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You may be thinking that once you have your own list, you'll drown in traffic. Unfortunately, this isn't the case.
To get plenty of traffic, you need to:
If you are not well versed in link baiting, you may want to read linkbaiting articles at Cornwall SEO by Lyndon Antcliff and also site-specific articles about Digg and Stumbleupon.
You may want to read an excellent post, explaining how to create linkbait step-by-step at SEOmoz.
If anything, just read these sites
]]>As time passes by, I notice people doing what I thought would be a good idea or already developed sites, right what I was thinking about. This was and is not only amuzing, but also interesting.
For example, I've noticed this phenomenon a while ago and surely enough, Aaron Wall finally writes about sharing your ideas now (with more examples of this lazy bloggers plague).
]]>As time passes by, I notice people doing what I thought would be a good idea or already developed sites, right what I was thinking about. This was and is not only amuzing, but also interesting.
For example, I've noticed this phenomenon a while ago and surely enough, Aaron Wall finally writes about sharing your ideas now (with more examples of this lazy bloggers plague).
It simply means that if you want to gain a larger share in the market, you need to start and act now. Since otherwise, other thoughtful rivals and brilliant minds will come up with the same ideas and benefit from them. And you'll be trailing at the back.
Sometimes, this can be really creepy. Once, I've had an idea and the same day I've seen a newly built website, based on the idea. Other times, I was just thinking of building a worthy post, and bam, someone else does it before me.
Why does this happen?
If you:
you should have a solid understanding of what your customers want and have plenty of neat ideas in your head.
It also means that your rivals, who are doing the same, have them too.
In a SEO Refugee thread (you'll need to register to access members-only subforum), I said that it happens, because "we feel the pulse of the industry", we live it and come up with natural extensions to provide value to our customers.
Generally, the only solution would be to actually do what you want. But, most likely, in order to do that, you'll need to find more time. Here's how:
Another thing you might wonna do is to stop being afraid to do something that will propel your business. While you need to differentiate the fear that prevents you from doing a stupid thing from the fear that holds you back, you should think about it.
When it comes to ideas for blog posts, you really must write now what you want to share with your readers, because otherwise, you won't. Paraphrasing Seth Godin, who said
ideas are easy, doing stuff is hard
I'll say that writing what other people should do is easy, doing things is hard.
So start writing and sharing your ideas with the world (if that's what you want to do, anyway).
As Seth Godin says:
My feeling is that the more often you create and share ideas, the better you get at it.
So, if you've got ideas, let them go. They're probably holding you back from the hard work of actually executing.
Thus, sharing ideas will let you actually do something.
Speaking of which, if you recommend something on your blog, you are more likely to do it to at least the blog and maybe to your other sites. Writing helps you better understand what you know, because you may not be using your own knowledge for yourself.
While there may be more things to hold you back from doing something in real life, there's less things holding you from writing, blogging and sharing your ideas with your audience.
So instead of planning, setting a posting schedule and only fixing yourself to write only one of posts (even if it is superb quality posts), you may want to share your ideas when you have them to:
Aaron Wall should be a good example of writing when he wants to (I think he admitted doing it, at least). Aaron now comes up with plenty of interesting, worthy posts almost daily and I can't stop marveling at his writing productivity. Needless to say, Aaron's blog far more popular than an average SEO blog.
While the reason to have plenty ideas is to work a lot, the concept of writing when you have it still rings true to me.
For example, a post, describing all the ways to improve and write titles, which I have been thinking about for a while, was a hit and is one of the most popular posts on the site.
Another example that I invested a lot of time in is 20+ tips on improving a blog. And it worked wonderfully. I haven't regretted for a second that I have spent hours on these two posts.
In a Cre8asite Forums thread, a question is raised about the state of the Web and where forums find themselves in it.
And while this is a very good question, it got me thinking. What makes a forum and what makes a social site?
]]>In a Cre8asite Forums thread, a question is raised about the state of the Web and where forums find themselves in it.
And while this is a very good question, it got me thinking. What makes a forum and what makes a social site?
While a forum is open two way communication (compared to one way blogging or social sites, where members can't write anything unless someone [blog or article author] has already written on the topic), surely there are other differences between forums and the social sites?
In my opinion, the difference is the people and how people interact there.
The difference between Cre8asite Forums and Digital Point forums is the people. They make one forum the most populated and polluted one and the other the most tactful and thoughtful. And, ultimately, the people that post there give the newcomers a chance to make their choice, whether they want to stay there or not.
If we take social sites into account, people there can:
While this relation isn't as strong as on the forum or via email, it still allows people to feel alive and useful and spend their time doing something more interesting, than staring at an empty ceiling (or working :) ).
Often, a question is raised about the difference between forums, blogs and social sites. People start naming technologies, such as RSS, AJAX, comments, etc, but no one really mentions the people themselves.
Since all of the sites offer various kinds of communications, various types of people are attracted there (or at least for various reasons).
Alternatively, on any of them, you interact with different people in a different way, thus making your experience unique and uninterchangable.
All in all, I think that's why the launch of Sphinn for the Web building community means a lot (Slashdot tried, but isn't as close, IMHO). Sphinn (or "Spin") has it all:
Sadly, because the discussion isn't very actively encouraged there - or maybe because the people don't participate them eagerly, Sphinn hasn't yet become The place to go to discuss things. But it's getting there.
]]>Lately, as my Stumble Upon account grows, I begin to sense responsibility for stuff I thumbs up and review, because it is seen by the people from the Web industry.
Lately, as my Stumble Upon account grows, I begin to sense responsibility for stuff I thumbs up and review, because it is seen by the people from the Web industry.
As I thumbs up stories mostly related to Web building, I add those people to friends that share similar interests with me. If I start stumbling my client's sites, related to widget building, construction or maybe network security, my social friends won't be interested in it.
Worse, if the piece I stumble/digg is below average, I might lose the friends, authority and trust within social networks.
So it leads to important questions I have yet to give a final answer to:
Tell me what you think, please (Thanks!)
I'd also like to hear from:
Most beginner bloggers think that blogging is easy. It is, on the surface. However, you may want to know that:
Most beginner bloggers think that blogging is easy. It is, on the surface. However, you may want to know that:
But most importantly, the more you put in your blog in terms of time and efforts, the better it becomes and the more popular it becomes with time. If you just sit and wait, it won't help :)
So be patient and work hard to become successful.
To actually provide value to your readers, you need to know what you are talking about. For that, you can either learn things yourself or, if you are already a professional, provide absolutely useful tips for your readers.
Being in the expert in your field, you are likely to know
If you don't, you'd rather learn all the points above before writing. All this will help you create better and more useful content for your audience.
Whatever you do, the time will pass anyway. So if you want to achieve something, you gotta do it now, not later.
If you are slow, you may as well forget the interesting idea you had and you'll become overrun with the new issues before you can write about it.
If anything, save an idea or a post draft for future use.
If you want plenty of unique, quality content for your blog to get visitors and links to get more visitors, you need to start now and write a lot.
You don't have to publish often, but you need to write often to use your time effectively and create better posts. In my experience, writing a post for at least two days increases its quality a lot. A week is better.
As you write a lot and jot dow your ideas, you will sometimes find that you don't have more thoughts to add to the post. Save it, but don't publish it. Saving drafts is useful, because:
As you can see, carefully organizing your writing and publishing schedule can help you not only produce better, more useful posts, but to provide a consitent flow of reading material for your readers.
Simply linking to a news story makes little sense, if the Web is already buzzing about it. You'll provide greater value to your readers, if you write about something that no one has written about.
Of course, if you think that some subject is not well covered, you can build an awesome resource (hopefully, timeless) to attract a large number of visitors.
The quantity doesn't necessarily come from the number of posts, but from their size. Well-researched posts, resource lists and so on are a good start.
Admittedly, post formatting becomes ultimately important here, so you need to use short sentences/paragraphs, lists and subheadings to make things easy to read.
I find that a well researched, thoughtful (and useful) post is much more interesting to the public. It also gets much more traffic and links, but that's another story.
Interchanging concise posts with large posts will give:
This will help your readers read what you have written, bookmark, share or link to your posts.
For example, posts that:
tend to do good with the people, because they can be easily absorbed and shared.
If you want your people to understand what you are writing, you need to use the simplest language you can write in. This will help people read and understand the article, so they could share it.
Online, people can't see each other and they can only trust by what they read. If you address your readers as you address friends, they will become to know you better and start trusting you, which will turn them into more loyal readers.
Title is the first thing your readers read and it may be the only thing, if the title isn't compelling enough. Stick to the title writing formulas to craft mind-blowing headlines.
Though some may say that you need to write for the search engines to get search engine ranking, this is largely false.
You can write as you want, for the people, because:
If you want your posts to be read to the end, you not only need to write for your readers, but format the text in short paragraphs, sentences, bullet lists and subheadings.
You want your readers to read all the posts on your blog. For this, you need to link to the posts from the one you are writing now: it will not only get you more readership, but will also help your blog to rank well with the search engines (use call to action and relevant words in the link text).
If you link to
you not only show a broader perspective to your readers and help them understand your point of view from the linked to articles, but you also provide them with quality content they can read.
Once your audience starts reading the posts, articles or visiting sites you link to, the people will be grateful for more useful information and websites.
Though people often read blogs for fun or entertainment, mostly, they have a problem to solve. Identify the problem and help your readers solve it. That's how your posts will become useful.
By reading related blogs, you will find:
All this will help you provide better content, have more people to share or bounce off your ideas.
As you read blogs, you'll find more people that write about what interests you and your readers. You can talk about the subject in the post comments and most likely, the blog author will come to your blog and comment, too.
If your content is good enough, these blog owners will link to you, too.
By doing all of the above, you get noticed among the people in your industry and establish your authority. This will
Since visibility and authority is your most valuable asset (along with trust), you can later build something more useful and interesting on it, using your readership to promote/test/improve your new venture.
If you want your ideas and posts to spread, you may want to have the following in mind:
No one "sends" an idea unless:
they understand it they want it to spread they believe that spreading it will enhance their power (reputation, income, friendships) or their peace of mind the effort necessary to send the idea is less than the benefits No one "gets" an idea unless:
the first impression demands further investigation they already understand the foundation ideas necessary to get the new idea they trust or respect the sender enough to invest the time
So, basically, besides having useful posts, you may want to make it really easy to share your stories.
Additionally, you can use various social bookmarking buttons, like the ones you see under this post, to remind people to bookmark the post and share it with others on the sites they frequent. Needless to say, the sites need to be targeted at your audience (such as Sphinn for Internet marketers, for example).
If you want to:
then you need to take part in the social sites that match your blog topic. For example, for bloggers (Internet marketers, SEOs, web designers, usability professionals, etc), you can try:
One social network I particularly like is StumbleUpon. It rocks, because:
As you take part in the social networks, more and more people, whose interests match yours and the topic of your blog, start visiting your blog. They may very well add your posts to the social networks, because they like it and know you from the social site (you are online friends, remember?)
Note: participating in social networks, because it is fun, is vastly different from submitting all of your stories to the site. The best way to socialize is to contribute useful posts and articles that you find around the web.
If you truly think that your post is worth sharing (you should get the feeling about a great post, if not, improve it), you may want to
Note: this only works if your post is astounding, like the post about the titles linked to above. Only do what you feel right, otherwise you'll ruin your reputation by spamming your friends, industry experts and social sites.
For example, if you have a post about blogging, you can catch the train with the 31 Days Group Writing Project (that only runs in August) at ProBlogger and submit your post to the project.
How easily your readers read and navigate around your blog can really help your visitors read your posts. For example, you can:
Your site may have other interesting features to keep your readers happy:
Knowing all the important moments in mind will help you start building a greater blog from the beginning, bringing you well deserved readers, recognition and, possibly, profit.
]]>When it comes to improving your blog, there are numerous aspects to think about:
If you are only starting a blog or wondering why your blog with lots of content isnt well received, you may consider accessing your target audience.
Ideally, your blog should be in a niche, small enough to be noticeable in it, but large enough to have room to write about. If you know your industry, you may as well create a new niche, if you spot an opportunity.
The key here is to get noticed and have relative freedom to write about and to talk with other bloggers in the niche and the industry.
Though it goes without saying, you need to create exceptional value for your visitors. It may come in shape of:
There are other types of content you can create. The key point here is focusing on your readers and writing what they want to read about and how they want to read.
Blogs are inherently they are pretty good optimized, compared to most websites of the 90's and the 00's. They have almost valid code (depending on template/theme), solid linking and most of all the trackback mechanism.
However, you can improve it by:
You may be wondering, "Why on earth two of the three tips about optimizing a blog is about titles?" The answer is pretty simple.
Your page title (and also what is shown as page title in the browser (the upper - mostly blue - line above your browser tabs and options) is the most important element of the page. People use it to judge what the page is about and whether they need to click to your website from other websites. The search engines use it to help the people find what they want.
No matter how optimized your blog is, you need to present your content well for people to read it (you can call it a 'blog conversion' - converting a visitor to a reader or a subscriber):
In essence, relatively good presentation of your writings allows visitors and readers to read more. Of course, there are other ways to "increase conversions", but they are more related to improving content quality and communicating with others.
The reason blogs are so popular is that they are a form of communication. Bloggers (yes, that's you, too) can write whatever they want and share it with others.
You can also email other bloggers about the topics of interest. Build social connections, learn new things and share information. If others like your blog, they'll link to you, too.
Trackbacks - links, appearing from the pages that you link to - are another way of communicating between bloggers. Instead of spending time to write emails, letting others about your new posts, just link to other bloggers' posts and they'll notice that from the blogging software.
If anything, you can always find links to your blog through Technorati (just search for your blog URL there).
Technically, though there are ways to improve your blog, the only thing you can do is to be passionate about your topic, speak freely and communicate with those, who share your ideas.
]]>Though there have been numerous discussions on adding customer interaction to your online business, social marketing is also beyond your website. Social marketing is when you integrate yourself and your online business into the online community of your industry by
]]>Though there have been numerous discussions on adding customer interaction to your online business, social marketing is also beyond your website. Social marketing is when you integrate yourself and your online business into the online community of your industry by
and so on (read more on marketing through forums and blogs).
Some are viewing this social media thing from quite a different angle. One thing that struck me in the first article on social media optimization (SMO), was that the idea behind SMO is focused on optimizing a website. It is followed by a host of followers, who found more ways to socialize a website:
Update: corrected the associated names with the links. Thanks, Cameron.
Here's a list of things to remember about social optimization:
While the list above is pretty good, it is quite unusual that, when the whole notion of 'social' behaviour is related to humans, some people still talk about websites. So, when it comes to socializing, 'social media optimization' seems rather awkward to use. Thus, when it is about the customers, it'd be more logical to use 'social marketing'.
One of the first things you need to do for your website is to focus on the customer. Sure, you need to have the search engines in mind, when you build a website. You also need to know how the search engines work with your website, rank it in their results and what matters there. You also need to know which links are the best and why.
But before all that, you need to focus on the needs of your potential customers. Why are they looking for your product? What words they use? How to make your website usable for the people? Do your customers need an accessible website?
When it comes to social marketing, there's just one principle you need to follow: give to get. If you focus on providing value to your customers, you can easily find ways to make sure your customers have the best possible experience. You can also find ways to optimize and promote your website.
In short, you gain an entirely new perspective on how you can interact with your potential customers and colleagues, which will all result in more word of mouth recommendations, trust and appreciation of your efforts.
In the end, when the search engines learn how to almost completely evaluate how your website matches the interests of the people, better off will be those, who have been working for the customers from the start. Simply because that was a natural way to create, optimize and promote a website.
Read more about social marketing:
Though it may be tempting to create content, tools, audios and videos just to get some quick links from the linking people, it should be much more helpful in the long run to create longer lasting content. More quality content, such as research articles, product comparisons or any other content that truly helps the customers can provide much more value to the customers and will result in a greater response.
Of course, great content will get links as well, but it will be getting links not because it was designed just for links, but because people truly appreciated it. Also, real, eternal content tends to get more links overtime, so it is another advantage of quality content as well.
As you probably know, Digg is a popular social bookmarking service, where people can submit the stories they find interesting. The most interesting stories are 'dugg' by other members and have a chance to appear on the homepage. Once on the home page, the story may get thousands of visitors.
Online marketers have enjoyed this behaviour and try to create stories just to get to the homepage and get those amount of visitors. Some also create circles of friends just to get their stories to the home page of Digg. That's why the Digg algorithm is as guided as Google's and is aimed to prevent any cheating of the system.
As mentioned before you should focus on creating quality content for your visitors and promote it naturally. Submitting anything to Digg is self-serving, while a really interesting story may be normal.
Also, apart from being frowned upon by quality-focused marketers, the Digg strategy has one drawback. Mostly, the most popular stories on Digg are related to technology and tend to be on topics of Google, Microsoft, various tools, videos, scoop stories, etc. That's why it makes it not worth trying to get to the homepage for the majority of the (business) site owners with informational or educational content.
And that's why it is yet another reason to focus on creating unique, quality content for your visitors.
While it may be impossible to focus on absolute quality from the start, it is a good target. You can find the right balance between quality and begging for links with your article, which will fit your marketing perspective and your business.
Of course, this shouldn't stop you from creating useful tools or videos or any other material. But you can reap the most benefits from the viral aspect by truly focusing on the benefits to the customers. This will make your viral marketing much more effective.
Read more and discuss the topic at "Is link bait ruining the Web?" at the Cre8asite Forums.
]]>One of the best ways to market a business has always been to network with others. Many businesses rely on word of mouth advertising to gain new clients and customers in the offline world. Online the same basic idea of networking can also prove valuable to new and existing businesses.
]]>One of the best ways to market a business has always been to network with others. Many businesses rely on word of mouth advertising to gain new clients and customers in the offline world. Online the same basic idea of networking can also prove valuable to new and existing businesses.
The web is one very large social network offering you a chance to connect with like minded individuals as well as potential customers. Within the web as a whole are many types of social networks. Some examples of social networks are:
These are by no means the only examples of social networks on the web. Even the wikipedia linked above is an example of a social network. I'll focus my thoughts on forums, but this discussion will apply to any social networking site.
The most important thing to understand when trying to benefit from a social network is that you don't want to actively market yourself. Many people make the mistake of joining a forum and starting a few threads talking about the wonders of their products or services. Actively promoting yourself like this doesn't work.
The only way to successfully market yourself through any community is to become part of the community. All communities have a way to tell when someone is motivated only to help themselves. Communities want to see you motivated to improve the community. Anything else and the community will soon turn against you and you can do more harm to your business than good.
So what's the best way to participate in the community? It's definitely not about comment spamming in posts to forums and blogs. Some ways you should participate include:
Each of the above involves being active in the community. The reason becoming part of the network is successful is because people are much more likely to help someone they know than someone they don't. They are much more likely to buy from someone they trust than someone they don't trust. Participating lets others get to know and trust you.
It's ok to add links back to your site under certain conditions. If the forum allows it you should add a link or several links to your site in your forum signature. Some won't let you add a link, but many do. Most people will visit your site through your forum signature. You don't need to point it out to them The know it's there and if you truly become part of the community they will visit through your signature link.
In general you want to be careful adding other links to yourself in your posts.When it's appropriate it's fine to do so, but try not to make them too self serving. If someone asks a question and you've written an article that answers their question link to it. Do mention that the link takes them to your site. They're going to figure it out anyway so best to be honest.
Before adding links to your signature or in posts check the forum rules to see what is and isn't allowed.
Most forums will provide a page or more of rules. You always want to read through the rules to understand what is and isn't allowed in any social network. Most forums will give you a second chance if you break the rules without meaning to, but some may not. In some communities you only get one chance to make an impression.
Beyond the written rules of the forum it's also a good idea to read through some of the threads before posting yourself. It may be allowed to add a link to your site in a post, but the forum members may turn against anyone who does. Spending time reading through a forum will teach you the unwritten rules, which may be even more important to know than the written rules.
A typical rule is that one of your first posts should be to introduce yourself. Every forum I've ever seen has a section for new members to introduce themselves and this is usually one place where you can talk about your business and link back to your site. Don't go overboard talking to yourself, but mentioning something about yourself in your introduction is usually encouraged.
Most people naturally think to join forums that are related to their industry and it's certainly a good idea to join these communities. Forums on topics related to yours can provide useful allies in marketing your site. Your best bet in finding link partners is in related industries. People within your field are more able to send targeted traffic your way. You can also learn quite a bit from others who know about your subject.
Another kind of forum to join, however, is one where potential customers and clients spend their time. Industry related forums can prove to be an excellent source of information and like minded people, but they are unlikely to buy your products of make use of your services. By finding forums where your customers spend their time you can set yourself up as an expert on your topic and prove to others that it would be in their interest to do business with you.
In the end it's all about giving to the community. The more you give the more you are likely to get back. If you come into a forum and promote yourself you'll likely lose that community now and forever. Whatever your business there is probably already another forum member in the same industry and all you do by actively promoting yourself is send more people to those other members.
It can take time before you gain customers, but if you truly join the community and help to make the forum a better place people will start to visit your site. Join forums related to your industry if you're looking to build relationships for thing like links and join forums where you think potential customers spend their if you want more customers. Both types of forums can be valuable ways to market yourself and your business.
]]>Before we jump to characteristics of your product, let's see the general attributes of a viral message:
]]>Before we jump to characteristics of your product, let's see the general attributes of a viral message:
Though may be other factors, influencing the effectiveness of your word of mouth marketing, you can as well start with the three above. Let's see them in more detail.
As mentioned before, the key point to business success is providing value to your potential and existing customers. Everyone does something if he gains something from it, be it something tangible or not. The more valuable your product, service or message is to the recipient, the more likely he will refer his friends to your site or message.
To spread via word of mouth, your product can be a useful tool, a unique piece of information (some research results, an article by an expert, etc) or something entertaining (a video or some humourous story). Of course, your initial product or service has to fit in the viral message as well.
Of course, though your message may provide immense value, it won't spread if people can't do it or it is difficult to do so. Of course, the easiest way of referring someone is providing a link. There may be numerous ways of providing a link: either via an e-mail (via a send to a friend script), instant messaging service or a social bookmarking service (like the ones you see at the bottom of the post).
Of course, you may want to get more publicity than the original word of mouth you get from people who visit your site. Here are a couple of efficient ways of spreading word of mouth:
Clearly, you'll need to choose the appropriate distribution channel for your message, because of the difference in the audience. Though, nowadays, you can find a blog about nearly every topic, issuing a press release may not be suitable for some word of mouth messages, most likely.
When bloggers and social bookmarking sites are concerned, your virus may spread there for free, because the infected are interested in getting recognition and praise for spotting your juicy message early than the others, as well as free content for their site.
However, if you are more geared towards tech-savvy and business-engaged folk, you may want to give a coupon for service/product discount when sending a link to a friend via the 'send to a friend' script. Such an incentive may as well make your word of mouth marketing more efficient.
So right now you may be thinking how you can put it all together. As said before, providing value is key here, so you may as well rest your success on this. Create a messsage to provide unique value to your target audience and aim to provide value to those who spread your message via word of mouth and to those who receive it from the referrals. This way, the people will only spread the word about you because you are a valuable resource supplier, be it information, useful product/service or entertainment.
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