guest post by IslaMarie Turnbull

Mocial is a term which has only recently come into more common use in the digital marketing and SEO industries.

This new term plays on the sudden growth in popularity of mobile devices and highlights the requirement of mobile specific marketing practices.

There are a number of reasons why this new term has emerged, however put simply it purely reflects the shifts in market trends and highlight the requirement of flexibility in the marketing and digital industry.

Why Do We Need The Term 'Mocial'? Read the rest of this entry »

guest post by Trace Ronning

Innovation is necessary to stay ahead of your competitors in AdWords, so today I'd like to introduce you to three things you can do as a part of your AdWords management that will make your life easier as well as open the door to more leads and sales.

1. Gmail Targeting

This tactic allows you to hit customers on a page that they likely spend lots of time on, their inbox. Gmail-targeted campaigns are great in that they allow you to use keywords that your potential customers will see regularly in their emails.

For example, if you're a cable provider you can use your competitors names as keywords, that way when people receive newsletters or bills from their cable company, they'll see an ad served up by you that reads, "Tired of paying too much for 'X brand' cable? Try us and save!" or something along those lines. Read the rest of this entry »

guest post by IslaMarie Turnbull

Social Media has long been a 'buzz' word in the world of digital marketing and generally features on every business's objective list. However despite awareness of the power which social media can offer to businesses, many businesses are completely clueless when it comes to measure the effectiveness of their social media efforts.

What many companies forget is that having a Facebook page doesn't mean social engagement with your consumers. This could not be further from the truth and in some situations holding a Facebook page may not be as beneficial as running a successful blog or Twitter account. With this in mind the key thing to remember is that not all social media accounts are going to suit your businesses and the way in which you engage with consumers/clients and so it is essential to select your social media ventures carefully as not one fits all. Read the rest of this entry »

guest post by Amanda Tradwick

Writing compelling headlines is a skill. Writing compelling headlines that also help rank your blog or website through the use of targeted keywords is an art.

Learning how to do both will help you increase your search engine ranking and your site's visibility, helping to drive traffic to your site.

Here are a few tips for how to create effective headlines that are both SEO optimized and compelling:

Include Keywords

One of the most important aspects of search engine optimization is your choice of keywords and how well you use them. Once you have researched your keywords for the post you plan to write, remember that you must use them both in the body of the post, as well as in the headline. Read the rest of this entry »

guest post by Emily Murray

Of course we all know that the first goal you have as an Internet marketer is to drive potential customers to a website, but traffic can only get you so far. How can you ensure that the traffic you are getting is relevant to the product or service you are selling?

Most businesses will eventually hit a plateau of daily visitors, at which point it becomes prohibitively expensive to gain more. The only way to increase profits after this is to optimize sale conversion rates. Learning how to keep visitors through the completion of a purchase can seem daunting, but often it is not so much about holding their attention, as avoiding driving them away.  Read the rest of this entry »

guest post by James Ged

It's been almost a year since Google's Panda update hit, and we're all still reeling a little. Although I work as an SEO strategist at a great marketing firm, I also work with a number of other companies during my free time, and I've seen many of them stop and retool their SEO strategy over the past year because they've seen their rankings (or the rankings of their clients) drop. Basically, Panda was a huge wakeup call to all those SEOs out there who were still relying on article spinning and keyword stuffing as a way to get good rankings.

Now the focus is on creating top-notch content, which often times means linkbait. The theory is that if you can make awesome content - articles, graphics, videos, and more - people will naturally link to you, and that's what Google likes to see: nice, natural link profiles.

Formulaic Linkbait

Unfortunately, many SEOs are approaching linkbait in the same way they were approaching article spinning. For example, they've figured out that great linkbait articles are usually 800 words or more, in list format, with pictures for each heading. So they commission 100 writers to write 100 articles with those vague parameters. Read the rest of this entry »

guest post by Christian Willis

Whether you like it or not, social media has become a valuable tool in any business's marketing toolkit. While you might think that sharing your most personal details on LinkedIn or Facebook is pointless, as an affiliate marketer you cannot overlook the business potential of these sites. The trick is learning to use social media effectively to build your brand and community.

Using Social Media –The Right Way

First, what counts as social media? Social media includes social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as YouTube, Twitter, and your blog, among others. It gives you the chance to interact with people who are interested in you and your products, and attract new customers to your business. Read the rest of this entry »

guest post by Tyler Moore

Google Alerts has quickly become one of my favorite tools for building backlinks. It's well-known that relevant backlinks are worth more than non-related backlinks. That is to say, if you're promoting your discount golf club website on a golfing forum or blog, that link will be worth more than if you'd created a backlink on a blog about weight loss or online marketing. "Content is king," as any good SEO will remind you, and you should definitely keep this in mind when you're building links.

However, it can be tricky finding new opportunities for promoting your website. Let's take a look at using Google Alerts to automatically send you alerts for possible opportunities for building relevant backlinks.

Grab the keywords and search terms you'd like to start targeting and head over to Google Alerts. Google Alerts monitors search terms and will send you emails when these terms are being used on the internet. You simply create a new alert, then enter a few options to tell Google what kind of alert you want to make. Here's how I like to build a new alert: Read the rest of this entry »

guest post by Stephanie Staszko

For many online marketers, sourcing and contacting guest blog locations is a major part of their link building campaign. The concept for guest blogging seems fairly easy: you source a decent, relevant blog, write a guest post for them, get it published and obtain a backlink to the website of your choice.

This however, is much more easier said than done as actually getting a blog owner to agree to publish one of your posts is probably harder than the actually task of writing the post itself.

Know your Recipient

Guest bloggers have begun to try and use more personal address in their outreach emails, often directly addressing the blog owner in their quest for a guest location. This email may include, name of the recipient and the recipient's website name/URL. Although the method of using personal address seems an effective way of defining the outreach email from a spam email which was sent to thousands of people, getting the recipient's details correct is important! How many emails have you received which are addressed to a similar name to yours but the opposite gender? Getting your recipient's gender right can make the difference between sparking slight interest and downright offending someone!

Read the rest of this entry »

guest post by Joe Petchonka

Everyone knows that you can do SEO and an assortment of marketing techniques to boost your blog's ranking in Google. While this will certainly drive more traffic to your site, you're missing on the other strategies that not as many people are using. You might think you're doing everything you possibly can to boost your site's traffic and ranking, but there are other lesser known tactics that you can use in tandem to help even more. Below are some of the lesser-known marketing strategies for helping your blog get more traffic.

1. Promote Your Blog Via Forums

Many people seem to forget about this completely, but if you provide great advice and information to particular forums in your niche, you can possibly drive traffic to your own site.

If the visitors of a forum see that you know exactly what you're talking about with a certain subject or several subjects, they'll be more likely to visit your site and see what else they can learn from you.

In addition, you can place your blog's link in the signature section of the forum you're visiting (which is often available), so people can go straight to your site without feeling like they're being persuaded to go. Read the rest of this entry »