Tag Archives: Google
Blog Post Inspiration – 5 Ideas to Get You on Your Way
Starting a blog is easy enough, but keeping it updated with fresh and engaging content is a whole other matter. The sheer number of abandoned blogs out there on the web speaks volumes about how difficult it is to keep those creative juices flowing and to keep writing quality content. If you are beginning to run out of steam then here are five ways you can find new topics to write about.
1. Captions
Blogs should be timely so a great source of inspiration should be the day’s news items. Look at newspaper and website headlines and captions that could spark an idea. Write about a news story and give your thoughts on it. Use an article for a springboard to a list post or a how to post.
A great way to stay up to date with news in your niche is to sign up for the free Google Alerts service.
2. Comments
If you have readers who comment on your blog then their messages can be a great source of inspiration. Let’s say that you write a blog post about keyword research and someone posts a comment asking for help with using those keywords for article marketing. Right away you have the topic for your next blog post. Read through your comments and identify topics that you can write about simply by answering the questions people are asking on your blog.
3. Companions
It’s unlikely that you are the only website in your niche so another great theme for a blog post is a list or resource post. Gather a list of resources from other blogs and compile them into a list with links to the relevant blog posts that the other authors have published.
4. Community
Spend some time reading other blog posts and hang out in the forums for your niche. What topics are people talking about? What problems do people have that need solving?
You should find a whole wealth of ideas here that you can then turn into blog posts. Write some how to articles to solve the problems you unearthed, or write a post in response to something that another blogger wrote about that you don’t agree with, or that you want to shed new light on.
5. Calendar
Start collecting ideas for posts so that you always have something available when you get stuck for ideas. Keep a notebook where you can write down ideas as they come to you. Better still create an editorial calendar and write down topics that fit best at different times of the year. Try and make sure you have a blog post ideas listed every week so that you can just open your calendar and start writing without even having to worry about what to write about.
Article Marketing: Avoid these 2 Common Mistakes
Article marketing is every successful Internet marketer’s secret weapon. Investing time into writing quality content for submission to article directories can pay dividends. Not only does it increase your credibility as an expert in a niche but it is also a great way to drive targeted traffic to your website. But it’s not enough just to put some words down on paper and then submit them to directories; the submission is only half the process. Here the two common mistakes that you’ll want to avoid.
1. Confusing the reason to promote the article with the reason to write it
There are three key reasons that you would want to use articles to promote your website: branding, lead generation and promotion.
But you won’t achieve any of these benefits if you don’t pay attention to the reason why you want to write the article, and that is to inform the reader.
Your first goal is to get people to read your article and the next is to get them to click on your link in the resource box. in order to achieve both of these goals you need to write good quality and focused content.
2. Overlooking the promotional opportunities of article marketing
Most people think that the only reason you would submit an article to a directory is to earn a backlink from the link in the resource box. That is certainly true, but it is this misunderstanding that leads people to submit low quality content to the directories.
There is another, more powerful, benefit and that is targeted traffic.
Firstly, if your article ranks well in Google for your target readers then it will be found by someone searching for those keywords. And if that article is well written and stuffed full of useful information that person is more likely to click through to your website to see what else you have to offer.
Secondly, if your article is well written and informative then it is more likely to get picked up by a publisher. Think about it, there are lots of people out there with websites and ezines and they need content. Most directories allow people to publish the articles for their own readers as long as they don’t make any changes and keep the resource boxes intact. This means that your article has the opportunity to be picked up and published on countless other websites. Which means not only more targeted traffic, but also more backlinks.
Make sure you get the most out of your article marketing campaign by writing high quality articles with the reader in mind and the traffic and backlinks will come naturally.
SEOpressor – important WordPress plugin for SEO domination
Oh my goodness, it’s early in the day here but I’ve just discovered a great new Wordpress plugin, and I don’t think I’ve been this excited since Reviewazon! As you know I’ve always concentrated on SEO to drive traffic to my sites; it’s what I was born and raised on 
I have various checklists that I use to make sure I optimise each post before I publish it, but sometimes I can be a bit forgetful…
Article Marketing – Building Credibility Through Articles
If you want to build credibility with your readers, encourage people to visit your website and increase product sales then there are just three concepts you need to understand. Meeting the needs of your target audience, resisting the urge to keyword stuff and going the extra mile. In this article we’ll walk through each of these concepts.
1. Meet the needs of your target audience
The number one thing you can do to build your credibility is to show your audience that you know what you are writing about. In order to do this you need to understand their needs.
If you are writing about an area that you truly understand and are passionate about then this should come easily to you as that passion will come across in your writing.
If however you are trying to market to people in a niche that you don’t know so well you need to take some time out and research it. Visit forums and blogs and find out what people are talking about. What problems do they have? What language do they use? Once you understand the people you are targeting you will be able to write articles that they want to read, and in turn increase their trust in you.
2. Resist the urge to keyword stuff
Forget everything anyone has ever told you about Google and how they use keywords to decide whether or not to display your article. Search engines are getting more sophisticated every day and keyword stuffing doesn’t cut it anymore.
If you want the search engines to display your article to their searchers then you need to focus on ensuring it is well-researched and well-written. What’s the best way to do that? Forget about the search engines altogether and just focus on meeting the needs of your target audience.
3. Going the extra mile
It’s very difficult to please people these days, so one of the simplest ways to make your articles stand out from the crowd is to go the extra mile and exceed their expectations.
Add as much value to your articles as you can without skimping on the details. Use examples and case studies to show people how to solve their problems. Make sure you add one gold nugget of information to each and every article.
Think about what you as a reader would like to learn from that article and make sure it’s there.
Meeting the needs of your target audience not only builds your credibility with your readers but also with the search engines, and going that extra mile in every article will make yours stand out from the crowd. Follow these steps today and you’ll be on the path to becoming a credible author.
Magic SEO Book and a Smackdown update
I’m all about SEO at the moment which is why I’m pleased to tell you about a new book that has just been launched called the Magic SEO Book. Doug (the owner) got in touch with me via the Warrior Forum and asked if I’d review it for him. I’ve been asked to review some shocking products in my time so I was pleasantly surprised to see that this one wasn’t the usual badly-written hype – there were some golden nuggets that I actually put into practice while I was reading the book!
Read the rest of Magic SEO Book and a Smackdown update »