Top 5 Cutting Edge Blogging Tips That Drive Leads

Do you hate writing blog posts?

We certainly do. At least we did about three years ago.

But over time we have come to learn the expert tactics, tools, and resources that go into writing a killer blog post.

Now we gained an understanding and an appreciation for the art form that is blogging.

It’s similar to when you gain an appreciation for taking good care of your car with consistent oil changes and car washes.

Blogging is a thing of beauty and can become your biggest lead generation source when done correctly.

Top 5 Blogging Tips to Drive New Business Leads [Video]

Blogging Tip #1 – Scout Your Competition

Don’t you dare reinvent the wheel young sir or miss.

Unless you are a rocket scientist releasing new findings regarding your travels to outer space or are truly the #1 industry leader; we recommend you scout your competition and re-write the best blog posts on the web.

Of course we advise our clients to make new additions, insights, or add take-aways to any content they rewrite but it’s always best to rewrite content that is already proven to be popular, interesting, and share worthy on the web.

Be sure to use http://buzzsumo.com/ to find out what blog post topics are trending in your industry.

Updated: We now highly recommend using, Ninja OutReach, as the best prospecting and automated outreach tool; to help you connect with industry influencers, gain digital PR, social shares, build links, and more!

Blogging Tip #2 – Write a Killer Title

Spend an extra five minutes before you begin writing to make sure you have the absolute best title possible for your blog post.

Do a Google search for a similar topic and take note of the titles of blog posts that are on page 1 of Google.

These are the titles that have performed the best, warranted the most social shares, and natural links. (hint hint… You may want to have a similar title. )

Finally ask yourself, would I want to read this article if I just read the title alone?

Here’s an example blog post we wrote for an international fitness model client.

Now if you were a mom, would this interest you?

Blogging Tip #3 – Add A YouTube Video

One of the absolute best ways to differentiate your brand online is with video. People love people and absolutely love video. Thus a video is the perfect combination.

Whatever it is you’re discussing or showcasing within your blog post content can be turned into a video.

Use http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/ if you need to do any type of screen recording and have a professional video intro done online at fiverr for 5 bucks.

Finally make sure to give your YouTube video a keyword rich title that is similar to your blog post title and embed it within your blog post! You’ll instantly enjoy an organic search engine ranking boost from this trick.

As a bonus tip add Youtube cards to drive leads directly from your YouTube channel!

Blogging Tip #4 – Include Inspiring Photos

Adding the right photos to your blog post can make a major difference in terms of the traffic, social shares, and links that your post receives.

Start by going to canva.com to create an incredible looking and free blog post cover image for your post. Include the title of your post and use relevant imagery.

This cover image will become the image people see on Facebook and Pinterest so be sure it is attractive and also warrants interest in reading your article.

Here’s an example of a few graphics we made on Canva in a matter of minutes. 

You can click on them too!*

Blogging Tip #5 – Include A Relevant Offer

Before you ever write a new blog post you should have a marketing or sales goal in mind. Ask yourself what do you want to accomplish with this post?

Then be sure that you include a call to action, relevant offer, or introduction to the product or service you are ultimately looking to promote.

It is often times most strategic to provide a lead capture, free download, or other complimentary information in exchange for a lead towards the bottom of your blog post.

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The Top 10 Local SEO Tips Your Business Must Complete to Dominate Google

Our phones at Dynamik Internet Marketing Inc. are constantly ringing with business owners who are interested in our SEO and internet marketing services. One of the most common questions we receive particularly from local business owners sounds like this,  “What is included in your local SEO service and how does that help us rank in Google?”

This is in fact a great question. To answer, there is a lot of work and smaller particular tasks that go into the craft that is local search engine optimization. To dive into further detail and help you understand exactly what your business needs to have completed from an SEO standpoint, we have outlined the Top 10 Local SEO tips!

Follow each step carefully and you can earn yourself higher rankings in Google and can reap the benefits of increased inbound leads. Lets’ get started.

#1 Create a Great Google+ Local Page

Have you ever searched for a service in Google and Google maps has revealed dozens of business locations for you? You may wonder where that information comes from.

Well, Google takes that information, not from individual websites, as might be expected, but from Google + Local Pages. This means that each business on Google Maps has to register its own information to be seen by searchers. Setting up a Google + Local page is really straightforward, it doesn’t take a whole lot of time and the return on your investment is well worth it.

Things to consider when creating a Google+ Local Page are choosing an appropriate profile photo, filling in all the relevant information and ensuring the pin is properly located. It’s important to have the name, address, and phone number (NAP) you provide in the same format across all your social profiles, whether on Google+, Facebook, Yelp, Trip Advisor or whatever other platform you may use.

Tip: Make sure you only create a single page per location. Whilst it may be tempting to create duplicate local pages in order to boost your ability to be found, this can be very detrimental to your SEO and is actually against the Google Terms of Service.

#2 Optimize your Page Titles

Make sure that your service and location are included in all relevant page title tags. This is the best way for the Googlebot to find your site and link it to local search terms and is especially critical for your homepage.

A 2014 report by search marketing specialists Moz, revealed that SEO marketers found that having your city and state in your landing page title was the number one factor in localized organic search – this was considred to be more of a ranking factor than the quality of inbound links and the domain authority of a particular website. So get your title tags optimized first and foremost!

#3 List Your Contact Info On Your Website + Link to Your Google Plus Page

Having updated information on your pages and profiles is a given. Make sure you have NAP – Name, Address, Phone, all sorted. If you have more than one service or location, add multiple web pages for each of these, this will be good for SEO and clearer for your customer.

But most importantly make sure your NAP is listed on the homepage of your website & then link from your website over to your Google plus page. This really helps Google connect the dots and when Google feels confident that your Google plus page belongs to your website; you get a ranking boost!

#4 Use Schema

Schema markup is a code that you can place on your website to assist search engines to provide more detailed results for readers. It can be regarded as a type of artificial intelligence that explains to the search engines what your data means in human terms. Schema is another great way to boost your SEO.

Fortunately for you, there are many who have yet to realize the potential of this tool and it is therefore an advantage you can have over your competitors. There are also WordPress plugins to help you install schema if you don’t have a developer in house. Just another reason, we love WordPress.

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#5 Make sure your site is mobile friendly

As the influence of mobile phones and tablets becomes even more prominent, a mobile friendly site is increasingly important for both global and local SEO. Google’s next major search engine update is again predicted to place more emphasis on the importance of mobile friendly designs and therefore you should be doing all you can to prepare for such a change.

A Google statement has said ““Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.”

Are you ready for the mobile apocalypse? Test to see if your site is Google mobile compliant here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

#6 Engage in Quality Link Building

This is a pretty standard organic ranking practice but remains significant nonetheless. The need for high-quality links is only becoming more important with changes in the Google algorithms.

Always be on the lookout for new link building opportunities. For starters ask any partner organizations, retailers, suppliers, or otherwise friends; to link to your website.

local seo expert dino gomez

Additionally make sure you claim a link and profile from all the top social networking and media sites. If you have an established brand consider building a wikipedia page and link back to your website.

For further exposure and inbound links, offer to write a guest blog post for a related industry blogging site. When it comes to link building, there are a hundred different strategies and places to go. 

#7 Utilize Social Media Marketing effectively

Social media marketing is important for various reasons. Not only does it provide a seamless platform to promote your services and share your content, but it can also act effectively as another search engine. Likewise, social media links are extremely valuable in the eyes of Google. Make sure when you post on social networks that you occasionally self promote and link back to your website!

Tip: Because social media is constantly changing and evolving, it provides an opportunity for you to stay ahead of the curve and creatively engage with your clients or customers.

#8 Create unforgettable content

The mantra ‘content is king’ is constantly thrown around in internet marketing circles. This is nowhere more apparent than for local businesses. Again, competing with larger organizations can be difficult, but providing better quality or location specific content is where you have the unique advantage in the SERPs.

It also allows you to be perceived as an authority in your area, which goes a long way when it comes to closing offline sales. If you need helping coming up with a blog post idea, check out, our Top 5 Blog Posts for Business Owners. 

#9 Get customer reviews

Customer reviews are another vital aspect of local SEO. In addition to your inbound link profile, on page content, and social media presence; online reviews are also evaluated by Google in relation to their authority and quantity. We advise all our clients to set up a process that makes it very straightforward for your customers to leave reviews.

For example we recommend sending a survey email out to customers a few days after they have enjoyed your service or product to ask them for their feedback. The survey should be a conditional online survey in which the subsequent questions are based on the answer to the previous question.

By using a conditional logic survey, you can direct those customers who had a positive experience with your brand to then leave a review on your Google or Yelp page. In turn, those customers who had a negative or neutral experience should be directed to leave more information on how your brand can improve customer satisfaction. Customers who viewed your brand as negative should not be directed to your Google or Yelp page, as you do not want them to leave a review until you have improved their experience with your brand.

By using an online survey you can dramatically increase the number of online positive reviews your business receives.

In particular we help our clients aggregate positive reviews on Yelp and their Google plus local page, as these two sites are the most important when it comes to increasing your local SEO efforts and protecting your brand reputation.

#10 Build Local Citations

One of the biggest ranking factors Google uses for inclusion in Google maps is the number of accurate and consistent citations your local business has. By definition a citation is a listing in a local business directory such as Yellow Pages, Manta, City Search, Yelp, or Yahoo!.

There are in fact nearly 300 U.S. based local directories where your business should be listed. The more listings your business has with a consistent NAP (name, address, phone number) the more confident Google can feel about giving your business real estate on the 1st page of their search engine.

We advise all our clients to register their business on each of these 300 location directories. When completing your profile you should include your name, address, phone number, unique business description, upload photos, and be sure to link back to your website.

Summary

After reading this post you may understand local SEO is not as difficult as you may have expected. It is however very time consuming and does require an expertise or otherwise guidance implementing each tactic.

Now that you have our top 10 list as a roadmap, you are all set to optimize your business for local search. Of course, if you would rather have our team of experts implement these strategies on your behalf, we would certainly love to do so.

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Penguin 2.0 Is On It’s Way – Learn How To Survive A Bigger, Badder, Penguin

The head of Google’s webspam team, Matt Cutts, has announced the coming of a new Penguin update sometime in the summer of 2013. Brace yourself for Penguin 2.0.

Penguin 2.0 will be similar to the original Penguin update but has a few added elements. Let’s take a close listen to what Matt Cutts has to say and then we’ll discuss the action steps you should take.

What To Expect from Penguin 2.0

Penguin 2.0 is targeting low quality and black hat link building efforts. Just as the original Penguin update focused on penalizing websites with volumes of low quality links in proportion to the number of high quality inbound links; Penguin 2.0 will do a more accurate job of penalizing websites who have cheated their way to the top of search engines.

Here’s a list of what Penguin 2.0 is looking for:

  • Paid Links (Advertorials violating Google’s guidelines)
  • Links from low quality websites
  • Irrelevant Links (Un-Natural)
  • Over Optimized Anchor Text
  • Keyword Stuffing
  • Hacked Websites

Here’s what type of websites may be penalized:

  • Sites which have received a boost in ranking from purchasing paid links
  • Sites that have a high ratio of inbound blogroll links compared to other inbound links
  • Sites that are ranking for keywords outside their industry (if you were lucky enough to have your website ranking for a random keyword phrase… this may be corrected)
  • Hacked sites

How to Survive a Bigger, Tougher, and Meaner Penguin

Google wants the formula for online success to always remain consistent for your brand. The ultimate goal is to have those websites that provide the most value to the user to have the most online exposure.

Thus, if your website provides extraordinary value to the user then your website should be rewarded with higher relevant keyword rankings. However, as competition in every online industry grows, the task for Google to find the best websites in each industry becomes more difficult. Enter social signals.

The easiest way for Google to determine if your website is valuable to users is by looking closely at your social signals. Social media and SEO are influencing each other more each day. If your website has a great deal of traffic, return visitors, a low bounce rate, Facebook likes, shares, and recommendations, and a fair amount of Google plus shares…. then it is easy for search engine robots to determine your website provides a great user experience. The end result should then be higher rankings. Lets dig in further and examine how to go about building a great user experience.

Action Steps To Scare Off Penguin 2.0

1). Provide Value To Your Visitors – Build your website, write page content, and compose blog posts with your visitor in mind. Give them the information that they want and readers will come back, share your content, stay on your website longer, and possibly buy your services. An engaged and happy website visitor shows in analytics that Google can see. When Google sees happy website visitors they determine your website is of high quality and reward you with higher rankings and higher page rank.

2). Lower Your Bounce Rate – Your bounce rate is the first indicator of what people think of your website. If your bounce rate is high it can mean two things. One, that you are running an ad campaign with keywords and copy that don’t accurately relate to your website. Or two, that your website is lacking visually or contextually what organic visitors are hoping to see.

The most effective way to lower your bounce rate is to use an A/B conversion software to help you determine the best combination of text and images to convey a first impression that visitors hope to see. Try Crazy Egg.

3). Provide Social Sharing Opportunities – Even if your company does not have a very proactive social media marketing strategy you should still offer those socially savvy website visitors an easy way to share your content. Add Facebook, Google Plus, Yelp, and Twitter buttons at the very least to your homepage. The social shares will follow in time as your business continues to provide valuable content.

Bonus Social Proof Tip: Until your website garters many social shares, use social buttons that don’t display the number of shares. Avoid negative social proof at the start and then leverage social proof when you have the swagg to do so.

4). Keep Your Website Safe From Hackers-

2013 is quickly becoming the year of the hack. And Penguin 2.0 is on the hunt for injured prey. If your website is hacked or contains malware you can expect to lose rankings and website traffic. Keep you website safe by updating your password to contain symbols, upper and lower case letters, numbers, and multiple words that in no way, shape, or form could relate to your brand, business name, birthday, or service. Hackers and software are quick to try the top thousand combinations of your business password to get into your site. 

5). Use Google Markup Language to Help Google I.D. Your Industry – Google’s highlighter tool makes it simple for webmasters to add html markup to their website in order to help Google bots id their industry, products, or events. No coding skills necessary. Just the knowledge and application of the tool itself is all that is needed. This is the easiest way besides using a sitemap to help Google index and understand the pages and content on your website.

6). Build Quality Links– Ultimately Penguin 2.0 is looking to penalize sites with low quality inbound links. So build high quality links instead. Begin by guest blogging on relative and authoritative sites in your industry. Guest blogging is the best SEO tactic of 2013.

So there you have it. The ultimate defense to Penguin 2.0. What concerns or questions do you have about Google’s next big update?

Bonus Content:

So as we stated in tip #3 providing social sharing signals has become increasingly important to your online marketing efforts and is now a factor in organic keyword rankings. Circling back around to our point on negative social proof, you don’t want to display social sharing buttons on your website or blog post unless you have already accumulated a few shares. Your readers won’t want to share a post that has zero shares….

That’s why we recommend the WordPress plugin, Flare, to our clients with wordpress hosted blogs. Flare is like other social sharing plugins with the addition of a social proof attribute. Using Flare you can set the number of social shares to a minimum before the plugin will ever show a counter to your visitors. Once you hit 10 or maybe you decide 20 shares as a minimum, Flare, will now leverage your positive social proof to help you gain even more shares from your readers by suddenly showing a share counter.

Best of all Flare is free to download and free to use and includes a bunch of other great attributes to make your site look good and help you drive more social traffic and increase SEO signals to your site.

5 Best Blogging Topics to Gain Readership

We’ve all heard it before and we know it well by now- blogging should be at the hub of your inbound marketing strategy. The benefits of blogging are numerous and for the sake of originality we will not cover and recite all of the reasons why. Instead we would like to discuss the best 5 ways to gain readership with any one blog post. In the end, it all boils down to content. If you understand the content that people like to read than automatically your blog posts will be more successful in terms of gaining readership, keeping readership, inspiring social media buzz, and persuading action. So here are the best 5 writing topics that will attract readers to your blog.

Check out how to generate business leads with a blog comment!

Here are the top 5 blogging topics to gain readership:

1). Lists. Lists are a great way to categorize and condense otherwise lengthy and/or complex information. It is also a clean and pleasant presentation of information that people would not be intimidated by. Lists enable readers to quickly process information and it also helps readers remember the information.

2). Reviews. Nowadays, consumers are more interested in online reviews than any other time. It has been proven that people trust the reviews and opinions of their friends and family more so than advertisements. If you write a comprehensive review of a product, service, or otherwise strategy – the people will come to hear what you have to say.

3). Tips. The Internet is the number one source for information for just about everybody. People search online by typing questions directly into Google and often times search for the “best tips” on how to do something. If you can provide answers to solve problems then again, the people will come to you.

4). Current Event/News. People want to be informed but often times they don’t want to be the individual responsible for digesting current news. They want to know that the San Diego Chargers traded a defensive player but they also want an insightful analysis of what the implications of this news might be. Will this trade make the Chargers better or worse defensively? If you can summarize a current event or any type of current news and then break down the implications of this news- you’ll find yourself building an online readership quickly.

5). How To’s. People not only want information but they want to learn new things. By presenting your readers with a “how to”, you’ll help them solve a problem while simultaneously proving yourself to be an expert within your industry. It’s a win-win type of deal here. 

Boom, there they are, the top 5 blogging topics that will increase readership and engagement for your blog. Now how easy is it to choose a topic to blog about? 

What is Keyword URL Mapping?

Keyword URL mapping is the process of determining which page of a website should contain certain keywords to maximize the optimization of the entire website as a whole. A lot of times optimization is only directed at the homepage of a website. This is not the best strategy simply because it is impossible for any one page of a website to be top loaded with several keywords. Each page of a website needs to be optimized for only a few keywords for it to have a chance to rank highly for any one keyword phrase search.

The best practice is to dedicate specific pages of a website to be optimized for specific keyword terms and to thus to spread your keywords out over each page of your entire website. Keyword URL mapping is the process of doing just this.

A Google Rep Explains How Search Works

When you conduct a search on Google you aren’t searching the web. What you are actually searching is Google’s index of the web. You see Google can only index websites that are available to be found by search engine spiders. These spiders index all available websites by beginning at one website and then crawling from that website to any other sites it links with. Once a spider crawls to another site it indexes the content of that site and crawls away once more to others sites that are linked with it. Thus it is the connectivity of websites to one another that allows the Google spider bots to find available websites. This explains why having many inbound links is a major component of how well your website ranks among search engines, particularly Google.

Check out this 3 minute video presentation from an engineer in the quality group at Google, Matt Cutts, on “How Search Works.” A visual for this type of concept will greatly help your understanding.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNHR6IQJGZs&feature=player_embedded#!

What do you think? A little easier to understand with a cartoon animation?