Category: SEO Strategies

Categories
Backlinks Blog E-Commerce Internet Link Exchange Search Marketing SEO Costa Rica SEO Strategies SEO tips Social Media

Cómo redactar un post: Fórmula sencilla para escribir un post en 7 pasos

SEO Consultant Costa Rica
SEO Consultant Costa Rica

Con toda esta información sobre cómo publicar en un blog, literalmente cualquiera podrá hacerlo, siempre y cuando conozca a fondo el tema sobre el que escribirá. Y ya que eres un experto en tu industria, no hay razón alguna por la que no puedas sentarte a diario a producir un excelente post.

Cómo redactar un post: la fórmula sencilla que debes seguir

Paso 1: Entiende a tu audiencia.

Antes de empezar a escribir, asegúrate de conocer con claridad la audiencia a la que te dirigirás. ¿Qué información le interesa saber? ¿Con qué se identifica? Aquí es donde crear tus buyer personas (perfiles de consumidores) resulta útil. Considera lo que sabes acerca de tus buyer personas y sus intereses cuando selecciones un tema para tu post.

Por ejemplo, si tus lectores son de la “generación del milenio” y buscan emprender su propio negocio, probablemente no necesites proporcionarles información esencial sobre las redes sociales, ya que la mayoría de ellos conoce muy bien este aspecto. Sin embargo, sería recomendable que les dieras información sobre cómo ajustar su difusión en las redes sociales para pasar de un enfoque más informal y personal a uno más comercial de forma profesional y enfocado en las redes sociales. Ese tipo de ajuste es lo que te separa de publicar material genérico en tu blog a publicar lo que tu audiencia realmente desea (y necesita) escuchar.

¿No tienes buyer personas (perfiles de consumidores) para tu empresa? Te ofrecemos algunos recursos útiles para que te pongas en marcha:

  • Cómo crear buyer personas (perfiles de consumidores) para tu empresa [plantilla gratuita]
  • Post: Cómo crear buyer personas (perfiles de consumidores) detallados para tu empresa
  • MakeMyPersona.com [herramienta gratuita]

MakeMyPersona_Tool.png

Paso 2: Comienza por seleccionar un tema y un título provisional.

Antes de comenzar a escribir, necesitas elegir un tema para tu post. El tema puede ser general al principio. Por ejemplo, si eres plomero, podrías comenzar a pensar en que quieres escribir sobre los grifos que tienen fugas. Después, podrías idear algunos títulos provisionales diferentes; es decir, iteraciones o distintas formas de abordar el tema para ayudarte a enfocar tu redacción.  Por ejemplo, podrías decidir limitar tu enfoque a algo como “Herramientas para reparar grifos con fugas” o “Causas comunes de fugas en grifos”. Un título provisional es específico y guiará tu post para que puedas comenzar a escribir.

Tomemos un post real como ejemplo: “Cómo escoger un tema relevante para tu siguiente post” (post en inglés). Adecuado, ¿no es cierto? En este caso, el tema era, probablemente, la publicación en blogs. El título provisional podría haber sido algo como: “Proceso para seleccionar el tema de un post”. El título final terminó siendo “Cómo escoger un tema relevante para tu siguiente post”.

¿Notas la evolución del tema al título provisional, y luego al título final? Aunque el título provisional no acabe siendo el título definitivo (hablaremos sobre esto en un instante), aun así proporciona suficiente información para que puedas centrar tu post en un tema más específico en lugar de un tema genérico o abrumador.

Si no se te ocurren ideas, no te pierdas este post (post en inglés) de mi colega Ginny Soskey. En este post, Soskey describe paso a paso un proceso práctico para convertir una idea en muchas. Al igual que en el ejemplo anterior de los “grifos con fugas”, ella sugiere “repetir viejos temas para pensar en nuevos temas únicos y atractivos”. Para ello, podemos:

  • Cambiar el alcance del tema
  • Ajustar el plazo de tiempo
  • Elegir una nueva audiencia
  • Adoptar un enfoque positivo/negativo
  • Presentar un nuevo formato

Paso 3: Escribe una introducción atractiva.

Ya explicamos el tema sobre cómo escribir introducciones cautivadores en “Cómo escribir una introducción [consejo rápido]” (post en inglés), pero volvamos a revisarlo, ¿te parece?

Primero, tenemos que captar la atención del lector. Si pierdes al lector luego de que lea los primeros párrafos o hasta las primeras oraciones de la introducción, dejará de leer incluso antes de darle una oportunidad a tu post. Puedes hacerlo de distintas formas: cuenta una historia o un chiste, sé empático o cautiva al lector con un hecho o estadística interesante.

Después describe el propósito del post y explica cómo se abordará un problema que el lector podría estar experimentando. Esto le proporcionará una razón para seguir leyendo y creará una conexión sobre cómo tu post puede ayudarlo a mejorar su trabajo o su vida. Aquí tenemos el ejemplo de un post que creemos que hace un buen trabajo capturando la atención de los lectores de inmediato.

Paso 4: Organiza tu contenido.

A veces, los posts pueden tener una cantidad de información abrumadora tanto para el lector como para el escritor. El truco es organizar la información para que los lectores no se sientan intimidados por la longitud o la cantidad de contenido. Puedes organizar la información de varias formas: secciones, listas, consejos o lo que sea más adecuado en tu caso. ¡Pero el post debe estar organizado!

Echémosle un vistazo al post “Cómo usar Snapchat: una mirada detallada sobre la estrategia para Snapchat de HubSpot” (post en inglés). Hay mucho contenido en este post, por lo que lo desglosamos en distintas secciones usando los siguientes encabezados: Cómo configurar tu cuenta de Snapchat, Snaps vs. historias: ¿cuál es la diferencia?, y Cómo usar Snapchat en la empresa. Las secciones se separaron en subsecciones, las cuales están más detalladas y también hacen que el contenido sea más fácil de leer.

Para terminar este paso, todo lo que necesitas es crear un borrador de tu post. De esta forma, antes de que empieces a escribir, sabrás qué puntos quieres cubrir y cuál será el mejor orden para llevarlo a cabo.

Paso 5: ¡Escribe!

El siguiente paso, pero no el último, es escribir el contenido en sí. No podíamos olvidarnos de eso, desde luego.

Ahora que ya tienes tu borrador/plantilla, estás listo para llenar los espacios en blanco. Usa tu borrador como una guía para asegurarte de detallar todos los puntos, según sea necesario. Escribe sobre un tema que conozcas y, si fuera necesario, investiga un poco para reunir más información, ejemplos y datos que respalden tus puntos. No te olvides de proporcionar la atribución adecuada (post en inglés) cuando incorpores fuentes externas. ¿Necesitas ayuda para encontrar datos precisos y atractivos para usar en tu post?Consulta este resumen de fuentes, desde Pew Research hasta las tendencias de búsqueda de Google.

Si descubres que tienes problemas para enlazar las oraciones, no eres el único. Encontrar tu “camino” puede ser realmente desafiante para muchas personas. Por fortuna, hay cientos de herramientas que puedes aprovechar para mejorar tus dotes de redacción. A continuación, te mostramos algunas:

  • Power Thesaurus: ¿No te sale una palabra? Power Thesaurus es una herramienta de subcontratación masiva voluntaria que sugiere a los usuarios miles de alternativas de palabras que provienen de una comunidad de escritores.
  • ZenPen: Si tienes problemas para mantenerte enfocado, dale un vistazo a esta herramienta de escritura libre de distracciones. ZenPen crea una “zona de redacción” minimalista diseñada para ayudarte a pensar solo en las palabras sin tener que lidiar con cuestiones de formato de inmediato.
  • Cliché Finder: ¿Sientes que tus palabras podrían estar sonando un poco cursi? Identifica instancias donde puedas ser más específico usando esta herramienta práctica de clichés.

Paso 6: Revisa y corrige tu post y arregla el formato.

Todavía no has terminado, ¡pero estás a punto de hacerlo! El proceso de revisión es una parte importante de los blogs; no lo descuides. Pídele a un compañero que sepa de gramática que revise y corrija tu post. Asimismo, considera crear una lista con la ayuda de la Lista básica de cosas por hacer en una revisión (post en inglés). Y si buscas refrescar tus propias habilidades de autoedición, mira estos posts útiles para obtener trucos y consejos que te ayudarán a ponerte en marcha:

  • Confesiones de un editor de HubSpot: 11 consejos de edición de la mano de los expertos
  • Cómo convertirse en un editor más eficiente: 12 maneras de acelerar el proceso editorial
  • 10 correcciones sencillas para mejorar al instante cualquier texto

Cuando estés listo para revisar las cuestiones de formato, ten en cuenta lo siguiente.

Imagen principal

header-image-blog-posts.png

Asegúrate de escoger una imagen visualmente atractiva y relevante para tu post. Debido a que las redes sociales prefieren procesar el contenido con imágenes, ahora los elementos visuales tienen más responsabilidad que nunca en el éxito del contenido de tu blog que compartes por las redes sociales. De hecho, se ha demostrado que el contenido con imágenes relevantes recibe un 94% más de vistas que el contenido sin imágenes relevantes.

Para ayudarte a seleccionar una imagen para tu post, lee “Cómo seleccionar la imagen perfecta para tu siguiente post” (post en inglés) y presta mucha atención a la sección sobre derechos de autor.

Apariencia visual

A nadie le gusta un post feo. Y no son solo las imágenes las que hacen que un post sea visualmente atractivo; también importa el formato y la organización del post.

En un post con el formato y atractivo visual adecuados, notarás que se utilizan encabezados y subtítulos para dividir bloques grandes de texto, y estos encabezados siguen un mismo estilo. He aquí un ejemplo de esto:

header-and-sub-headers-blog-posts.png

Asimismo, las capturas de pantalla siempre deberían tener un borde definido y similar (observa la captura de pantalla anterior si deseas ver un ejemplo), para que no se vean como si estuvieran flotando en el espacio. Y este estilo debería respetarse siempre en todos los posts.

Mantener esta coherencia hace que tu contenido (y tu marca) luzcan más profesionales y atractivas a la vista de los lectores.

Temas/etiquetas

Las etiquetas son palabras clave específicas y públicas que describen un post. También permiten a los lectores buscar más contenido relacionado con la misma categoría en tu blog. Evita agregar una larga lista de etiquetas en cada post. En lugar de eso, analiza muy bien tu estrategia de etiquetado. Piensa en las etiquetas como si fueran “temas” o “categorías” y selecciona de 10 a 20 etiquetas que representen todos los temas principales que deseas abarcar en tu blog. Luego, apégate a ellas.

Paso 7: Inserta una llamada a la acción (CTA) al final.

Al final de cada post, debes colocar una CTA que indique lo que deseas que haga el lector a continuación, ya sea suscribirse a tu blog, descargar un ebook, registrarse para un webinar o evento, leer un artículo relacionado, etcétera. En general, se considera que las CTA benefician al profesional del marketing. Los visitantes leen tu post, hacen clic en la CTA y, tarde o temprano, generas una oportunidad de venta. Pero las CTA también son un recurso valioso para las personas que leen tu contenido. Usa tus CTA para ofrecer más contenido similar al tema del post que acaban de leer.

En el post “Qué publicar en Instagram: 18 ideas en fotografías y video que te darán una chispa de inspiración” (post en inglés), por ejemplo, los lectores reciben ideas prácticas para crear contenido valioso en Instagram. Al final del post, hay una CTA que insta a los lectores a descargar una guía completa para usar Instagram en las empresas:

Instagram_for_Business_CTA

¿Ves cómo todos ganamos con esta táctica? Los lectores que desean saber más tienen la oportunidad de hacerlo y la empresa recibe una oportunidad de venta a la que le puede dar seguimiento… ¡alguien que incluso podría convertirse en un cliente! Aprende más sobre cómo elegir la CTA correcta para cada post en este artículo (en inglés). Y no te pierdas esta colección de CTA inteligentes que te inspirarán a crear los tuyos.

Categories
Blog SEO Costa Rica SEO Strategies SEO tips

Does Social Media Help SEO? SEO in Costa Rica

Does Social Media Help SEO
Does Social Media Help SEO

The impact of social media on SEO has, and probably always will be, one of the most talked about topics in the search industry. Specifically, whether social media really helps your SEO efforts.

So does it?

Short answer: yes.

For the longer answer, however, you really should read the rest of this post.

Social media doesn’t help SEO in the way many people think it does.

Let’s answer this question by digging into some data, evidence from Google employees, and personal insights.

Social Media ≠ Ranking Factor

First off, in reality, it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever know exactly what’s in Google’s algorithm unless someone works at Google, doesn’t sign an NDA (good luck!), and decides to share that information with us. No shocker here — that isn’t likely to happen.

So we’re left to infer based on what Google employees have said and what we have in case studies/data. Google has repeatedly told us that social signals aren’t a direct ranking factor.

Let’s start with What Social Signals Do Google & Bing Really Count? by Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan. In this article, Google confirmed that links shared on Facebook and Twitter are used as a ranking signal.

After this article was published, Matt Cutts, the former head of Google’s webspam team, confirmed that Google used links from Facebook and Twitter as ranking signal. Here’s that video:

Fast forward to 2014. Cutts produced another video tackling this question. This time he said that Google treats Facebook and Twitter pages like any other web page for search, but not as a ranking factor.

In 2016, Gary Illyes, a Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, was asked if Google takes social into account for SEO. He then retweeted Cutts’ video and said: “the short version is, no, we don’t.”

Since Google’s algorithm is so secretly guarded, we have to take these comments at their official word — that social media isn’t a direct ranking factor.

But just because Google said that social isn’t a ranking factor doesn’t mean that it doesn’t impact rankings. According to Searchmetrics’ 2016 Rebooting Ranking Factors White Paper:

“The correlation between social signals and ranking position is extremely high, and the number of social signals per landing page has remained constant when compared to with the values from last year’s whitepaper. … The top-ranked websites in Google’s rankings displays vastly more social signals than all other pages…. This is primarily due to the overlap between brand websites performing strongly in social networks and being allocated top positions by Google.”

I believe the answer to this lies in the second word in that quote — correlation. Cutts hints at the same thing when he says, “It’s correlation, not causation.”

We know links are one of the top Google ranking factors. Google has said that social media shares don’t count as individual links. But there most likely is correlation here.

If you create good content, it will most likely be popular on social media, and people are probably going to like it and link it to — which does boost your rankings.

So is it a surprise that sites with high ranking positions also have high numbers of social signals? It shouldn’t. It makes sense, but that doesn’t mean it is a direct ranking factor.

How Social Media Helps SEO

Although social media isn’t a direct Google ranking factor, here are four ways social media actually does help your SEO efforts.

1. Potential for Links

The more shares on social media you have, the more opportunities people have to see your content and link to it.

In this case study, a company achieved over 130,000 Facebook shares to a web page and shot up the rankings for keyword phrases that were competitive. It still ranks #1 (as of this writing) and is a really good example of a good content creation and promotion strategy.

Back in 2014, we assumed Facebook shares were a good ranking signal and, therefore, we preached Facebook shares would help rankings. What we were unable to see was that it wasn’t about Facebook shares at all. It was about links that can come from Facebook shares. Here’s an example:

Unhealthiest Foods

The author found the article on Facebook and then decided to link back to it. This shows that having popular content on social media helps to attract potential links.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s Twitter, Pinterest, or Facebook. If you make high-quality content that gains traction on social media, you’re more likely to get links from other websites.

2. Build an Audience

You can have the best product or service out there, but if people don’t know about it, you can give it up. “Build it and they will come” doesn’t cut it in today’s competitive marketplace. You have to be proactive and reach people where they are.

Download Your Competitors SEO & PPC Campaigns
Get instant access to competitive insight that will help you increase your traffic and increase profit. SpyFu is free to try. No CC required.

DOWNLOAD NOW

And where are the majority of people? Social media. In fact, Facebook has nearly 2 billion users.

With the number of people on social media, its worldwide reach, and its ease of sharing, social media is a great way to build your web presence and quickly build an audience. If you want to be found among the millions of sites on the web (and the 571 new websites being created each minute), you’re going to have to up your social game.

We also know that click-through rates can impact search engine rankings. Social media marketing helps build brand awareness and an audience, which increases the likelihood that people will click on your brand’s content in Google’s search results.

Here’s a good example, a search for [three most important google ranking factors]:

Three Important Google Ranking Factors

Since I know that Search Engine Journal is one of the most trusted voices in search engine marketing, I’m more likely to click on their organic listings than any of the others.

Think about it from your own experience — if you were to Google “men’s running shoes”, wouldn’t you be more likely to click on Nike, as opposed to randomshoecompany.com? You might not want to admit it, but yes, consumers are more likely to turn to companies they know and trust.

The bigger your brand is and the more consumers trust you, the more likely you are to receive a larger share of clicks in Google. Social media can be a great and efficient way to help you build your brand and get in front of people who wouldn’t have otherwise found you. Once you start getting more of the share of clicks in Google from your expanded audience, the higher you will start to rank.

3. Branded Searches

When consumers Google your brand name plus a keyword phrase, it can help you rank for similar keyword phrases.

An example of this would be if you have a horde of consumers searching “[Your Brand Name] Jeans” and they interact positively with your content, Google would think that since your web page ranks well for “[Your Brand Name] Jeans”, it would also be a good result for “Jeans” and place you higher for the keyword phrase “Jeans”.

In a quick analysis of a fashion website we did earlier this year, the site, FashionNova, rose from nothing to 88,000 keywords (in SEMrush) over the course of a year. We discovered that the only positive SEO ranking factors it had over everyone else were that its bounce rate was much lower than other sites, according to Alexa, and they had 6.3 million Instagram followers.

Instagram doesn’t have the best linking procedure, so what happened was hundreds of thousands of consumers each month were searching Google for things like “Fashion Nova Jeans” and other related keyword phrases. This enabled Google to understand more of what consumers wanted when they searched particular phrases.

If consumers interacted positively with the Fashionnova.com web page — which ranks for “Fashion Nova Jeans” — then, over the course of 100,000 search queries a month for the keyword phrase “Fashion Nova Jeans”, you might imagine Google would eventually have thought perhaps that particular web page would be good for the keyword phrase “Jeans” as well.

4. Helps Promotion

Although this article has focused mostly on Facebook and Twitter, we can’t forget YouTube.

YouTube is actually the second most-searched search engine. However, most of the YouTube search queries have low commercial-intent, whereas Google brings in all the converting customers.

But you can still use YouTube to positively influence your SEO performance. You can create videos to promote your content or brand, which can lead to links, and your videos can potentially rank organically in the SERPs.

A good example is a company which blends random items and made a website out of their YouTube videos once they realized YouTube videos hosted on YouTube provide no real SEO value.

 

You can use this example, and other social media platforms, to promote your content to your audience and be able to acquire high-quality backlinks. There are a few dependencies though:

  • Your audience must be on social media.
  • Your audience must care about your content.

This is why B2B is a pretty hard sell when doing social media marketing in order to help SEO. Engagement is challenging for most B2B companies.

Generally, people using social media aren’t thinking about work. They’re thinking about their interests and hobbies. So if you can take a different approach (perhaps creating humorous content or something outside of your service offering), you just might get better engagement.

Conclusion

Will Google ever include more social media signals in its ranking algorithm? Maybe, maybe not.

Regardless of what the future holds, it’s clear that social media can, in fact, help your SEO efforts. Social media offers many long-term benefits.

Even if social media isn’t a direct Google ranking factor, it is one of the best ways to promote content and be found online. Which is, ultimately, what SEO is all about.

Image Credits

Featured Image: Pixabay
Screenshots by Ronald Dod. Taken April 2017.

Categories
Blog SEO Costa Rica SEO Strategies

SEO Tips: Clicks Are People: 3 Tactics for Creating More Human-Centered Marketing

Every marketer has goals, whether for their latest campaign or for the quarter.

“Get me 30x the clicks/impressions/conversions!” is a phrase I’m betting a lot of you have heard from a dictator director of some kind, and the struggle is real when you want to deliver.

But when you’re heads down trying to score more clicks or conversions, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture:

That a real person is behind every click, sign up, social share and conversion.

Tactics For Creating More Human-Centered Marketing | SEJ

We often forget about the people who are interacting with our pages, our products, our brand. If you’re feeling any frustration at all with the numbers you’re seeing in your analytics, it could be because you’re focusing too much on the medium (sign-ups on your landing page form) rather than thepeople actually filling out that form.

When I attended MozCon several weeks ago, this theme kept cropping up in the presentations: we have to go back to basics a bit to create better marketing experiences for the consumer, because that’s what affects our bottom line.

The more you get to know your audience and create content targeted specifically at them, the more you’ll see your metrics rise as a result.

As speaker Wil Reynolds put it:

Clicks are people.

To help us re-imagine our relationship with our users and create better marketing experiences for them, three tactics from the MozCon presentations stood out for me: developing a solid brand strategy, optimizing for search, and personalization.

What do each of those entail? Let’s dig in.

1. Develop a Brand Strategy to Guide Your Campaigns

CEO of Digital Marketing Agency Kick Point Dana DiTomaso said it best:

Good marketing just feels right.

In other words, good marketing is cohesive, relatable, and prompts people to make decisions without having to think too hard about it.

But how can marketers weave this sort of effortlessness into each and every marketing campaign they run?

According to Dana, a solid brand strategy goes a long way.

As she explained, a brand strategy is the culmination of a brand’s core values, art direction, and customer personas outlined in one central document — a document that acts as a company’s moral compass.

This strategy should guide and affect all efforts of the business and, in particular, a brand’s marketing efforts.

Dana explained you have to go beyond logos, brand colors, and email headers. You have to think of your brand as a person, and have conversations with everyone in your organization (not just the marketers) about what kind of characteristics this person has.

The Three Key Ingredients of a Brand Marketing Strategy

There are three things Dana emphasized when building this kind of brand strategy for your business:

  1. Keep it as simple as possible
  2. Keep it consistent across all channels (online and offline)
  3. Make it a living, breathing document that is a true expression of your company (and reflects your company’s core values)

With your new brand strategy to guide you, you’re sure to create more cohesive, enchanting marketing for your prospects – the people behind every click.

2. Optimize for Search Enginesand People

In his presentation, Wil Reynolds pointed out that focusing on the overarching experience you provide to your prospects has had an added bonus: when you’re concerned with people, their decision-making processes and what makes them tick, you’re mastering a skill set that can’t be disrupted.

New Google algorithms are constantly being released, and people are always dreaming up new methods for acquiring traffic — these things can and will change constantly. What won’t change is that people are behind every click that contributes to your company’s bottom line.

As Wil explained, when you understand who your audience is, what they want — and most importantly — why they convert, you have a highly valuable tool that can’t be disrupted.

And no Google algorithm update can change that.

As the Wizard of Moz himself Rand Fishkin explained, at the end of the day it’s all about balance. Whether we’re creating content, web pages or running a marketing campaign, we need to optimize for search engines and people.

He explained this in terms of the “two algorithm world”:

  1. Algorithm 1: Google’s input
  2. Algorithm 2: Subset of humanity that interacts with your content

Focus on the algorithm input too closely, and you’re creating bad marketing experiences for people. Focus too closely on the experience you’re providing people, and they won’t be able to find you in Google to begin with.

Finding the balance between algorithm input and human input is no easy feat, but if you can find that sweet spot, you’ll be flying high.

3. Segment and Personalize Your Content

Every piece of content you put online needs to be directed at someone. I’m talking someone specific. So specific that you should be able to picture that person’s face.

Many of the MozCon presentations placed huge emphasis on creating relevant, timely, personalized content. Content Strategist Kristina Halvorson had one of the best quotes on this topic when she said:

If your content is for everybody, then it really is for nobody.

Deep, huh? But she’s totally right.

Content for the sake of content just piles up and eventually dies on the vine. Kristina (and many others) called for a well-rounded content strategy that takes into account both the company’s goals and those of the audience — or a multitude of audiences.

Cara Harshman, Content Marketing Manager at Optimizely, agreed with Kristina’s point:

The one-size-fits-all web is dead…and lazy.

She proposed a three-tiered framework for personalizing content, to help you guide your efforts and make sure that you’re delivering engaging contentto real individuals who actually exist:

Cara’s framework for personalization involved three things:

  1. Who to target: Slice your audience into unique segments. We have so much data that we can pinpoint even the most particular of people. Look at contextual (where are they coming from?), demographic (things you innately know to be true about your audience) and behavioral (interactions those people have had with your product/site) data to pick out a well-rounded segment of people to talk to.
  2. What to show them: What are you showing the unique person that you’re targeting? Will they find it relevant to their interests? Are you sure? Put extra effort into researching exactly who your segment of people are and provide a delightful marketing experience for them.
  3. How to prioritize: How do you decide where to start? It comes down to three major things: potential business impact, technical effort to execute and the requirements needed to sustain it. Remember not to slice your audience too thin or else personalizing for lots of really small audiences will take way more effort than it’s worth.

To circle back for a second, the best way to be personal (without being creepy) is to stay true to your company’s brand strategy and core values. If your marketing stays true to what you stand for, your marketing will feel good — and this creates marketing experiences customers can get behind.

You can dive deeper into Cara’s presentation (and that of others) by checking out the comprehensive notes that Unbounce took at MozCon.

Now Go Forth and Spread Good Marketing

There are people behind every single marketing action you take. You are not affecting the numbers, you’re affecting users who are interacting with your product and your brand. What do you want them to know? What makes them tick? What do they need from you in order to take action?

None of those questions can be answered without a little hard work and risk taking, but it’s all in the name of creating better marketing experiences.

So disrupt your current workflow and start the conversation about what you stand for and who you’re producing content for.

Your marketing will thank you.

By Chelsea Scholz SEO Tips.

Categories
Blog SEO Costa Rica SEO Strategies SEO tips

Facebook Introduces Snapchat-Like Enhancements to Mobile Profiles

It’s possible that someone on the Facebook design team is a Snapchatter, because some of the profile enhancements announced today are straight out of Snapchat’s playbook.

The three main enhancements announced today provide further opportunities for people to express themselves on the world’s largest social network.

Profile Videos
With the first of the new features, you can add some action to your profile photos with Snapcode Selfies animated GIFs. Facebook sidesteps the Snapchat comparison by calling this an “obvious evolution” of profile photos.

Using Facebook’s profile videos you can film a short, looping video clip that will play when people land on your profile page on their mobile device.

Improved Profile Controls
A new, customizable space sitting at the top of your profile will help you to better control what people see about you when they land on your profile.

You can curate this space with data about yourself that you want others to see. In addition, there will be a new one-line bio field, and the ability to upload up to 5 featured photos.

Everyone can see this box on your profile, but you have full control over what goes in there.

Design Improvements
The overall design of profile pages have been improved to put your face front and center — reminiscent of many popular mobile designs for Tumblr pages.

Some miscellaneous improvements have been made to help you learn more about people you’ve just met and catch the interesting visual content from the friends you already know.

“People love seeing photos and mutual friends when viewing the profiles of friends or someone they’ve just met, so those are easier to see now on profile. Photos and friends are right at the top, making getting to know someone and seeing the world through your friends’ eyes as easy as scrolling.”

These new features are all initially be rolled out as a test amongst a small number of iPhone users in the UK and California. Facebook says these features will be available to more people soon.

By Matt Southern SEO Tips.

Categories
Blog SEO Costa Rica SEO Strategies SEO tips

CMI Releases its Annual Content Marketing Survey for 2016

Last month, Content Marketing Institute released their content marketing survey for 2016. The CMI team decided to explore what an effective B2B content marketing looks like. Moreover, the survey also details how many businesses know what “effectiveness” means.

According to their latest research:

55% of business-to-business (B2B) marketers said that it is unclear within their organization what an effective or successful content marketing program looks like.

In this survey, CMI defined effectiveness as “accomplishing your overall objectives.” Check out some of the key findings and find out how you can make an effective content marketing strategy.

Make Sure the Entire Team is on the Same Page

The survey shows that 44 percent of B2B marketers have so-so content marketing strategy. However, there’s a correlation between companies with clear goals and  effective content marketing strategy. That’s why it’s important for a team to be on the same page to build an effective content marketing strategy.

 

Mature Content Strategy is Effective Content Strategy

The survey shows that 29% of B2B marketers are in adolescent phase when it comes to the level of maturity of their content marketing strategy. In other words, marketers have developed a business case and are seeing early success on it. Marketers are also getting sophisticated when measuring the success of their content marketing strategy.

 

Communication is an Important Factor

The most effective content marketers are not just those who have clear business goals. They are not just mature enough when it comes to measuring and scaling their strategy. They also hold regular meetings.

According to research, 61% of B2B marketers meet online or in person with their team on a daily or weekly basis. Also, 70% of those who meet daily or weekly find the meetings to be more valuable.

Documentation is Still an Issue

When it comes to documenting content marketing strategy, the survey show that only 32% of marketers have done it. It dropped three points from 35% last year. Meanwhile, 48% of marketers have a content marketing strategy but it’s not documented.

What do you think of this year’s findings? How does your company define effective and successful content marketing? Let us know in the comments.

By Aki Libo-on SEO Tips.

Categories
Blog SEO Costa Rica SEO Strategies

7 Low-Hanging Fruits That Any #SEO Can Fix

SEOs have a tough job. They’re expected to swoosh into a site, save the day, boost the traffic, raise rankings, and make the company prosper.

The problem is, SEOs have their hands tied on so many issues. What should the SEO do, for example, if the site isn’t responsive? Or the site was made in 1999 and needs to be updated? Or the server keeps breaking? Or any other number of problems that he or she can’t fix?

Most SEOs aren’t able to fix every problem on the site. Why not? It’s not because they lack skill. Often, the issue involves the buy-in of developers, the approval of executives, or implementation from third-party vendors.

How does an SEO even get their job done?

Thankfully, there are things most SEOs should be able to do. The low-hanging fruits of SEO are easy to spot, easy to fix, and can make an instant impact on a website.

Regardless of skills and regardless of experience, there are things you can do. If you’re an SEO looking for some easy fixes and quick tasks that will boost rankings, look no further than these seven low-hanging fruits.

1. Adjust Your Title Tags

Title tags are the most important on-page SEO element. Moz explains, “this element is critical to both user experience and search engine optimization.”

If a site’s title tags aren’t optimized, then the site will not do well in the SERPs, period.

The title tag is located in the site’s header and looks like this:

<head>
<title>Example Title</title>
</head>

The problem with title tags is that many times, developers or website designers will put some stock text here without considering its SEO ramifications. You, as the SEO, will need to remedy this.

Here are the rules for optimizing title tags:

Make Your Title 50-60 Characters Long

If the title tag is too long, it will be truncated in the SERPs. If it’s too short, you’re not making full use of the tag’s SEO potential.

To make sure that your title tag is a good length, use Moz’s title tag tool. It displays an example of how your title tag will appear in the SERPs.

Use a Longtail Keyword in the Title

In order for it to be optimized, the title tag needs to contain a keyword. Focus on one longtail keyword per page.

A longtail keyword is usually a phrase that contains some descriptive words.

Be sure not to stuff the title tag with keywords. Doing so is a spam signal for Google. If Google’s algorithm suspects you’re keyword stuffing, they may devalue your site in the SERPs.

Place Your Target Longtail Keyword Toward the Beginning of the Title

I recommend putting the title tag at the front of the title.

I make this recommendation two reasons. First, the search engines will identify it as one of the most important keywords on the page. Second, users will see the keyword in the SERPs. When they identify the page tag as relevant based on the keyword in the title, they are more likely to click on it.

My title tags are usually the name of my blog post. For example, below, you’ll see that the title tag is simply, “How to Build 100 Quality Links Without Writing Fresh Content.”

7 Low-Hanging Fruits that any SEO can Fix | SEJ

This title itself is a long tail keyword phrase, and will help my site to be ranked in a relevant and appropriate way.

Place Your Business Name at the End of the Title Tag, Separated by a Vertical Line (|)

If you prefer, you can place your business name in the title tag. Remember, however, that your business name is not that important for SEO.

Why not? Unless something is severely wrong with your site, it’s going to rank for branded or navigational searches. That’s not what you need to optimize for. Instead, you want to optimize the site for organic longtail keywords.

Often, putting the brand name in the title tag is a waste of space. If you choose to include it, however, do so at the end of the tag, separate with a vertical line, like this —

7 Low-Hanging Fruits that any SEO can Fix | SEJ

Title tag optimization is a first order of business for any SEO. Here is a helpful process to follow:

  • Identify a unique long tail keyword for every page on the site.
  • Adjust every title tag to include the assigned keyword.
  • If the site has thousands of pages, focus on the most important pages first — main navigational pages, top traffic pages, etc.

Once your titles are fully optimized, you’ll experience a noticeable increase in traffic and ranking.

2. Create Optimized H1s

The H1 tag is the bit of HTML code that identifies a major heading in your content.

H1s are one of the most common SEO elements. They’ve been in use for years, and every SEO knows about their usefulness and power.

However, I’ve been surprised at how many websites lack this core feature. Even if a page does contain an H1, it may not be fully optimized.

Here are the common problems that I’ve noticed surrounding H1s.

  • Multiple H1s. If a page has more than one H1, it could be diluting the SEO power. More H1s is not better. Each page should have a single H1.
  • Short H1s. Sometimes, the H1 consists of a single word. If the H1 is only one word, it’s not fully utilizing the SEO potential.
  • Duplicate H1s. Google does not look favorably upon duplicate content — i.e., sections of text that are the same from one page to another.
  • Very long H1s. Although short H1s are problematic, so are long ones. Make sure that your H1s do not exceed 70 characters.

One of the most useful tools for analyzing a site’s H1 tags is Screaming Frog. Using Screaming Frog, you can identify the following:

  • Which pages do not have an H1.
  • Which pages have duplicate H1s.
  • Which pages have H1s that exceed 70 characters.
  • Which pages have multiple H1s.

7 Low-Hanging Fruits that any SEO can Fix | SEJ

The tool also allows you to examine each H1 in detail:

7 Low-Hanging Fruits that any SEO can Fix | SEJ

Adjusting a website’s H1s is a relatively easy task. Once you know what you’re looking for, and how to fix it, you can instantly improve a site’s SEO power.

3. Add More Content

Google loves content — lots of it. The more content you have on your website, the better your pages will rank.

In one study of top ranked pages and content length, serpIQ discovered a strong correlation between lots of content and top-ranked pages.

Adding content is time-consuming, yes, but doing so will instantly ramp up your rankings.

Today’s web searchers expect great information, high-quality content, and plenty of it. Don’t simply throw content on your pages. Take the time to curate high-quality content that addresses the user’s needs and solves their problems.

4. Add Alt Tags to Images

An image’s alt tag is the meta text that describes that image.

Sometimes, a CMS will automatically assign an alt tag to images, but it’s usually not optimized. Something like “IMG-DSC1908183” is not a good alt tag.

This alt tag from Slate Magazine is an example of a well-optimized tag:

7 Low-Hanging Fruits that any SEO can Fix | SEJ

Obviously, you should also optimize the image title. Often, however, optimizing the title is harder to do. You should optimize image titles while you’re creating the page.

Optimization alt tags is much simpler and straightforward. Simply go into the image attributes or source code and change the tag.

Again, a tool like Screaming Frog allows you to identify how your site’s alt tags look.

5. Add Internal Links for Crawlability

Every website needs to be crawlable. What this means is that the search engines can easily access your website, visit every page, and index all the content.

What’s the best way to improve crawlability? There is a variety of structural ways to improve crawlability:

  • Intuitive site navigation
  • XML sitemap
  • HTML sitemap

These are excellent tactics that you should implement. One of the best ways to enhance crawlability, however, is by building internal links. 

Internal links are simply a link from one page of content on your site to another to help guide the user. There’s no complex science to internal linking. All you have to do is create a text link from page A to page B.

I’m not referring here to navigational links such as the header or footer. Those are a given. The links I’m referring to are text links, like this one.

The link in the SEL article below links to another article on SEL:

7 Low-Hanging Fruits that any SEO can Fix | SEJ

How do you do it? Simply go into the existing content on your website, and create text links from one page to another.

Although there are no hard-and-fast rules about internal linking, there are a few things to keep in mind:

  • Don’t optimize the anchor text.
  • Don’t link to the homepage.
  • Don’t link to the “about” page.
  • Link to deep, internal, content-rich pages.
  • Add 2-4 internal links per page.

6. Improve Content Readability

Today, SEO is more about usability than it is about tips and tricks.

For this reason, you should make every effort to make your content easy to view, easy to read, and easy to digest.

How do you do this? It’s not hard.

  • Use headings
  • Use bullets
  • Use lists
  • Use paragraphs

By making your content more readable, it will be more user-friendly, and therefore, better for search engines.

How easy is it to read this text?

7 Low-Hanging Fruits that any SEO can Fix | SEJ

 

Compare that wall of text with this page:

7 Low-Hanging Fruits that any SEO can Fix | SEJ

The example above has clear headings (H3s), short paragraphs, plenty of white space, and centered images. It’s a well-organized page, and is eminently readable.

How hard is it to make your pages readable like this? It’s not hard at all. Breaking up your content, organizing it, and adding headings or lists where appropriate is all it takes.

7. Adjust and Optimize Meta Descriptions

A meta description is a brief description of the page’s content. It is located in the site’s metadata, and visible in the SERPs:

7 Low-Hanging Fruits that any SEO can Fix | SEJ

Meta descriptions don’t directly impact search rankings. But they do impact search rankings in a very real indirect way.

What do I mean by this? Let’s compare meta descriptions with the title tag. The title tag is a powerful component of the site’s search optimization. But the meta description? Not so much. It is not a built-in component of the ranking algorithm, and hasn’t been for many years.

7 Low-Hanging Fruits that any SEO can Fix | SEJ

Is it worth it then? Should you go to the trouble of creating meta descriptions for your website?

Absolutely. Here’s why.

A site’s meta descriptions are visible in the SERPs. As such, they impact whether or not and how quickly a user will click on the page.

It’s not just the technical elements of a site’s SEO that matter. What also matters? It matters what the user does when they see your site in the SERPs.

Do they click on your SERP entry (click-through rate)?

Do they dwell on your page (dwell time)?

These user metrics are critical for SEO. What impacts those metrics?

Part of the way to impact these rankings is to create a well-written, compelling, accurate, and engaging meta description.

For the amount of results you get from a SERP, the effort is well worth it. Simply revise your meta descriptions to make them the right length, to make them relevant to the content, and to make them appealing to the user

Conclusion

Full SEO optimization is a complex endeavor. But these simple techniques are easy, quick, and powerful.

These are the first things you should do to optimize your website for maximum performance. Within several weeks, your site will gain rank, increase traffic, raise your organic visits, and become more successful.

What are the quickest and easiest SEO fixes that you’ve discovered?

By Neil Patel Seo tips.

Categories
Blog SEO Costa Rica SEO Strategies SEO tips

How to Build Links Using Data-Driven Content & Blogger Outreach

For digital marketers, content marketing and link building are vital for each and every one of our campaigns. Some of the challenges we face during these campaigns are getting links to our content, developing content that people want to share, or simply finding the time to build links to our content.

Here’s the thing. If you have an incredible content marketing plan in place and effectively reach out to influential bloggers in your industry, you’ll also earn those backlinks. That’s not saying it won’t take some time and effort on your end – it will.

What I am saying is that you can get smarter about how you go about link building by earning links through quality content and blogger outreach.

shutterstock_306614516

What is Link Building?

The most basic definition for link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your website. When it comes to SEO, link building is important because search engines rely on links to discover new web pages and determine how and where a page will rank in search results. Without links, you can’t get ranked on a search engine like Google. And if your site isn’t found, then no one is going to notice the content you are working so hard to produce.

Additionally, link building can also assist with building your brand through:

  • Authority signal building: Earning links from reputable and relevant industry websites or social media channels will help position your brand as a leading authority figure.
  • Branding, influencing, and positioning your company: Again, quality links can help position your brand in the minds of your customers by proving you are a trusted leader in your industry.

Content marketing and link building can work hand-in-hand because links are actually the byproduct of great content marketing. For example, if you’re involved with digital marketing and publish a blog post or infographic regarding a recent study, your initial plan wasn’t to obtain links.

It was to produce and share something valuable for your audience. The content, because it’s so incredible that it could rank itself, will be shared by industry leaders and publications. That one piece of content could then earn you a couple of quality links, which in turn boosts your credibility and helps attract more links or signals.

What Link Building is Not

Because link building has been effective in the past in helping websites achieve higher rankings on search engines, it was only a matter of time before people began manipulating the system. Google has since cracked down on these link schemes by penalizing websites who have bought links or participated in extensive link exchanges.

If you want to acquire links, and don’t want to face the wrath of Google, keep in mind that link building is about earning links and not taking a shortcut by trying to obtain links just for the purpose of gaining links by:

  • Article distribution sites: Google’s Matt Cutts has recommended not uploading your content onto article distribution sites.
  • Guest blogging networks: Guest blogging is a great way to expand your brand and gain exposure, however, using a guest blogging network for links could put you in the dog house with Google.
  • Link wheels: This is an artificial way to build links through a circular pattern of links.
  • Private blog networks: Google has also been targeting PBNs and considers the content on these sites spam.
  • Mass link swapping: Google will penalize you if you partake in an excessive amount of link exchanges.
  • Link injections: Being sneaky and trying to hide a link to your website is a big no-no.

How to Build Links

One of the most effective ways to build links is by having what I call a “link magnet” on your site. Let’s say you run an e-commerce site. What kind of link magnets could you have on your site that would normally just contain product pages?

Here are a couple of ideas for content that attracts links:

  • Daily blog posts
  • Resource centers
  • Galleries
  • Reviews
  • Comparisons
  • White papers or Ebooks
  • Infographics

An example of a brand that has accomplished this is outdoor clothing brand Patagonia brand. When the company first launched, it’s website contained content like guides, maps, and contributed stories that focused on outdoor adventures. The other half of the site simply featured product pages.

This was a great way to for an e-commerce site to tap into the lifestyle of its customers by creating content that they would like.

Not all types of pages of can attract links, though. For example, product listings, product categories, boring press releases, and ‘about’ pages are typically not the types of content that people will link to. If you’re a publisher or blogger and you receive an email from someone asking for a link to a press release or product page, your response should immediately be “no”, since these types of pages normally don’t receive natural links.

Keyword Research and Data Tools

Realizing you need to create content that hooks your audience is one thing. Creating the exact type of content they are looking for is another. That’s why before you begin creating any sort of content, you should do your due diligence and understand what exactly it is your audience is looking for.

SEO Tools

You can achieve that by using the following powerful keyword research and data tools to generate content ideas and reach out to influencers.

Google

Google has plenty of tools for marketers, like AdWords, but you can conduct a simple search query to discover popular search results in your industry. Since Google is the most visited website in the world, you’ve probably seen this in action hundreds of times before. For example, if you began typing in “New York” Google will autocomplete the rest with suggestions like “New York Times” or “New York Company.” These suggestions are based on actual searches and how people search Google. Search results can also vary from your search history and your location.

You can do a simple Google search to discover what your audience is searching for. Knowing this allows you to create content that suits their needs.

SEMRush

This is one the best tools you can use for conducting keyword research. With SEMRush, you’re not only able to do keyword research for your marketing campaign, you can also see your competitors’ best keywords. This tool also tracks changes in position for domains, helps you advertise locally, discover new publishers to work with, and analyzes backlinks.

BuzzSumo

You may have written the greatest blog post of all-time. But what good is it if it isn’t seen by the right people? That’s where BuzzSumo comes in. BuzzSumo is an easy-to-use tool that gives you the ability to see which content is performing in a particular niche with information like Facebook or Twitter shares.

This information can be used to develop content ideas. However, BuzzSumo should also be used to connect with influencers. There’s an influencers tab that gives you information like Page Authority, Domain Authority, and Twitter followers.

Majestic

Majestic is another popular tool for marketers. Unlike some of these other tools mentioned, Majestic focuses on link building by providing information on backlinks. You can use it to identify the top pages that link to your site, the top pages on your site, and your backlink history. You can also use it to discover the same information for your competitors.

SharedCount

Here’s an extremely easy-to-use, and free tool, to track URL or social media shares. Just enter a domain name and that’s it. You quickly have the amount of Facebook likes, shares, and comments, as well as the number of tweets, LinkedIn shares, Pinterest pins, and stumbles on StumbleUpon.

BuzzStream

Building relationships is crucial for both content marketing and link building. BuzzStream makes establishing and maintaining meaningful relationships with influencers and authority figures a breeze. You can use this tool to discover relevant contact information, social profiles, and site information for influencers so that you can begin to reach out them.

Putting Keyword Research and Data Tools to Use: A Travel Link Building Scenario

You have these amazing tools at your fingertips. Let’s see how you can put them into your link building and content marketing campaigns.

Google Word Suggest

Let’s say you run a hotel or travel agency and you’re looking to bring in visitors to the Las Vegas area or rank for Las Vegas tourism. During your research, you discover that in 2012, 11% of visitors to Vegas brought minors with them, meaning that parents are beginning to bring their children to Vegas. That’s a 150% increase within the last decade!

The first place where you can start when building content is with Google. As mentioned earlier, Google Word Suggest is an incredible resource because there is plenty of free data based on queries that actual people are searching for. For example, you do a search query for “the best places for kids in Las Vegas.” One of the top results that appears is “best places for toddlers in Las Vegas,” which inspires you to do a little more digging to get some content ideas.

Screen Shot 2015-09-24 at 8.51.27 AM

One of the most interesting findings you’ll come across is that Google provides content-based results if you were searching for “best hotels Las Vegas hotels for families. You’ll come across sites like About.com, TripAdvisor, and MiniTime that mention the most kid-friendly hotels in Vegas, but not links to the hotels directly.

This gives you the opportunity to compete or do some outreach with these publications if you produce similar content. Keep in mind, this also clues you into the fact that if you’re a hotel, Caesar’s Palace, for example, your blog’s content may not rank as high as the sites listed above on Google, there is potential to reach out to those blogs or websites.

Google will also provide you with plenty of content ideas and even headlines because when you search for “things to do with kids in Las Vegas,”, the top results that turn up will be “top 10 things for kids to do in Las Vegas,” “things for teens to do in Las Vegas,” “shows for kids in Las Vegas,” “adventuredome,” and “things for kids to do in Las Vegas free.”

This can guide you into creating content people are searching for and can be used to prove to publications that people are searching for this content.

Dig Deeper With More Data

Thanks to Google, you have some content ideas, are aware of what type of content that people are searching for, and the websites or blogs that you could potentially reach out to. You can use SEMRush to track rankings and consolidate search behavior. For example, you can use SEMRush’s Phrase Match Report to identify similar Google search queries and related keywords.

For example, during your Google Word Suggest, you noticed that families were searching for aquariums in Vegas. We can dig a little deeper with SEMRush and discover that the related searches are “shark reef aquarium at mandalay bay las vegas” and “silverton aquarium las vegas.” Essentially, SEMRush is putting together content ideas for us. You could write a blog post like “Top Aquariums For Families To Visit in Las Vegas”.

SEM Rush Data Example

Data Driven Ideation

You have all this amazing data in front of you that includes:

  • The kind of content that Google is serving
  • The sites Google is serving
  • The relevant topic matter people are searching for
  • How Google is classifying that topic matter

What are you going to do next with it? You can begin to put together ideas for your content by creating an ideation outline with the data that you have.

For the Las Vegas hotel or travel agency, your ideation outline begins with ‘Things Kids Love in Vegas.’ Since you know that kids love aquariums you could generate content ideas based around:

  • ‘Top 10 Aquariums in Las Vegas’
  • ‘Top 5 Kids Attractions in Vegas Only Locals Know About’
  • ‘Best Kids Destinations off the Vegas Strip’
  • ‘Las Vegas: The New Disneyland for Families’

You can then take those ideas and develop it accordingly. For example, you could create an infographic entitled ‘Las Vegas: The New Disneyland for Families’ that you host on your own site. You could create the following supportive content around that infographic:

  • ‘Top 10 Aquariums in Las Vegas’ – listicle
  • ‘Top 5 Kids Attractions in Vegas Only Locals Know About’ – blog post
  • ‘Best Kids Destinations off the Vegas Strip’ – blog post

You can either host this content onto your own blog or place it onto another website. Remember, when developing a content strategy that you can use to acquire links it has the ability the rank because that’s the content people are searching for and what publications are getting traffic from. Building links to a piece of content that doesn’t rank pretty much defeats the purpose of link building and content marketing.

If you’re able to get your content placed on a high authority site like aHuffington Post you’ll increase your chances of receiving links from a smaller sites who are linking back to the content that was placed on the influential site.

Working With Publishers

You did your research. You have content ideas. Now you need to determine the sites that you want to work with. You can search on Google for travel sites that are discussing the same content that you’re producing. Here’s the problem. Those sites are getting hit by other bloggers and websites with the same idea; obtaining links.

By using SEMRush, you have a list of sites that rank for queries, which you can export to an Excel files, and upload that file onto Majestic. Majestic SEO will take those sites, actually 300 sites at a time, will list those links and provide information like topical trust flow, number of backlinks pointing back to the site, and even metrics like trust authority.

You can figure out that there more than 1,000 links pointing back to Mandalay Bay’s website. While it may be difficult to earn a link from Mandalay Bay, you can reach out to those 1,000 websites instead. Chances are, that being included in those sites will be a number of influencers and high-quality websites for you to reach out.

You can also use BuzzSumo to discover high-ranking sites. With BuzzSumo you enter the same search queries, like “las vegas aquariums, and you’ll have access to relevant blog posts, the authors of the blog post, and the amount of social shares that they have received. You can also sort the various types of content that the author publishes. If you have that awesome infographic, you can then just search for authors or websites that publish only infographics.

If you don’t have BuzzSumo, you could go back to Google and do a search on Google News for “travel infographics” to identify travel sites that feature that type of content.

Travel Infographics

Competitive Intel

Uncovering influencers and publications that are relevant to your content is definitely effective. But, you also need to see what your competitors are up.

You notice that one of your competitors, Travelmath, just released an excellent infographic. You can where their infographic was picked up so that you can get in touch with those publications to see if they’ll pick up your infographic. Even if it isn’t the exact type of infographic, it’s still in the same genre so these are relevant websites.

Using Majestic, you can see where the backlinks for Travelmath’s infographic came from. What’s appealing about using this tool is that you not only can see where the backlinks came from, you can see the amount of backlinks coming from those domains. For example, you’ll notice that links from the site Space.com has 189 different links pointing to that one article. With that information, you know which sites have relevant content and can help you obtain more links. While getting published on a major publication is always a goal, getting an infographic published on Space.com can save yourself a lot of hard work by earning hundreds of quality backlinks from just one publisher.

Majestic Competitive Intel

Next up you’ll want to use SharedCount. SharedCount is similar to BuzzSumo, except that it’s free. With this tool, you could do a little more research on the articles published on Space.com. SharedCount will show the amount of Facebook likes, shares, comments, tweets, Google +1s, Pinterest Pins, and LinkedIn shares. Why’s this important? Because if this content is being shared socially it’s getting noticed by influencers, which means you’ll be getting a backlink from their blog or website.

SharedCount Backlinks

Data pulling can be a lot to digest. But, doing this information can steer you in the right direction for content creation and outreach. To sum this up, here’s a brief recap of how these tools can all work together:

  • Google: Can be used to identify what people are searching for.
  • SEMRush: Locate quantifiable and exportable data regarding search trends, search volume, and where sites rank for keywords.
  • BuzzSumo: Should be used to find influencers.
  • Majestic: Allows you to run bulk links on pages ranking for the terms that you identified on SEMRush.
  • SharedCount: You can export the information from Majestic to locate social sharing numbers.

There’s one final tool that can be useful for reaching out to influencers, and that’s BuzzStream. Basically, BuzzStream is used to find and manage relationships with influencers by letting you know how to contact authors on social media and see where their content has been published. You can then store that influencer to keep tabs on them. That may sound a bit on the creepy stalker side, but it you see that the influencer is out of town on a vacation for the next week, then you know that now is not the best time to pitch them your content idea.

Besides searching for specific influencers, you can also use BuzzStream for investigating certain websites. BuzzStream will provide info like editors and bloggers so that you know how you need to contact when making your pitch. Since building links so all about building links, it’s probably a better plan to engage with a blogger or editor directly instead of just emailing the generic editor or info email address. BuzzStream can provide that individuals contact information so that you can reach out them personally.

Buzzstream Kelsey

When reaching out to influencers, always remember that these contacts should be cherished and respected. Skip the mass emails and send them a personalized email instead. That shows how much you do value that relationship, and that you actually know who they are. It’s not only a sign of respect when making a warm introduce, you’ll most likely get back a stronger response.

You’ve made the warm introduction, but how can you successfully leverage those relationships with publishers. You can also invite to become a part of the ideation process. Maybe you could have the author co-write an industry White Paper with you. This not only leverages the publisher, it also gets you both exposure to a new audience and the chance to earn some quality links.

Case Study

All of this may sound great in theory, but does it actually work? Yes. And, here’s a top secret case study from an actual client to support that claim:

Client Goals

  • Position our client as a national leader in denim amongst 16 to 25-year-old market
  • Capitalize on customization of clothing; distressing
  • Drive traffic to blog and site for informational and transactional goals
  • Dominate organic search queries

Content

  • In-depth blog post on distressing denim [much more in depth than competition]
  • Infographic visualizing How To’s and DIY Tips [subtle product placement]
  • Infograms for social distribution on client social channels [and 3rd party]
  • Material for client customer email list [post sale informational tips]

Outreach Targets

  • Fashion influencers
  • College style influencers
  • Denim loyalists
  • Industry sites that have covered client initiatives in past
  • Influencers who have covered competition posts or similar content

Campaign Results

  • 10,000+ Facebook Likes
  • 450+ Facebook Shares
  • 2,500+ Other Signals from Social Sites
  • 25+ Unique Links [High Trust Flow]
  • 500+ Co-Citation Links
  • 25,000+ Referrals per month from Organic Search

Conclusion

Link building is now all about earning links, and not through black hat practices—at least if you want to prevent getting penalized by Google. If you create quality content that people want to view and share, links will come back to you naturally. You should also personally get in touch with publishers and influencers in your industry to attract additional links. Both methods are a safe and proven way to not only build links, but also build your brand into an established, authority figure.

By Loren Baker SEO Tips.