All posts tagged Link building services

Hundreds of successful companies at present wouldn’t be at the height of their achievements if not for the people who stood up and lead the team to their goals.

Leaders and company executives matter not just because they firmly uphold the company’s visions but because they have the ability to influence employees to work their best and lead the business to success.

While good leaders can bring a venture to success, the opposite could contribute to the drastic decline of the corporate economy and business performance as a whole. This sentiment is echoed at a 2012 poll by the Center of Public Leadership at Harvard University. It showed that around “70% of Americans blame leadership crisis as a factor in the national economic decline.”

Truly, there is a direct relationship between the qualities of leadership a company has with that of its performance productivity.  Over the years, executives and management experts have been debating on the best methods to enhance the leadership skills of key personnel in any venture.

Below are considered to be among the top attributes every successful leader possess, and which aspiring executives should work on to develop.

Sincere support to colleagues

Aside from being the prime movers of any project, effective leaders are also very keen on empowering their people. They have an eye for excellence and seek to motivate the individuals in the team to help them progress and perform better.

They know that keeping people motivated is one way to maintain the high productivity within the company. As such, they continually devise strategies on how to show support and appreciation to everyone who deserve the credit.

Result orientation

People who are gifted with leadership skills value the step-by-step way of how a task is completed while at the same time keeping his or her eyes on the real goal. They know how to assess effective strategies from those that are only taking much of the people’s time.

Anyone who wants to nurture their skills in leading people has to have a result oriented mentality. This way, they wouldn’t have any problems making decisions when it comes to doing what and when. Effective leaders respect the process but are not entirely averse to the idea of improvising when the situation demands it.

They’re flexible at work and apply this attribute in or out of pressure.

Open-mindedness to welcome ideas

Employees respect leaders for their expert abilities in one field, but one thing that keeps them efficient on their roles is their humility or open-mindedness to accept ideas from colleagues.

If you’re a practicing leader yourself, you should know better that there are matters beyond your current expertise. A responsible manager knows when to step back and let other experts on their team take on the floor.

More importantly, they know who to tap for help. Aside from their rich network in the business, they use their personal experience to assess whether or not someone is capable of delivering the company’s expected result.

Efficient problem-solving skills

Among the major tasks managers and department heads are tasked to do is address business problems in the most effective way possible. This means arriving at a solution in the fastest method and preferably with the least damages to corporate assets and reputation.

Experts believe that to keep a venture’s operation well-grounded and efficient, their heads have to possess the ability to remain calm under pressure and be able to think straight in the face of any complication.

Rather than focus their attention and dread about the problem, real leaders set all their energy in finding the solution.

Acknowledging weaknesses but not spending time on them

At a more personal level, real leaders know how to recognize their weakness. They know the limits of their capacities and are willing to work with people who can fill in that gap. However, they are also wise enough to know that dealing with what they cannot do is a total waste of time.

Instead, they focus on using their strengths to its full extent.

Calm and confident demeanor

Once you become a leader, people start looking up to you. You automatically become a role model that members ought to emulate. One of the most important attributes leaders need to possess is the ability to exude confidence and calmness in tight situations.

Don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t mean that people in the managerial positions have to be totally insensitive to the problems experienced by the employees on the field. On the contrary, this talks about how they should be able to spot those issues firsthand and be able to address them with absolute control. In short, they should not panic.

Honest and critical perspective

Honesty is a major factor in any business and leaders always have to be at the forefront of exercising the quality. Otherwise, he or she won’t be able to set up a good example for the rest of the employees.

To complement honesty is a more practical skill which is critical thinking. It’s something not everyone has, but is highly necessary for keeping all things in order.  Having an analytical mind is also a key to an effective setting of priorities.

They say that there are people born with a natural skill and charisma to lead. However, it is also true that this skill can be learned over time through constant practice.

In this digital age, companies are in dire need of people who can lead the team of creative individuals such as those working for link building services. As employees dealing with a broad market niche and potentially overseas clients, they need all the support they can get from leaders who are there to guide and help them prosper in their careers.

Whether you are a practicing manager or someone who is eyeing for a chance to lead a team soon, it’s best to know the rules of the game beforehand. Get to know the specifics of what you’re expected to deliver. Ask experts for their inputs and be ready to learn the brass tacks of what leadership demands.

Several types of research already revealed the most important things that matter on this field. There’s no reason why you should count any of them out on your must-learn skills.

Humans are without a doubt, the most visual creatures on earth. Nothing entices us more than anything that is pleasing to look at–eye candies if you may. In fact, the human brain processes images approximately sixty thousand times faster than ordinary written text.  Now, here’s a fact that may blow you away: We retain only about ten percent of what we hear and twenty percent of what we read and a whopping eighty percent of what we see. Now, should you be a wise digital marketer, you would find ways to creatively exploit this human quirk or trait.

Suppose you are an online marketing agency specializing in link building services, this fact alone should send idea pings and signals to your head. As it is, most, if not all digital marketers would want their content seen and above all, shared. For social media specialists and marketers, this means one thing: Peppering your posts with eye-popping images would almost guarantee you more shares as more shares denote better engagement. In fact, it has been shown that visual content largely dominates social media, much more than written text. By now, you should have an idea of just how significant the usage of images is, but as there is profusion and a multitude of options when it comes to images, it begs the question: What sort of images should you use?

Well, a recent survey has shown that despite the influx of videos, infographics and illustrations lately, people would still prefer the classic take by reading posts laden with a variety of photographs.  However, if you include animated gifs into the mix, then photographs pale in comparison as animated graphics seems to dominate the charts when it comes to the total social shares by blog post image type. Instagram and Twitter already has an avenue for animated gifs to be played, while Tumblr has always been littered with posts teeming with animated gifs. It seems that only until recently Facebook was left out of the loop. But late last year, the social media juggernaut has finally allowed GIFS to be playable in their news feed making this image type a formidable contender in being the preferable image platform.  As bloggers and content writers, this is a welcome opportunity for you to widen the scope of making your posts more engaging.

USING ANIMATED GIFS

By utilizing GIFS, your audience is not limited to seeing stills and photos nor are they constrained to watch a video. This makes the image platform a welcome compromise to the dilemma of wanting to watch a video without the lengthy interval as gifs are relatively short and quick to view—nothing more than a few seconds of your audience’s time. And that is not all; GIFS are quite easy to use as finding the appropriate one for your post does not take much of your effort other than scanning through available and existing gifs in Giphy.com which is offered for free. However, should you not find anything suitable; you can easily create one for your own with the online tool gifmaker.com. Quite easy to use, very straightforward and engaging, these attributes are precisely why gifs have been dominating social media platforms all over the web.

USING ILLUSTRATIONS

You may think that utilizing illustrations is a bit old-school and outdated. Although this may be true, it is unbeknownst to most, illustrations give your content, blogs and posts that personal feel that would give your readers the impression that you considered giving your write-ups enough effort to go the extra mile of making them a lot more personalized and detailed. Additionally, personalized illustrations guarantee your posts a sense of peculiarity and inimitability at some degree. Graphs made by excel will never be at par to graphs made with artistic skill and given a touch of personality. How is this achieved? Simple, you utilize your own handwriting and your own skills in drafting graphs. You do not need to be in possession of calligraphy skills and artistic panache, but you do need to make sure your handwriting and drawings are understandable enough to your readers. Your sketches may look nothing more than doodles to you, but you can be assured that they attract and hold the attention of your readers and since they are created by hand rather than by a machine, it gives the illustration a certain edge above the others.

Apart from illustrations giving your posts a personalized color, it also allows the poster for humor to pervade his or her post. Let us face it, humor can hardly be achievable with rigidly stiff lines and graphs drawn on excel. Squiggly lines and haphazardly drawn graphs are incomparable to computer generated shapes and charts.

USING INFOGRAPHICS

Utilization of infographics is the powerhouse of content with substantial information. Though, it is not as effective as it used to be, it is still shareable content that will still stomp the competition. Infographics are quite difficult to make and requires quite a bit of time, but it is possible to make them and still have your message conveyed. There is a multitude of infographic creation tools online, but there are three creation tools that are a cut above the rest. These are:

*Canva- Canva is the well-known image creator and image editor for the web. People who have no design skills will still be able to create attractive graphics fast.

*Google Charts- Although, you would still need to save the charts to use them as pieces for your infographic, Google offers you one of the best free infographic tools available.

*Infogr.am- If you want an infographic generator that is teeming with options, then Infogr.am should be your choice as it offers more options for free than most of its competitors.  Additionally, it’s built-in sharing functionality and ease of use makes this the prime choice for bloggers and content writers who want to insert infographics into their posts.

USING PHOTOGRAPHS

Though you can use photos randomly generated by stock photos or searched for in search engines, using your own photos guarantees your post a degree of authenticity and originality. However, as not all of us are gifted with a photographer’s eye, this is easier said than done. Should you have top notch standards for visual content, it is best if you consider hiring a professional photographer—one whose works are in line and appropriate for the type of content you generate. If this is not an option, use your smartphone and just give it your best attempt. In any case, your photographs may look like they have been taken by an amateur, they are still far better than photos collected from stock photos.

In conclusion…

If you want compelling content that would be shared and re-shared by your audience, let them feast their eyes on something other than a big block of text. Creating inspired images does not have to be expensive as you can even do it with a simple sketch achieved through a pencil or through an online free software such as Canva.

So, fellow bloggers and content writers, let your words paint a literal picture for you by utilizing various platforms in images. It will certainly do wonders for your SEO, and it will do wonders in granting you wide readership.

Sneaky Techniques That Hurt Your SEO

 sneaky techniques_SEO (1)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO, for brevity) is not dead. No matter what the critics may say — SEO remains as a powerful marketing strategy with the majority of SEO companies offering link building services guarantee results. However, SEO is not as straightforward and as easy as many of us wants it to be.

 

More often than not, even SEO specialists themselves will encounter a few kinks and bumps down the road, resulting into a very frustrating workflow. So, what do stressed and frustrated SEO specialists do? They resort to shortcuts.

 

Underhanded and offensive shortcuts at that with hopes that these black hat techniques would get them roughly the same results as the legitimate techniques, only with lesser hassles and stresses. However, this is not exactly the best way to optimize your website. In spite of giving you substantial and fast results, it may very well be the main cause of your website’s death. Sure, it’s fast, easy and it gives you the desired results, but it is rarely worth it.

 

Many might think that black hat SEO is a thing of the past, but this is a very common misconception. Black hat SEO still remains as one of the most obnoxious ways to garner website traffic. However, due to specific circumstances, SEO specialists are pushed to implementing these black hat techniques. Some choose the lesser evil which are gray hat techniques.

 

This post aims to make you aware of the many underhanded methods that website owners and even optimization experts may utilize to game Google’s ranking system. Though each of these may sound incredibly enticing, the implementation of any of these would inevitably result in being penalized by Google. Yes, Google will know that you are intentionally being deceptive. The post categorizes these techniques into three, ranging from bad to the extremely terrible and will give you samples for each proffered category.

 

THE BAD

 

These strategies are tricky and stealthy. You may be using them unwittingly with the misplaced notion that they are not hurting rankings. They are not done deliberately and can temporarily increase rankings.

 

1.)    Keyword stuffing

 

Sure, you managed to craft content that is both rich in information and compelling. However, at a second glance, you would see that it is rich in something else as well – keywords. And by that, it would mean that almost every line of your post is literally laced with a keyword or keyphrase. This may get you ranked. However, nowadays, it’s not as effective. Keyword utilization is still necessary and beneficial, but writing excellent content that offers rich themes and substantial information should be a priority rather than keyword density.

 

2.)    Keyword stuffing your image tags

 

Some SEO people, especially the inexperienced ones, utilize this technique. Those who did this has a misguided notion that since nobody is minding their images, they might as well stuff it with keywords. However, this misconception should be debunked. Though this will not result into any sort of penalty, it would be a challenge to your visually-impaired visitors and will not do anything good for your on-page SEO.

 

3.)    Guest blogging for the sole purpose of link building

 

In building your brand and expanding your reach, this seems like a necessary  action. But take caution as guest blogging on irrelevant sites just to gain links is             never okay. This could potentially get you in trouble more so because the mantra nowadays is earning editorial links.

 

THE EVEN WORSE

 

These are the techniques you are very well-aware are not so acceptable. However, for the sake of page rankings and favorable web traffic, you are willing to look the other way. These are the techniques that might cause an initial increase, but take heed; you will eventually have to face the consequences.

 

1.)    Using irrelevant keywords in order to rank

 

There are days wherein we need to produce topnotch contents. However, there are also days wherein we could not find relevant themes to fit the barrage of keywords we are given for the week. So what do some optimizers do? They utilize them anyway. This is one of the shortcuts that marketers do for the sole purpose of ranking for those keywords. Unfortunately, Google has been sharpened its algorithms to identify a page’s real topic through Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI). So, using this otherwise unacceptable technique is moot anyway.

 

2.)    Meta keyword stuffing

 

Over-optimizing your Meta keywords does not hold any real consequences, but it does not do much either as it would not give you any sort of advantage in terms of rankings. The same can be said for your Meta description. Though Google would not use the content of your description as a ranking factor, it serves as your ad copy in the SERP’s. So, with that in mind, make sure you craft the meta description in such a way that it describes your page accurately, enticingly and appealingly.

 

3.)    Irrelevant footer links

 

Footer links are extremely necessary for helping visitors navigate your site. However, there are some sites which utilize footers but not necessarily aimed at helping users. They do it so they will garner more rankings for their keywords. Keep in mind that if you are indeed providing a link in your footer, make sure it is actually useful for your visitors. Do not do it for ranking purposes.

 

THE EXTREMELY TERRIBLE

 

You are well aware that this is wrong, but you do it anyway. You are enticed by the easy rankings and you just cannot help it. A word of warning though. This is going to get you penalized. Best case scenario would be you preparing to receive a manual penalty. However, there could also be a complete de-indexing of your site.  

 

1.)    Baiting then switching

 

In a nutshell, this involves waiting for a page to rank, then stealthily replacing it with a different page. This will get you irrelevant ranking for a while, but nothing bypasses Google. They will eventually figure this strategy out. You may see this as getting ranking, but it would also send your bounce rates through the roof. Thus, this is hardly worth the risk.

 

2.)    Doorway pages

 

These are pages crafted for the purpose of intentionally getting a keyword ranked by merely diverting visitors to a different page in the process. Doorway pages offer little to no content at all and often result in many useless pages, taking up all the top rankings for a given keyword.

 

3.)    Invisible text

 

As archaic and obsolete this strategy may be, it is still rather rampant and happens rather regularly. What happens here is that webmasters would disguise keywords on a certain page by matching the text color to the background. In some instances, they position the text off the screen using CSS, making it only visible to search engines.

 

In closing…

 

There are a lot more black hat techniques including link schemes that are not covered by this article. However, we have glossed over some of the most common strategies that are still surprisingly utilized today despite being corrupt.  Always take into consideration that these techniques may increase your traffic and give your keywords ranking in the short-term. But, more likely than not, it would damage not only your rankings but your reputation as well in the long-term.

 

And are you really willing to take that risk just for the sake of doing things easier and faster? I think not.

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.

Top SEO Faux Pas

seo faux pas

In these current times, websites are no longer considered a luxury, it is a fact that they are now a necessity. Websites  are vital to the growth of a business in nearly all industries to remain competitive. And because of this, SEO (search engine optimization) strategists have come up with various ways to stay on top of the business. This may involve optimization that offers link building services and would grant you guaranteed SEO.

So, you have created impactful, information rich, compelling and great engaging content. You value the necessity of responding to a reader and customer feedbacks are an extreme boon for the existence of your website. You make essential adjustments, use correct header tags, utilize and source images legally and write attention grabbing headlines. You have managed to do everything in your capacity and to your knowledge. This should all have been efficacious in giving you exemplary results, right? But you may wonder, what are you still doing wrong?

It may have escaped your attention, but you may have been adopting increasingly aggressive marketing tactics that are more likely to harm your website visibility in search engines instead of helping it. You may be doing this in a misguided attempt at getting more views and in an injudicious competitive spirit. Shall you continue doing so, your website visibility will most likely tank in the long run.

If you think you may have, this article helps you become aware of it. Check the list below and see if you are committing any of the said SEO cardinal faux pas.

  1. Keyword Over-Optimization

Before the advent of Google’s Panda and Penguin algorithms, overuse of keywords (otherwise known as “keyword stuffing”) was a common practice. Yet website owners rarely experienced any adverse ramifications over this. Today however, search engines have become increasingly complex and Google, in particular, is continuously tweaking and altering its algorithms to reward content that is high in quality while penalizing low-quality content.

Nowadays, stuffing a page with keywords in an attempt to make it rank higher for those phrases is not only ineffectual and impractical, but it will tank you rankings as well. This is not only an example of an ineffective tactic that may have negative repercussions but should this particular tactic be identified by Google’s Panda algorithm, the website may be subsequently removed from Google’s search results.

  1. Insufficient and Infrequent Content

Keeping website content short and sweet may have been the primary focus for years. Recently however, this focus has shifted. The current trend among search engines is that they prefer pages with information-rich, in-depth and compelling content. Should a search engine encounter a page without so much content, it would potentially conclude that this page is low in quality. These contents are considered “thin contents,” ensuing to less visibility in search results.

Publish quality, valuable, informative and relevant content in order to ensure that your website remains competitive today. Generally, articles that include properly-formatted images and videos tend to rank better in search engines, have higher engagement with readers and get shared more in social media.

Google wants to display content in its search results that people will appreciate and like. So give your website a closer inspection and see if anyone would really love it. If not, remove the offending content or combine it with other content to create something better that would be valuable and shareable.

Apart from sufficient and compelling content, a lot of website owners do not quite understand just how essential consistency and frequency is when it comes to content publication. Succinctly put, there is a definitive link between publication frequency and search engine rankings.

  1. Broken Links

“Broken link” is the term given to a hyperlink that no longer redirects you to its intended destination. This is rather cumbersome for readers who were already won over by your lengthy spiel and your promise to deliver. Furthermore, it makes your site unreliable as well.

Sites naturally accumulate broken links but this can be a major nuisance to your visitors and Google does not appreciate them either. But if they are supposedly natural, why would Google penalize you for them? Well, the simple reason is that bad links will earn you a bad reputation which would cause a ripple effect. Online, people or businesses with adverse reputations are not viewed as authorities on anything.

And along with that, Google downgrades rankings on sites with many issues such as this. So clean up your site and make sure broken links are remedied.

  1. Unnatural Link Building

A common mistake among website owners is having the misguided impression that buying links is a speedy and effective way to boost their site’s search engine rankings. While quantity and quality of inbound links are a major factor in the search ranking algorithm, unnatural inbound links can trigger devastating penalties on your website.

Fact is, Google has been rather clear regarding their stance when it comes to the purchase of links. Simply put, Google does not like it and are quick to punish any site found to be building unnatural links. The bottom line is learning how to build your links naturally.

  1. Building Too Many Links on Your Homepage

A website would look contrived if it only links back to the homepage. One of your SEO goals should you want results is to make the backlinks profile look as natural as possible. A lot of online businesses get too excited about ranking their homepage, making them forget to build backlinks to other pages.

Instead of building hundreds of links to your homepage, you should split these links to your blog posts as well. This factor would make your website rank better in Google.

 

To conclude…

Managing a website along with a business is not exactly an easy feat and it is extremely time-consuming. Furthermore, with the added responsibility of keeping up with changes in the SEO industry, it is rather difficult to keep up with the changes in the SEO industry. It is also difficult for business owners to have a clear idea of what to do when it comes to implementing a good SEO campaign. It might be easy to understand why business owners commit these mistakes, but it does not excuse them all the time. By now, business owners should exercise more caution and be more proactive in the pursuit of beneficial SEO techniques.

Every one of us wants to achieve that momentum in our lives where we can be as successful as we wanted to be. It may be in the field of technology, such as creating a start up link building services firm, or music such as building up a career in it. There are in fact lots of ways to do it, but some of us, especially the Millennials who needed more push and motivation to make this a real thing, should have clearer views on why you should chase the dream.

How do you define success?

As the saying from Tony Robbins goes, “Success is doing what you want, when you want, where you want, with whom you want as much as you want,” there is that itch that comes right out from your gut that makes you agree on it. After all, I guess we are on the same page, right?

To us (or many of us), to be successful is just how Mr. Robbins grabbed the whole idea into a one-sentence streak of epiphany. And by doing so, we should be getting closer to making that move and realizing that dream.

Below are some reasons why being a Millennial entrepreneur is a much more exciting feat than any other 9-5 hour pay job you should have:

You have the passion and the reason to do things.

Yes, all of us might have that. But for a Millennial who wants to pursue entrepreneurship at a whole new level, first and foremost, should know that passion is what should drive you. In addition to that, for the passion to be fuelled and to make it stronger than ever, you should believe in yourself that you have the correct reasons why you wanted to pursue this in the first place.

Success from doing what you want is one reason for you to go on, but that should not be the end goal. Knowingly, success becomes the fruit of doing what you love, out of passion. And by having that in place, you are so far doing it right. Just have the heart and mind to push for it.

You are an expert at something.

This means you have the knowledge to make things better. Being an expert should be something you want to be proud about, but you can be proud about it as much as you want as long as you have put that expertise to good use. People acknowledging your work, I guess, is something one can truly say that his or her existence is as better as not being able to let the world know.

Being expert at something is just the same as saying that you have a creative knowledge and idea to make things go further—better. With this, it aims to be more innovative and to push for others to also learn from you.

 It drives you crazy when you think you can do better.

It is not about being conceited but oftentimes, the righteous selves within us wants to be unleashed because we know something that others do not know— one key you can use in order to lead. As an entrepreneur, you should always find ways in order to be better and be able to help out in the society, in one way or another. By making this as a mantra, you will surely make way to that path of success.

You have the resources. 

Others may have, but not everyone will. If you think you are one of the ‘others’ who has the resources to pursue such endeavour—lucky you. Not everyone who wants to start right away (given with the ideas they have in mind) can’t immediately do so because there are hindrances that can’t be disregarded, but hey, this should not be a reason for you to slack off.

Having enough resources like funding, savings and other forms is a gem for an aspiring entrepreneur because money is a need for you to push through. However, despite not having enough funds, it is a sure ball that there are still other ways you can bargain with.

You want to earn (of course).

Simply put, you want to earn cash. And not just cash, but hard-earned cash! It would not make sense if you want to be an entrepreneur if you don’t have profit. Yet, this thought should not eat you up after reaching that certain kind of success everyone dreams of.

There are others who want to earn enough cash to pay the bills, have a decent meal everyday, a roof under the head and perhaps some wheels for your transfers in meeting clients. And some would want to go places, visit different countries, see the world and still make things happen.

You want to have your own flexible time.

Sure you want to own your time, do what you want, whenever you want to. Having a flexible work schedule is something one would be chasing to have. Aside from that, it also helps to adapt this kind of working lifestyle because it will also be healthy for you, at some point.

And mind you, this is the ultimate dream.

You want to change the course of the world.

Change is something everyone is and will always be dealing with on a daily basis. As an entrepreneur, it is safe to say that you have the world in your hands. You are presented by a lot of opportunities and possibilities and it is your goal how you could ace the game in the industry you are in.

Let us say for example, you wanted to put up an SEO company that normally does link building services among clients’ websites and rankings. It is a very usual feat to do for such nature of company. But in order for you to change the ‘course of the world’, you need to be innovative. You need to come up with more new ways and approaches that will serve what the world needs.

Goals are important, and as far as making ambitions, dreaming big is always welcome. As long as again, you strive hard to make it work and turn it into a realisation. In the end, the world will thank you for doing so.  This is to motivate that anyone with the dream can naturally pursue one as long as you have, again, the reason and passion to make things happen, one step at a time.

Attention: providers of link building services in the Philippines. Good news, link building is not dead. Well, at least not the link building we know two to three years ago. Based on the survey conducted by Skyrocket, link building continues to be a relevant optimization strategy. Below are the details. After the discussion of the results, key takeaways will be discussed.

 

Before that though, here is Matt Cutts view on quality links and quality link building.

 

Who are the survey participants?

The total number of participants is 315. There are just five groups of participants. These are:

  • Consultants/Practitioners (Agencies) – 37%
  • SEO Managers/Heads – 30%
  • Business Owners (Digital marketing, SEO firms) – 13%
  • Business Owners(Non-marketing firms) – 12%
  • Consultants/Practitioners (Freelancers) – 8%

 

How much is the monthly spending on link building?

  • $0 – $1,000 – 20%
  • $1,000 – $5,000 – 20%
  • $5,000 – $10,000 – 23%
  • $10,000 – $50,000 – 37%
  • Over $50,000 – 0%

There is an obvious slight decrease in spending because, in the 2013 survey, about 10% of the respondents said that they have spent more than $50,000 for their monthly link building strategies.

On the other hand, there are more companies spending between $10,000 and $50,000 monthly compared to last year. Last year’s percentage is only 11% compared to this year’s which is 37%, which is the highest bracket.

 

What percentage of the total SEO budget is distributed for link building?

  • 27% said 0 – 25%
  • 27% said 26 – 50%
  • 40% said 51 – 75%
  • 7% said 76 – 100%

The question was followed by this question: Have you increased or decreased the total link building spending over the past year? Exactly 81% said they have increased spending while 19% they have decreased spending. Perhaps, this explains the increased in the total percentage of those who spend from $10,000 to $50,000.

The participants were also asked the reason behind the increase or decrease. The responses are categorized as follows:

  • Moving link building budget to content marketing projects
  • Good links are significant as ever
  • Moving away from the old link building strategies
  • Increasing production or creativity

They were also asked whether they will increase or decrease the spending, and 73% said they would increase while 27% said they would not increase the budget. Again, the participants were asked why they will do so. The replies are categorized as follows:

  • Link building continue getting more expensive
  • Raising the bar on the firm’s existing efforts to beat competitors with more sophisticated content strategies
  • Unsure where to invest exactly as firms are unsure if linking is working or not

 

Which link building tactics do you utilize most?

The five best answers are:

  • Content plus outreach – 69 votes
  • Infographic promotion – 47 votes
  • Guest posts – 38 votes
  • Resource pages – 32 votes
  • Contests/giveaways – 28 votes
  • Business directories/Local citations – 28 votes also
  • Broken link building – 28 votes also

Which tactics do you perceive to be the most effective?

The answers are:

  • Content plus outreach – 91 votes
  • Infographic promotion – 54 votes
  • Broken link building – 47 votes
  • Business directories/Local citations – 32 votes
  • Resource pages – 25 votes

Interestingly, press release submission, guest post and blog network are tied with 6 votes each.

Which link building tactics do you perceive to be the least effective?

The five best answers are:

  • Article directories – 50 votes
  • Social bookmarks – 38 votes
  • Forum profile links – 35 votes
  • Web directories – 28 votes
  • Comments – 28 votes also
  • Link wheels – 22 votes
  • Rented links – 22 votes also
  • Press release submission – 22 votes also

When asked which tactics do they consider the most harmful to the site, the participants voted for:

  • Paid links – 44 votes
  • Article directories – 44 votes also
  • Web directories – 38 votes
  • Forum profile links – 38 votes also
  • Link wheels – 38 votes also
  • Rented links – 35 votes
  • Blog network – 35 votes also

 

Before we proceed, you might want to watch Matt Cutts view of contents and backlinks.

 

What are the biggest challenges to link building that you currently face?

The answers are grouped into:

  • Getting links to unworthy pages
  • Lacking of scalability
  • Avoiding Google penalties

In 2013, these were the same challenges that the firms face. The concern as to which links are actually helping or harming the performance of organic search remains. The same goes with contemplating which processes are relevant and which are not in the sense of achieving optimal results.

 

With all these stats, there are key takeaways. Some are over-the-year concerns that remind the SEO people that link building is no joke.

  1. There are no shortcuts to link building especially today that we have Google as our ever-present watchdog.
  2. Links still matter, but only the highest quality links are relevant.
  3. Link tactics are not universal, so don’t expect that the links working for other firms will also work for your business.
  4. Employ diverse link building tactics and focus on what works best for your firm.
  5. Link building is not a panacea; it should be considered along with other digital marketing activities.
  6. Building online presence requires a sizable amount of investment perhaps the maximum that the firm can afford.

Understanding why spammy, robot-centric link building strategies thrived before is easy. Google has no algorithmic sophistication to end these black hat practices. Then came Google Penguin that killed almost 99% of low-quality link farms most especially. Quantities of links are no longer a worthy investment more so for companies that desire to build an online presence for long-term.

Today, links must be earned and in a hard way. Link building strategies nowadays put human connections at the center. This requires the builders to form a value-added mindset, speaking convincingly of their brands value before their target audience. This means discerning between links that are worth pursuing and are not worth pursuing.

This also goes to show the importance of the role of link builders. Before, it is rather difficult to take pride in what you do as a link builder – building, irrelevant and low-quality links. As such, link builders, and link building itself, are not taken seriously and defending the industry is difficult.

 

Link building continues to be a critical component of SEO. High-quality link building strategies is what will separate you from unscrupulous brands. The survey highlights that it is a fact that link building can be a risk. However, it will only be a risk if it will not be considered today specifically when online visibility is your number goal. The same goes with if you are not going to diversify your link building tactics.

 

Source: MOZ | Search Engine Watch | Internet Search Engine Marketing

Last June, Google released a whitepaper entitled ‘Settling the (Quality) Score: Using Quality Score to Guide Optimizations.’ The whitepaper is a part of Google’s AdWords Best Practices Series. This article will dig deeper into the claims Google made including an in-depth analysis behind those claims and how it relates to optimization. This is an attempt to understand the loopholes on what Google is really trying to say to the advertisers and users. If you are into link building services, better check the whitepaper.

Google maintains “a good ad experience is good for the users, advertisers and Google itself.” This is the main reason Google measures ad quality in general and not just Quality Score. Quality Score is not a performance indicator or metric, but a variable or guide that affects not only the ads CPC (cost per click), but also the ranking for a particular keyword used in the advertisement. On a scale of 1 to 10, a keyword will be designated with a score wherein 1 indicates the lowest score and 10 indicates the highest score.

Before it gets too complicated, Google said that QS is a diagnostic tool that indicates the overall health of the keywords and ads. It will give advertisers a general overview of the ad quality. In Google AdWords, ad quality can be best described by the statement: the best performing ads are usually the ones that people find the most relevant. The higher the ad quality, the more visible it will be on display ads.

To continue, Quality Score has three main components namely:

  • expected CTR (click through rate) – the likelihood of clicking to the ad,
  • ad relevance – the match between the ad and user’s intent, and
  • landing page experience – the relevance, transparency and navigability of the page.

Real-time evaluations of the ‘big three’ should result to actions to improve the overall ad quality. Take note: ad quality must be improved and not necessarily the Quality Score. The score is merely about 1 to 10 (or the score) while ad quality tells much about the position of your ad.

As Google puts it, the advertisers must:

1) Improve at matching ads to user queries, match the ad text language, speak more directly to the user’s intent and add negative keywords if the ad relevance is BELOW AVERAGE

2) Make ads more compelling, highlight unique benefits of the product or service, experience with calls to action and be more specific in the ad text if the expected CTR is BELOW AVERAGE

3) Drive traffic to more relevant and useful landing pages, use the ads in setting up landing pages, maintain spontaneity from the ad to the landing page and rethink mobile if the landing page experience is BELOW AVERAGE

What Google wants to say is that marketers should focus on the relevance of the ad texts to the search terms that the users used and the relevance of the ad copy to the landing page. Except on the first one that principally based the data on historical clicks and impressions, these factors are controllable by the advertisers themselves hence the recommended actions noted above.

Google highlights its mantra that users are happy when the search results it yields are relevant. The same goes with the advertisers who get to see more engagement for relevant ad results. Ad quality and ad rank are critical since they mainly impact position as well as prices and extensions.

Google goes on to say that the efforts must be devoted to high value areas that the advertiser can affect change, say from below average to average and above average scores. Advertisers should be more selective with the quality optimization initiatives especially those that allow for maximum impact.

Sparks more conversations and debates than ever…

Google emphasized in the whitepaper the criticality of the expected CTR which is mainly based on the performance of the related keywords. Can you really set a measurable expectation for click-through? This only means that you had to be on Google AdWords NOW so you can have ‘historical data.’ This also means if you are new to AdWords, you can expect that to receive a BELOW AVERAGE expected CTR. [Anyhow, we are all on AdWords, right? Or, maybe not.]

Ostensibly, it seems that the premise behind Quality Score is too basic. For instance, Google asks advertisers to look through the high value keywords so they may identify those keywords that lag behind. Remember that Google will “not measure new keywords from scratch.” Bringing up the performance keywords is a must so you can give your new keywords a chance to rank better while displaying ads.

Google also noted that the devices the users use in searching matters. This means that Google requires advertisers to be more responsive.  Does this mean that responsive ads will rank better than those non-responsive ones? So okay, let’s give it to Google since majority of the users are now using mobile devices in accessing the Internet. [Oh let’s not forget that Google is currently beta testing mobile app indexing where it shows contents of mobile apps especially those that are found in Google Store.] Another fact is mobile ads, in general, have lower expected CTRs on average compared to their desktop counterparts.

Google highlighted that the position of the ad on the page doesn’t matter and yet it mentioned that ad quality affects ad rank (mentioned not in the whitepaper, but in Check and understand Quality Score). It mentions that the higher the ad quality, the higher the ad position. Simply, the ad will appear higher on a given page which is essentially ad rank. Ad Rank determines where the ad will appear within the page or whether it will appear at all.

It gets more confusing when Google states that there are other factors that affect ad quality such as geographic signals and non-exact query matches. However, they aren’t reflected in the Quality Score. Just the three mentioned above. Together, they affect the ad rank.

Google was right when it said that the main focus of the advertisers should be the long-term performance goals. This can only be improved by improving the user experience. Indeed.

However, Quality Score is just one factor and, contrary to what Google claims QS cannot directly measure positive user experiences. Unless Google can clarify the relation between and among Quality Score, ad quality and ad rank in more details, it would be very difficult for the advertisers to align their goals with that of Google’s.

In the meantime, Google said “it is continually improving the way that we calculate the quality of your ads”. The bottom-line is Google rewards quality. So along with creating quality contents, the goal should be creating high quality user experiences.

Now, the question is: did the whitepaper give enough information for the advertiser like you to exploit or it only showed what Google will do to protect its AdWords algorithm and all its other products, tools and services? Your call.

company mentions on social mediaThe link building services that we know today are very different from those offered 5 years ago or so. Nowadays, link building is all about indicating how useful the site is and making the website more trustworthy. One of the ultimate measures of a site’s success is the growing number of company mentions, which make it a worthy to consider as part of the services portfolio.

 

What is ‘mention’ exactly‘

Mention’ is often referred to as company, brand or social mention. Simply, a mention is the remark made about the brand and its products and services. Mentions mostly occur on social media hence the allusion ‘social mention.’ For instance, even before it started, the World Cup had already generated over 19 million mentions on various social media platforms.

Technically, Google refers to ‘mentions’ as implied links. In its Panda Patent, Google highlights that ranking in the future will be about links and mentions. These can be express or implied link or both. Express links are hyperlinks or links that are included in the source resources users can follow when navigating to the target resources. Implied links, on the other hand, are references to target resources such as citations wherein users cannot follow when navigating to the target resources. Hashtags are good examples of mentions.

Thereby, mentions are essential in maintaining positive online reputation. Online reputation is the main difference between traffic that will look into your brand and its products and services and traffic that don’t care. No one wants to be overlooked on the webosphere!

 

Generating more mentions on Facebook, Twitter, forums, etc.

Now that billions of people are actively participating on social media, the next best thing is to get them to talk about your brand and offers. It isn’t enough that you control and monitor your Facebook page, but you also have to streamline mentions beyond your Facebook walls. Here are some ways to do so. The recommendations below are the results of a study analyzing 1 billion public company mentions online.

1) Communicate on Tuesdays to Thursdays

communication social mediaWhile Thursdays reported to witness the most company mentions at 15.78%, you should also communicate with your public on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 15.68% and 15.52%, respectively. Saturdays and Sundays have the fewest number of mentions.

What do these figures tell us? You can interact with your target market during the weekdays. However, don’t forget to give them something to ponder on weekends. Develop contents that are scheduled to be published on weekends, so that your market will have something to mention during the week.

2) Communicate promptly

Although only 8% of your Twitter followers have over 500 followers, you need to enforce 1:1 connection. This only means to communicate with those who directly mention your brand and products and services. Answer a tweet in an hour or less.

Answer the tweets directed to you as well as those tweets about your brand. This guides people’s mindset about the level of service quality you can provide them. Speed and relevance are concrete differentiators between you and the rest of the brands in your industry.

3) Communicate on the right platforms

social media company mentionsPlatforms have their own strengths and weaknesses. Nonetheless, Twitter dominates with 66% of all company mentions analyzed. Bottom-line, reach your target audience and create a brand voice that everyone can recall and relate to be it in Twitter, Facebook or other platforms. For example, if analytics reveal that your target market engages with your brand more on LinkedIn, then treat LinkedIn as your main platform.

Add depth, realness and openness to each platform so that people may discover your brand more. Post constantly and analyze the results. Then, you can identify opportunities that you can capitalize on further.

4) Communicate in different languages

communication in different languagesAbout 64% of the mentions are in English, and the rest is in different languages. If you are a global business, you cannot underestimate the power of non-English company mentions. If you are a local business, you might as well use English and the language that most of your target audience is using.

Build the impression that you want to achieve by answering the questions of your audience in the same language that they use. They will think that your company is always ready and willing to help – an invaluable impression that is important in nurturing the company culture.

 

Tools to help you in monitoring mentions

There are two commonly used mention tracking and monitoring tools online: Mention and HootSuite. Users are notified whenever a site, page or user mentions your brand name, allowing the company to respond to inquiries and questions directly and promptly. Other tools to consider are:

TweetBeep

tweetbeepTweetBeep notifies users whenever someone mentions the company in as short as 15 minutes. It also tracks domain mentions. TweetBeep still notifies the users even when the user used shortened URL in the tweet, so you’d stay in top of most conversations. Users can also see whenever someone shares the blog post or any link from the site. This is a free service.

 

 

BrandWatch

brandwatchBrandWatch monitors and analyzes brand mentions as well as the mentions of your relevant keywords. The tool archives data and conversations on social media so users can track and analyze their online presence. BrandWatch is a paid service.

 

Google Alert

google alertGoogle Alert monitors both reputation and competition. It also allows users to conduct quality backlink opportunity identification in addition to competitor research. The service allows users to track up to 1,000 alerts. Google Alert notifies the user through an email. This is also a free service. Create your first alert here.

 

 

Social Mention

Social Mention searches keywords across various platforms. It also shows which online users are tsocial mentionalking about your brand and their general sentiments. The tool also breaks down average mentions in an hour and reach. However, it mostly mine old mentions, so the mentions are not as relevant and accurate compared to other tools that offer real-time mention monitoring. Social Mention notifies users through an email or RSS feed. This is yet another free service.

 

The last thing that a company wants is to be overlooked on the web. Tracking, monitoring and analyzing mentions are important in building and maintaining a progressive online reputation. Assessing competitors, analyzing campaigns and tracking trends is now possible with communicating more effectively and using tools that can help you achieve the purpose.

The past year has brought about many changes in search engine optimization. Many SEO practices have turned out to be not so good for a website’s rankings and there are also emerging practices that are slowly being incorporated into SEO strategies.

Among the old SEO practices that have seen huge changes in the past year is the practice of link building. Gone are the days when the goal is to get as many back links as you can and getting link building services just to boost the number of links to your website. Although there are a few companies and specialists who have stopped this practice altogether, there are still some who just lessened this practice or made variations to it.

For those who have decided to stop link building altogether, below are some of their common reasons for doing so.

  • Earn links instead. Many of those who have stopped link building reason out that they will earn the links through other SEO practices and strategies, which they reason to be the best way to get links anyway. There are other ways you can successfully earn links to your website. Any of these may not be as fast as the old ways of link building, but what it can accomplish for you is a more solid Google ‘reputation’. The best way to earn these links is to establish your site as an authority in your niche by posting high quality relevant content.
  • Can potentially hurt your site. Many websites have been penalized by Google for bad link building practices. In fact, when the link building changes brought about by Google’s Penguin were put in place, a lot of websites got penalized for their link building even if the links were acquired years before. Using this as an example, then you can never be sure when a particular link building scheme will be ‘caught’ by Google. Anyone who has undergone SEO training in the Philippines knows that links are not to be bought so the only way to earn it that would be approved by Google is by naturally earning it.
  • Has a very low return. With the old style of link building, you would often need to do a lot before you can even have visible results. Compared to the number of links you need to get for a low success rate, earning links from high quality websites is the better way of optimizing your site.

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