thorough audit will be the foundation of the future improvements on the site so this must be taken seriously.

Among others, the tasks involved are:

  • Analyzing the site speed
  • Checking the keywords used
  • Conducting a keyword research
  • Analyzing the link profile (internal and external)
  • Analyzing the navigation (if the site is intuitive)
  • Checking if the site already includes micro formatting (URL, logo, and other markups)
  • Analyzing contents including structure and duplicate
  • Identifying errors (i.e. broken links, missing pages, bad codes, heavy images, etc.)
  • Checking the sitemap
  • Checking the social media activities (i.e. social widgets installation and placement)
  • Checking the site’s mobile-friendliness
  • Checking the site’s overall security
  • Checking Google Analytics and Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmasters Tools) implementation

Estimated time: 8 to 40 hours

* More man-hours will be needed if the website will require a redesign

On-page SEO

On-page SEO forms part of the on-site SEO. It’s just that the former is taken on the page level while the latter is considered on the site level. The tasks involved are:

  • Checking the tags (i.e. title, meta, header, image alt, etc.)
  • Checking whether each page has unique tags
  • Assigning landing pages or creating new ones for each keyword

Estimated time: 8 to 16 hours

For these on-site and on-page SEO, it would be much better to check this checklist so you’d really understand what needs to be done.

Set-up

Setting up the SEO campaign starts with the implementation based on the results of the audit. The tasks involved are:

  • Implementing recommendations based on the analyses

Estimated time: 16 to 40 hours

Monitoring

After completing the initial setup, period checkups must be implemented. Adjustments must be made based on the results of each checkup. If any issues arise (major and minor), troubleshooting is required as well. Specifically, the tasks involved are:

  • Checking Google Analytics and Search Console
  • Measuring the campaign
  • Analyzing for improvements
  • Troubleshooting based on the recommendations
  • Preparing ranking and traffic reports
  • Drafting new recommendations based on the reports

Estimated time: 4 to 8 hours per week

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO are optimization efforts performed beyond the site. Nevertheless, this aspect of SEO comes in various forms and completely depends on the extent that you want to invest on it. These are tactical and yet technically optional. The tasks involved, but are not limited to the following, are:

  • Building and earning links
  • Promoting contents on social media
  • Doing other peripheral SEO strategies

Estimated time: 12 to 24 hours per week

Content development

Content creation is another daunting task and an ongoing one at that. Writing a blog post, press release or article may seem easy, but it is not. The amount of research involved alone may discourage you. Alternatively, you can outsource content writing to a service provider. In this way, you may focus on other more important things to do.

Estimated time: 4 to 16 hours per week

 

A basic caveat

In every task, you may use a tool, but be careful what you use. Basically, the use of tools is subjective. There are hundreds to thousands of SEO tools and apps online; it’s up to you to choose which one you think is the right fit to your purpose. [Notice that I said ‘the right fit’ not ‘the best tool’ because all of them claims to be the best. Pun intended.]

For best results, try using Google’s products (Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, etc.). They’ll tell you what to do exactly. We use this tools for our audits as well as other tools online such as Screaming Frog and Moz.

 

The plausible timeline

Month 1 – Audit and analysis

An entire month will be devoted to analyzing the website and its current strategy. Recommendations must be made based on the analysis. It is possible to conduct the analysis and technical changes within a month.

Month 2 – Technical SEO

Again, the technical changes may have already been implemented by this time. If the website requires more than just simple coding tweaks, this can go on for at least 2 months. That’s why it is advisable to consider SEO when developing a site from scratch or during a redesign. Nevertheless, while technical SEO is on the works, building contents and links may start now.

Month 3 – Content development

Once everything’s implemented, the foundational works such as creating contents may start now. An entire month might be needed, but this will still depend on the types of contents that you want to be created. If you’ve started publishing contents on the second month, you might be seeing results on the end of the third month.

Moreover, the succeeding months must be devoted to ongoing content creation, link building and technical optimization. You have to do this to improve your search performance to the tune of #1 position. Yes, aiming for that position is hard, but no one says that it’s impossible.

To put things in perspective, you need to invest 32 to 96 hours to do the groundwork and another 20 to 48 hours per week to do SEO. So, that’s really a lot. Again, you may do it yourself, hire an in-house SEO specialist or outsource to a local SEO company. It’s your call.

 

Inc | Hobo | SEOMark | Forbes | Search Engine Watch

thebertshow.com

Let’s admit it! For the past years up until now, emojis have already influenced and penetrated the way we communicate with other people. We usually use emojis to fill empty and boring texts into more exciting and fun messages. How much more if we bring it to the next level? SEO Companies, and I’m sure you too, are thrilled with the thought of using and integrating emojis with their social media optimization efforts.

If you are not sure and still stuck on the thought whether emojis are worth the integration on your social media strategies or not, let me give you some reasons why emojis can help boost your brand’s presence. For one, it can make you appear friendlier to your followers and target audience and make you happier offline in the process!

They make you more popular on social media

Have you ever tried reading blog posts or even comments that are so plain with no visuals at all? Boring, isn’t it? And you definitely don’t want to continue reading it. There are times that no matter how good the content of your posts, your target audience will still not notice or, worse, deliberately ignore your post. Perhaps, your posts were monotonous and dry enough for them not to be engaged and interested on it. I bet, you too will skip that post and scroll down!

It doesn’t matter whether your post is long or short. If you just have the right visual or emoticon that will help represent what you want to imply, your target audience will definitely love to drop by and read your post. And they will do this consistently. The more attractive your posts are, the more people will be interested to read and share them to others.

They convey your emotions correctly

It will definitely be hard on our part to imagine how happy, sad or pissed our followers are if there are no representations of what they really feel. Before the emojis exists, typing and including *pissed* on your post is just a word with no feelings at all. Well, it will really take an imaginative mind to picture just how pissed the person is.

However, with the use of emojis, it gives life to the feelings that we have. It projects and represents the almost exact feeling that we want to convey with the other person. Of course, it is given that we should use the right and exact emoji for others to clearly understand how we feel.

People who usually used emojis on their content can immediately grab their target audience’s attention. There are even times that we tend to giggle, smile or laugh whenever we see posts with emojis that are so cute that we want to use and look at it all the time. With that, who would not want to enjoy reading your posts?

They’re ok even in business settings

A lot of you here might wonder and ask whether using of emojis in companies is acceptable or not. For some, the use of emojis when communicating is a sign of unprofessionalism. Perhaps, they think that emojis are only used for communicating with friends and families. Well, that might be true to some firms especially when they are strict with their policies. All forms of communication must be firm and professional in any way.

However, there are a lot of businesses that have already adapted the trend. They already have included emojis in sending emails to their target market. There are even studies that can prove that use of such increases the target audience’s participation.

The University of Missouri-St. Louis had a research about how their target audience react when they received emails with emojis. Researchers sent two kinds of email to the group of audience. One is a flirtatious email and the second one is extending a job interview request with emojis on some part of it. They then discovered that their target audience like the second email more because they feel like the sender is talking to them in a friendlier and more approachable way.

Moreover, they discovered that although they used emojis in some of the emails, the credibility of the sender was not affected in any way. It only grew more traffic and participation from the target audience.

They soften the blow of critique

Generally, if one receives a critique from his or her followers, that’s because they were not pleased by the content that they’ve read. The content might have offended them or it violated some of their rights as a consumer. There are many other reasons, which lead any of your follower to throw some criticisms on your way.

However, if you used some emojis especially some smileys on your email or article, they might have second thoughts on directing harsh criticisms on you. There are also studies shows that whenever there are some negative feedback from your followers, yet you responded to them with positive emojis, there is a higher possibility that your followers will have a change of mood. They will feel good about the message that you have sent to them.

They create a happier workplace

In everything you do, there will always be a positive and a negative feedback from your followers as well as from your colleagues. You even criticize yourself, right? However, when you create a positive vibe even with the way you communicate, it will develop a good atmosphere in the place. Not just in your workplace, but also in the digital work, in general.

Furthermore, people who use emojis can accurately “read” the emotional content of a message, which leads to lesser conflicts in understanding and clarifying messages. Thus, giving the conversation a more “light-hearted” tone.

In sum, emojis play a significant role in the way people interact in the social media. It is something that the audience naturally uses and expects to see whenever one updates his or her status or post. Following the trend, several brands and well-known companies are now using these visuals to increase brand engagement. These are the audiences’ emotion-driven engagement, encouraging them to care more about the post without interrupting the way we communicate our brand towards our target audience.

How to Find Blogging Ideas

Blogging for search engine optimization (SEO, for brevity) is not at all straightforward and direct. In fact, it can be rather complicated. It is not always easy to do and it is not always as effortless as bloggers and writers alike want it to be. There are days wherein you hold all the ideas in the world and nothing seems to stop you from writing. But there are also days where your mind would be blissfully blank and ideas are not as plenteous as they should be.

These are the days where bloggers and writers torture themselves for hours thinking about an appropriate topic that they could write about. And these are the days wherein a writer’s block is the most dreaded predicament. However, it is a common erroneous inference when people think that it is difficult to write and that this is the main reason for encountering a roadblock in writing.

No. Writing is a relatively easy task. but finding topics is rather arduous. Most especially, if you need one that fits your keyword best and if you have a certain quota of write-ups as well as a designated word count to make, it’ll be even more complex for you. This is why writers and bloggers alike who get rather commonplace keywords (or even ones that do not get any at all) for their blogs write fast and publish their articles well within the time frame given to them.

Still, for those writers and bloggers who write articles for an SEO company that specializes in link building services, finding a topic is rather taxing. This is precisely why finding blogging ideas and topics that are especially fitting and appropriate to your keyword is akin to finding the Rosetta stone.

However, with the world in your hands at the tap and click of a finger, finding relevant information to your keyword or topic should not be so difficult. This is a common oversight most bloggers and writers have. This is because even if you are granted unlimited access to various information online, more often than not, finding one that is appropriate to your theme, your keyword and your blog is similar to winning the lottery – chances are slim. Additionally, you have to scour through millions to billions of relevant information online in order to craft the perfect article. Let’s face it; you just do not have that kind of time.

If you are a writer yourself who encounters this kind of problem every single time you are given a new keyword or a bunch of keywords that are rather uncommon, then this article aims to help you. This write-up aims to walk you through the different ways that you could potentially find blogging ideas for your next article.

In this post, you will find different ideas on how to do just that. However, before that, here are a few tips that should aid you in maximizing every blog topic generation technique offered in this post.

  • Synonyms and technical terms from successful posts and pages are your friends. Make sure to include them in your article as this will help improve your page’s relevancy and search ranking potential.
  • Instead of focusing on the target keyword of a relevant post, understand the topic being discussed instead and craft a comprehensive post from that.

Now let’s discuss the different ways to find blog post ideas.

1.)  Utilize and exploit the success of other website’s pages

This one is fairly straightforward. Most bloggers and writers are already using this technique currently. Additionally, this is one of the easiest blog topic generators. By getting inspiration from other brands’ successful posts or pages, you can tap into their success and generate convert-ready traffic. This is because these pages already successfully brought traffic to their blogs and has traction on other blogs. That’s why, you can be assured they have potential in sending organic, social and referral traffic to your blog as well.

2.)    Answer the queries your target audience seems to have

To utilize this technique, there are several question-and-answer based platforms online where you can find and potentially answer the questions your audience has. Most of these queries are found in Yahoo Answers and Quora because these two sites are user-friendly and extremely trendy and popular for beginners to certain topics. Create a profile and select a niche and read through the most popular questions. From there, you can generate an article that would potentially attract readers.

3.)  Explore other sites

Look for other sites that host popular content and identify their most-shared content around the web. From this, analyze what is trendy and what has been big recently. You do not necessarily have to zero in and focus on your niche only. Browse various popular articles online and observe how they craft their headlines and the type of format that they use. Look at how they present their content and peruse their feedback. All these elements can be of real help to you when you create your own topic and your own content.

4.)  Know what your audience wants

Never make assumptions on what your audience wants to read. Remember, they are reading your articles for a reason and they are not as well versed about it as you are. Do not write your articles as if you are conversing with a pundit. Keep in mind that your audiences are basically novices so craft something that they will enjoy. To do this, you need to put yourself in their shoes and think of the type of questions they might ask. From this, you can generate a blog that would aid your audiences and aid you in gaining traffic.

5.)   Read and write a lot

This technique is pretty obvious, but largely overlooked. This is because most writers and bloggers no longer have the luxury of time for extracurricular writing and reading when they have a quota to meet. However, should spare time be available, never neglect reading and writing as this helps you get fresh ideas and a different point of view and another perspective. Writing often will also help you polish your skills. As the age-old saying goes, the more you do something, the better you are going to be. Designate at least thirty minutes of your time every single day to writing. It does not have to be groundbreaking and inspirational. Just make sure you do write every day. This will help you when you encounter an obstacle when it comes to crafting articles.

In sum…

It is not always easy to find topics for our blogs. No matter how hard we scour for resources and relevant information online, there are just some topics that will evade us. Writing will become more arduous than it was fun. But, it is important to develop a momentum and the tips offered above will help you do so. Once a flash of inspiration hits you and gives you a stride, you will realize that generating ideas is not that difficult at all.

Is listening to music really helps us in focusing our work? Well, that depends on what kind of music you are listening to! As we all know, music is a way of expressing oneself when we cannot put it into words.  It is for this reason why music is regarded as one of the triumphs of human creativity.

Some writers do well whenever they listen to music, and always have it on while completing their articles. However, for some, listening to music is debateable. They usually find it distracting. Perhaps, you are listening to the wrong music at a wrong time. Yes, there are music that puts off your focus (eg. Rock, Metal rock, etc.).

Generally, you can definitely identify music from noise and/or a good music from a crappy one. The effectiveness of music depends whether you like what you hear or not. There might be some of you here who listens to music without even realizing its beneficial effects. Now, here are those:

Music increases your focus

As a writer, maintaining our focus is a crucial thing to do. Some of you here get easily distracted even with the slightest sound around them. While others, they need to listen to music in order for them to create a good content and start writing. If you are working in a place where noise is everywhere and you tend to lose your focus, then listening to good music is one of your escapes. Music will definitely give you a sense of normalcy and improve your focus as you go along with your writings.

Music lifts your mood

As a writer, we want our contents to be interesting and engaging. However, there might be some of you here usually and easily feel discourage. Being frustrated on the topics and/or the contents that we have made is inevitable. That is why, whenever we feel like our topic seems off, or even when we don’t know what to write at all, we usually have a bad feeling about it. Why not try listening to one of your favourite songs? Through it, it can brightens up your mood and boost your self-esteem. Of course, you also have to listen to the tunes that can make you feel happy and enthusiastic to work and write better contents.

Music lyrics can inspire you

If you haven’t realized it yet, there are certain lyrics of the song that can give you an idea on what to write next, especially if you don’t have anything that you can think of. If want to write about fashion, you can listen and have some inspiration from the hit tract “Suit & Tie” by Justin Timberlake, and/or listen to the song of Shontelle “T-shirt”, “Fashionista” by Jimmy James, etc.

Wait, there are still more! Writers also have their own set of songs¬¬ to be inspired with. You will definitely love the song “Paperback writer” by The Beatles, “Screenwriter’s Blues” by Soul Counghing, “Everyday I write the book” by Elvis Costello, and many other songs that will inspire you to write more.

However, there is a caveat though; lyrics can also be a distraction. Sometimes, you tend to sing along with the lines of the song without realizing you are already paying too much attention to the song and not with the content that you have. There are writers who just listen to music without any lyrics at all. With that, your full attention is on their article.

Music can bring emotion

When we listen to music, there are certain songs that can bring back the memories from your past. Although your memories might bring back a happy or a tragic one, it can still lead you to feel about a particular thing. For instance, if you feel like writing about a sad love story, then listening to a sad song can help you unleash your emotional side.

There are even times that writer who listens to music tends to be carried away by their emotions and creates a perfect scene for their story. Of course, that will always be depends on what kind of music that can bring sadness or happiness that can also be incorporated by the content that you make.

Music can act as a powerful anchor

Writers definitely know that creating a good article is not that simple, there are certain things to consider before you can start writing. Basically, if you lack the determination and motivation in writing, then coming up a good content might be difficult to achieve.

However, listening to music can be used as a transition in coming up an idea and feeling towards the article that you are making. That transition can be a powerful anchor and/or basis to achieve an interesting topic. And once you have found the right music, you can use it any time you need to have a brainstorming session. The more you listen to a particular song, the more it continuously triggers the inspiration you are looking for.

Music is scientifically proven to shift brain waves

Sometimes, we have this misconception in mind that the inspiration that comes from music is only our imaginary. Nope! There are scientific explanations why listening to good music can boost creativity, awareness and motivation. When we listen to music, it creates a great impact on our brains and bodies.

There are also studies that have shown that the right kind of music can help you relax your mind which enables you to concentrate better. The more you feel relax, the more creative you can be.

Listening to music is more than entertainment and fun. Generally, with so many things to do at work, or in school, music has become an important way to “optimize the boring”. Moreover, music has increasingly become a part of the modern work session, especially when we seek an inspiration to write articles, novels, scripts, and/or any other forms of content.

Of course, we listen to music that we like and enjoy. It makes us feel different and inspired all throughout the day. In my case, as a writer, I’m picky when it comes to the selection of music. I usually listen to instrumentals like Jazz, Bossa Nova, Sax, classics. Generally, the music that I’m going to listen is going to make my entire day, which is why I usually pick good music for me to keep my sanity. And don’t forget Bach and Mozart, listening to their songs is definitely beneficial to you.

How about you? What kind of music that inspires you to write?

Have you ever tried staring at your paper for minutes with an empty mind? Have you ever feel like you don’t know what to write and where and how to start you first sentence? Writer’s block. Every writer struggles with it, and it is inevitable. We lose our inspiration and we don’t feel like writing at all. However, if you are working in an SEO company, it is a must for you to come up with fresh ideas for your content. Not an easy task to do, right?

As a content marketer, we want our writings to be perfect, but we also want the paper done as soon as possible. The undeniable truth is that writer’s block strikes any time of the day, causing us not to have any content output at all.

Well, sometimes, you just need a little break from what you are doing and take the time to organize your thoughts and things around you. And since professional writing is as fiercely competitive as it is desired, a little bit of motivation from the content experts might inspire you to do more and be better than what you did before.

10quotes

1. “Content is the reason search began in the first place” – Lee Odden (TopRank Marketing)

Content marketers play a big role in other people’s lives. When people need to know something, they search for contents that can address concerns. We marketers provide these people some information about various topics. Without content marketers giving information, there might not be enough things to know and learn.

2. “Ask yourself, what simple twist on a familiar theme will entrap your audience?” – Drew Davis (Brandscaping)

One of the reasons why people try to search something on the web is because they want to know something. They don’t search a particular thing that they already know unless they want to verify the info that they already have. That is why, it is a must for us content marketers to make interesting and informative contents that can immediately grab the readers’ attention. Getting their attention is critical in our line of work. But without those catchy twists on our content while not deviating to our main goal which is to inform our audience, then it might be impossible for us to let them engage.

 

3. “Content is anything that adds value to the reader’s life.” – Avinash Kaushik (Google)

Writing content is not just merely writing, we write for our readers. We want to make them feel that we, content marketers, contributed to their knowledge. That is, through writing and giving them the information that they need to know right when they need it. Isn’t it a great feeling knowing that we are a part of their growth?

4. “Content: there is no easy button.” – Scott Abel (Content Strategist)

Content marketing is definitely not easy! If you are serious enough on making your readers feel that you are a part of their learning, then you also have to be serious in coming up with fresh and engaging topics for them. And yes, this is not easy, too! The struggle is real! Well, if you feel like you are struggling with keeping the fresh ideas flowing, why not take a little break, breathe some fresh air and of course, research!

5.  “Useful + Enjoyable + Inspired = Innovative Content” – Ann Handley (MarketingProfs)

As a content marketer, if you are going to put yourself on your reader’s shoes, you definitely do not want to read crappy contents, right? Thus, it is important for us to know how to make our contents useful to them. For instance, we must be adept on knowing how our content can help them increase their learning and how they can apply it on their everyday lives.

6. “Be the best answer.” – Lee Odden, (TopRank Marketing)

There are thousands to millions of answers people can get with just a single search. Naturally, they cannot read these answers one by one. Gather and select – that is one of the things people usually do to find the right and best answer to their questions. Creating a content that would be the best answer for your readers increases your credibility as a content marketer.

7. “If your content isn’t driving conversation, you’re doing it wrong.” – Dan Roth

Again, the purpose of creating content is readers’ consumption as they will be the one to receive and utilize the content. With this, your content should be written as if you are talking to them in person. Isn’t it great when a person seems to be directly talking to you? If your readers feel that they are out of the picture, they might feel that your content is not intended for them and they won’t read it.

8. “A successful content marketing strategy is dependent on how well you know the customer’s information needs. Listening is required.” – Joe Pulizzi

The number one reason why content marketers exist is to create good content for the readers. If we fail to meet their expectations in giving them what they need, we are only defeating our duty and responsibility. We cannot make good contents if we don’t know what kind of content our readers want to read, what kind of content that can best answer their concerns, or what types of contents can change their lives forever. Without listening to their needs, it might be hard to meet those expectations on our end.

9. “New ideas are sometimes found in the most granular details of a problem where few others bother to look.” – Nate Silver

Our mentors, whose opinion we respect the most, usually tell us to think out of the box, think big or think beyond our imagination. Yep, that’s true. However, there are certain things that can be found in small things which we most likely to skip, thinking that these are just “small.” Such a small thing can be made into a bigger and more engaging idea for your content. Well, technically, you are also thinking out of the box hence you were able to notice the small details that others did not bother to look at at all.

10.    “The future of content marketing is in your hands.” – David Hahn (LinkedIn)

Living in this generation, it is impossible for the people not to rely on the web. Whenever they want to know something, the web is their best friend. Of course, as a marketer, it is our duty that we give the information that these people need. We are the one who can help them with whatever concerns that they have in life. There is the unyielding need for content. And in order for us to be part of their growth, we must give them the best content that they need now and what they might be needing in the future.

Being a content marketer is not as easy as you might think it is. There are various things that must be taken into consideration before going public. Sometimes, we have to think twice or even thrice whether our target readers will going to read our content or not. If they aren’t reading it, then, as Dan Roth says, we might be doing it wrong.

“What are you going to do after hitting the “Publish” button?” – That is one of the crucial questions that you are about to face. Indeed, it is! Since we all know that publishing and posting a certain article would definitely not be the end of the process in having a guaranteed SEO, taking a step further can help us reach a particular goal in the marketing industry.

solidgoldcreativity.com

Spending hours on a particular content, and posting it on the web to help other people in giving out information is a rewarding thing to do, especially when you know that your target market engages with it. That is one of the reasons why we continue to make and post one every day. However, rewarding as it may seem, there are instances when we also spend some of our time thinking on what to do next after hitting the “publish” button.

Aside from merely publishing your content, there are 6 simple strategies that you can do to have a successful blog post. Generally, these strategies are all effective when you know what and how to do it.

 

1.  Answer all comments

movabletype.org

movabletype.org

Most bloggers and marketers, if not all, would not care letting their readers leave a comment. For as long as they have posted something, then they are done. Nope! This is a fallacy.

Bloggers or marketers have to admit! It is not easy to make people leave a comment on your post. However, for some reasons, making your target audience react or engage by leaving comments can make your blog look more authoritative, which also makes it as a social proof. The more good and satisfying comments you get, the more people would also engage to your posts. Also, they can stir an interesting idea for your next content.

Whether you like it or not, you can’t control what kind of reviews they are going to give you. That is why as much as possible, you have to acknowledge and answer their comments in a right and informative way.

2. Schedule your promotions

slideshare.net

slideshare.net

The promotion of your content plays a big role in creating and having high quality traffic on your post. Without doing so, your content will be stagnant and perhaps, forgotten. Promoting your content constantly is important as publishing your post since it drives new traffic every time you share it socially.

One way you can track the promotions of your content is to make a to-do list or a timeline on what social media platform you will be using on a specific day, week or month. When sharing on Twitter for example, you have to share it more than once in its first day, and a few times throughout the next few weeks.

Moreover, in order for you to drive more traffic, choose a social media platform that can help you gain quality traffic on your post. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr and LinkedIn are some of the social platforms that can help you with your promotions.

 

3. Email the world

blog.mailchimp.com

blog.mailchimp.com

Aside from sharing your content in social media platforms, another way to promote your content is through emails. This is one of the reasons why you need to build your email list now. Your followers and subscribers will automatically receive the email that you have sent. Of course, these are the ideal people that will most likely engage in your emails.

Promoting your content through emails is simple, and it works. Basically, you have to include the link that will direct them to your post. You don’t need to include complicated themes or templates every time you use the email.  With the right composition of your content, you can definitely drive new traffic in your emails alone.

Moreover, you can also include a call-to-action. You can ask your followers to comment on the new post or share it on their respective social media accounts. In that way, your content will be disseminated all throughout social media.

 

4. Call in favors

entrepreneur.com

entrepreneur.com

Asking some favors from your followers is also one thing that can add traffic to your post. However, asking them to share your post can may also sound demanding. Sometimes, we feel embarrassed to email them and ask their help when we don’t even know their works.

The problem is, most bloggers or marketers would accept your favor if there is something that you do in return. Let’s take your content for example, if you link their name, brand or a particular quote coming from them, they will also feel obliged to return the favor to you, by sharing or mentioning you and your posts in their content as well.

That is why, it is also important to let them know that you have included or mentioned them on your content. Obviously, not everyone that you have asked will share your post, but many will.

 

5. Take advantage of groups

lrandcom.com

lrandcom.com

An online group is a great place to connect with people, and joining one is a great opportunity to share your content. Basically, joining groups gives you the chance to share any of your contents since there are no restrictions when it comes to post counts. Your reputation in the group is based more on your recent contribution and on how active are you socially.

There are actually a lot of groups that you can join with, but first, you have to make sure to find the best groups to join. You can join in LinkedIn groups and meet hundreds to thousands of professional bloggers and marketers, know who else have the same interest as you do in your Facebook groups, and accumulate followers in your Twitter account.

These are just some of the groups that you can take advantage of. Do not just stay on a particular blog without doing something. Extend your niche by joining groups.

 

6. Social Media

socialmediaexaminer.com

socialmediaexaminer.com

When we talk about publishing and promoting our content, having it on social media is our first priority. Where else? We usually think of which effective social media platforms are we going to utilize, what kind of strategy are we going to follow to have a successful blog post and gather high quality traffic, and on how to get our target audience’s attention.

Considering these concerns, it will always start and end with social media. That is why, choosing the right social media platform to use is as important as your content. You do not just post it anywhere and let your target market struggle in finding your content. As much as possible, make your content visible to every social media platform. With that, you will definitely gain high quality traffic on your posts.

www.business2community.com

 

Search engine optimization has been one of the many leading and diverse ways of online marketing. And with this, it is only understandable that certain myths and misconceptions are bound to surface. With regular algorithm updates and new factors influencing search all the time, search engine optimization is moving at quite a fast pace. This is precisely why it is clouded with a rather thick haze of confusion, misattribution and misunderstanding. However, this is why it is a rather pressing need for an SEO company that offers link-building services to dispel these erroneous notions.

There is an urgent need for clarification on this matter because this is what draws potential consumers into your different websites and the more educated they are with search engine optimization, the more receptive they will be to using it. Furthermore, if plenty of users are misled to believe the misapprehension surrounding search engine optimizations, then more and more SEO companies will lose their credibility.

This is precisely what we are trying to avoid, which is why users and visitors alike should be furnished with the correct knowledge of what search engine optimization really is. And the first step to making users understand better is to eliminate whatever fallacies they may have of search engine optimization from the Internet.

Here are some of the most common fallacies about SEO:

 

1. SEO is nothing but keywords and links

While keywords and links certainly form a great part and role in SEO, they are not the only factors. There are other factors involved that users and visitors should not discount. Everything from the mobile optimization of a website to the social “virality” of a particular content plays a part in search rankings. With Hummingbird’s release, Google is getting a much better grasp at understanding full inquiries in addition to just single keywords, which means placing of keywords at the very front of the title may not be as important.

Google has become more evolved in recognizing the search queries in the context of the sentences surrounding them, even factoring location into some of the search queries. This could only mean that search is becoming more complex with more factors playing a role in the influence of rankings. However, this complexity adds nuance and a sense of comprehension of the context the person is trying to search for. This goes without saying that, you should write for people first and machines (or search engines) second.

 

  2. When a keyword is not provided, it is an SEO’s ultimate doom.

Recently, Google encrypted all keywords giving users everywhere the misguided impression that it was the end of SEO. However, this would be true should SEO solely be about keywords, then this would be an absolute nightmare for everyone but fortunately, it is not. This is why SEO Companies would rather focus on the content of their website rather than the keywords which herds in visitors into their site.  This is why it is best to go to the analytics of your website and see which pages garnered the highest traffic from organic search (regardless of the keywords) and try to see the common denominator of these pages, and identify what their primary focus is.

It is also wise to engage with your customers. Talk and listen to them about what they were seeking for when they found you and focus on getting tour content seen, spread and shared across social media platforms. This helps you stay relevant. The bottom line is: Google’s keyword encryption is a mere inconvenience but it is certainly not the death of SEO. SEO is about creating information rich, spreadable and relevant content, so why not focus on that instead?

 

 3. Bing doesn’t really count. So it should be discarded.

Because Bing isn’t as popular as Google, most people disregard it as another option as a search engine. But though people vastly underestimate Bing’s capabilities as a search engine, according to comScore’s October search engine rankings, it received 18.1 percent of searches in the US in April 2013. This is a figure that has doubled since 2009. While it is not remarkable, it has certainly shown improvement. Furthermore, while Bing may not be ready to be at par with Google competition wise as the most widely used search engine, there are plenty of other factors you should be considering. First, Bing has a partnership with Facebook wherein it enables users to search for places and things within their social reach. In addition to that, Bing became the search engine, which powers all of Yahoo searches. Furthermore, Bing’s algorithm is less complex than Google’s and it prioritizes slightly different things, so if Google is not working for you, Bing might be able to present some useful opportunities to you.

And perhaps, the most glaring and obvious feature Bing has is that unlike Google who began encrypting keyword data from its users’ searches, Bing still provides marketers with keyword data. This may not change your prospective customers’ search behavior; there is more opportunity to learn from the keywords that have brought in Bing searchers.

Though optimizing for Google should remain as your main approach, consider that Bing is on the move. That compounded with its strategic partnerships with Facebook and Yahoo should make the search engine and interesting force for online marketers.

 

4. Linking to my site from the comments is a good idea

Inbound links to your websites are votes of confidence for your content and have a positive impact on your page’s ranking, but what most people forget is that inbound links should be earned. Composing links on the comments section of a blog is not going to help you in that area, which might even annoy some users. Blogs, mostly have “no follow” instructions built into their comments; mainly to avoid spam. This would instruct search engine crawlers to ignore any links found within the comments.

Though it is not necessarily bad to link relevant content in the comments occasionally, one should remember the operative word here: relevance. In fact, should your comment be insightful, it might generate traffic for you, but keep in mind that it is not likely to increase your search rank directly. However, this is not something you should overdo as this can raise red flags with Google. So leave links in comments where they make sense or allow readers to learn more about your comment, which in the first place should be relevant to the content you are commenting for. However, do not expect this to help with SEO.

 

 

www.adammcfarland.com

                

In today’s fast paced and ever evolving digital age, just how much of a necessity is acquiring search engine optimization for your business? Does it come with the most essential benefits that a business owner has always sought for? Is SEO truly worth the investment? And just how pivotal is this so-called SEO to one’s business? Before we answer the litany of queries preceding this sentence, it is important to consider how involved the average human is in online activities and just how much he or she spends time in front of a computer. When those are factored in, it is rather transparent just how beneficial it would be to have your business (especially those which are still at their inception stage) advertised and promoted online.

When one views it from that aspect, it is rather obvious just how vital search engine optimization can be and consequently would answer the string of questions that were written prior to this paragraph. To illustrate just how indispensable SEO can be, companies all over the world have been making a renewed commitment to the investment in solid, reliable SEO Company and web infrastructure. Along with this, it is key to consider how search-engine friendly it is given the engines’ relentless effort in improving their algorithms time after time. In a nutshell, the readily seen benefits one can reap from investing in a good SEO company are raising revenue, increased customer satisfaction, lowered costs. Raising revenue, as an advantage is rather obvious as getting your business advertised online generates more potential clients and customers. As for increased customer satisfaction and lowered costs, these are benefits that can be acquired. Investing in SEO produces an umbrella effect where one would not need to advertise in every single and available media as the power of the Internet does this for you, while customer satisfaction is evidenced by reviews. But the benefits mentioned above barely scratch the surface of how SEO can be truly advantageous to one’s business. This article aims to show you more ways than those enlisted above on how search engine optimization can truly be one of the indispensable and powerful tools a business can have.

So here’s a list of reasons on why your company should be investing in SEO:

 

1.) It still works and effectively at that

Whoever said that ‘SEO is dead’ is dead wrong. Fact is various techniques have been progressing and evolving every single day and the techniques employed and are already existing in order to improve SEO are still working. Data regarding organic traffic from Google might be a recent discovery and innovation but the other techniques themselves remain sound and efficient.

 

2.) Optimal reach to potential clients and customers

It is fairly obvious how individuals nowadays rely on search engines to answer quick queries and this has been proven rather effective for them. It is quick, accessible and convenient and answers are delivered within seconds (depending on the speed of your connection) making people unconsciously trust it. It is common knowledge that when Google places a particular business at the top spot of a search then it has surely earned that placed and by analogy, that place should be good. This particular person doing the search would then advertise his or her find on various platforms of social media, at times leaving a link for them to click as well. This works rather fast as things posted online, most especially on social media, get seen resulting to better revenue. How is this possible? The search engine matched everything perfectly and it all pointed to a particular website with good link building.

 

3.) Compared to other online marketing strategies, SEO is cost effective.

SEO finds stiff competition with other online marketing strategies such as PPC advertising, purchasing leads for an email marketing program, social media marketing and the like, but what gives search engine optimization an edge is the fact that it provides business owners with results. Otherwise stated, SEO provides fairly good return of investment. PPC may drive more revenue and social media may be hip, trendy and relevant (and perhaps great for your image), it is undeniable that your organic SEO remains bedrock of your online relevance and presence.

 

4.)  Gives you optimal insight into your customers

Properly optimized websites have a lot of benefits. Among them is having an increased visibility, usability and credibility in search engines, which would collectively result to a higher traffic for your website. Now that you are driving more traffic into your website and enjoying more visitors, Google Analytics—an indispensable tool all websites should be equipped with—can track valuable information about your visitors. This information would yield their browser preferences, the keywords they use, the geographical location, and the time they spent on a page, among others. This information is relevant as it assists business owners in helping discover your target market and hone your products to relate with them best, plan your marketing strategies to entice them and determine other key marketing strategies based on facts rather than guesses. After all, it is no question that the better you know and relate to your customers, the higher your return of investment will be.

 

5.)  Your competitors are utilizing it

SEO is an invaluable tool when it comes to online marketing, it’s efficacy is fairly obvious and because it is so, it is a reality that your competitors are also using to their advantage. You, as a business owner, should progress along with the times and harness its marketing potential as well. If you are not moving forward and are not doing anything to improve your position, then you are losing ground to a competitor who is doing so. Do not let your competitors outmaneuver you in this business marketing strategy. Business may be hard, but advertising and getting your business known should not be. Let search engine optimization be your answer to your online business marketing dilemmas.

 

In conclusion…

SEO remains to be one powerful online marketing tool that business owners who are starting out or have been in business in years still utilize. However, it is important to consider that no matter how optimized your site may be, or how powerful your SEO company might be, or how modern your techniques and tools are, they will be all for nothing if content remains lacking. It is essential that online marketing tools be used in conjunction with creative, powerful and information rich content. This, along with your company’s business marketing strategy is a surefire way to get a decent, if not great return of investment.

Optimind offers guaranteed first page ranking on major search engines or your money back.