content

Killer SEO tip: How to make the long tail pay

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SEO and content long tails can be refreshed. Photo by Arthur Chapman

Content, like SEO, has a long tail. The long tail, in SEO terms, refers to "all the SEO keywords and phrases (usually longer ones) that tend to send only a small amount of traffic, if any".

Likewise, when it comes to content, some articles, blog posts, or marketing material will drive large volumes of qualified traffic, and others won't (i.e. your content long tail).

If you're in the mood for being sneaky and getting a lot of SEO juice without having to work too hard, then read on. This article is going to look at how to revitalize "long tail content" and turn it into an SEO and traffic generation machine, using simple techniques.

Social catalyst: One blog post; ten thousand Twitter followers.

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Content must act as a social catalyst in order to go viral. Photo by Byrnesyliam

Learn how the purpose of content is to act as a social catalyst. A social catalyst is anything that empowers people to affirm their social acceptance within a peer group, expand their network of connections, and improve their social standing.

Then see how to go superviral and get ten thousand twitter followers with one blog post. Here's how...

design-a-webpage: Internet marketing and web design awesomeness

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design-a-webpage makes web design easy and effective

I gave design-a-webpage beta a trial run today, using it to create a landing page for my online business report card service.

It took about 60 seconds to create. I didn't have to write any CSS or HTML, or PHP. It integrates directly into my existing site using the exact same site logo and a link to my homepage. Absolutely awesome.

On-site SEO vs. off-site SEO

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On-site SEO (Search engine optimization) and off-site SEO both use a set of techniques and tools to help improve a site's visibility by increasing the chances of it appearing higher in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

It is vitally important for all bloggers and webmasters to take all SEO principles and techniques into consideration when creating and operating any type of blog or website.

Use comments as traffic and SEO drivers

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Comments can drive trargeted traffic and increase engagement. Photo by eversion

Having relevant content (in the form of high quality comments) added to your webpages on a regular basis, without having to manually create it, is a great advantage over competitors who don't implement commenting features and don't turn their sites into a hive of content producing activity.

Even on a decent CMS platform like WordPress or Drupal, administering comments can be a bit of a pain. More than likely, while you're starting out, most of the comments you receive will be spammy garbage that can't be published to the site.

Business blogging 101: How to deal with public reactions to your content

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Blog and article content illicit a wide range of reactions. Photo by The Opus

A lot of small business owners that I speak to express their hesitation at "going public" with a blog, or writing articles for public or social consumption on the Internet. The problem is that you, as the blogger, have very little control over how your content is treated once it is made public. And let's face it, the Internet is not short of crazies.

Many small businesses worry about how negative reactions to content they create and share online will reflect on their business. This doubt, is then manifested in content that is not widely distributed or shared. Often, recognizing a need to create content, businesses will simply post to their own site in the hope that the search engines will start driving organic search traffic, without taking the next step of sharing socially, writing guest or expert articles, writing news articles, and so on.

How to drive server crashing traffic

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Writing content to drive server crashing web traffic. Photo by malawimullac

One of the most exciting aspects of working in the online medium is that the rewards can be sudden and substantial. A traditional business can have busy days, or even busy weeks or months, but there is a fundamental limit to their capacity. These physical limitations can often be overcome online, so if a thousand people simultaneously decide to visit your site, they can.

The trick to getting a thousand people to visit your website or blog at one go relies on writing great content and sharing it in the right places at the right time. Oh, and remember to make sure your servers can handle the traffic without crashing. One of my articles, entitled "Are SEO services worthwhile?", crashed after 800 visitors arrived simultaneously to read the article.

SEO smackdown: Blogs vs Forums

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Weigh your options between blog or forum content for SEO. Photo by dennisburger

Content is King! Of that there can be no doubt. But this axiom makes no reference to what type of content is good, or how best to create that content. These two things are left for us to decide on.

Conventional wisdom dictates that a blog is the best way to build up a decent body of highly engaging, relevant and SEO enhanced content, over time. This is certainly true and blogs have proven their worth time and time again.

Old McDonald had an eCommerce site ;)

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Internet marketing and SEO lessons from Old McDonald. Photo by Thurrock Phil

Everyone, no matter who you are, is subject to the same laws of online business. You have to compete with a saturated market, you have to create a highly optimized, engaging and easy to use website or store. You need to do a bit of marketing to get the word out on social media, press releases and so on. SEO? You bet...

Ever wonder what would happen if old McDonald decided to get online - perhaps he'd set up an eCommerce store to sell all the animals that made so much noise and kept him awake at night. Well, let's say he did, and in the process, learned a few things about SEO, marketing and operating a successful eCommerce site.

Master Internet marketing

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Internet marketing mastery takes practice. Photo by gari.baldi

Internet marketing is a multi-faceted discipline that is becoming more and more important as time goes by. Every year the online economy grows, and businesses that don't compete online are missing out on a real opportunity to grow and prosper.

The problem is that most businesses aren't masters of Internet marketing because online marketing is simply not their core business function. In other words, there's a barrier to entry because, in order to make the most of an online presence, it is necessary to first compete for a "place in the sun". Simply having a web presence is not sufficient to drive traffic and sales.