Hey You bloggers we are back again with amazing interview. As part of our BloggersIdeas interview series, today we have Ankit Singla from BloggerTipsTricks.com & Techclicko who have Over 1.5 years experience in affiliate, SEO, search, social and content marketing for small businesses. He will be answering various questions related to Digital Media & other Internet Marketing stuffs . So lets start with the interview.

Can you tell us something about your blogging journey. How and when did you enter into blogging? And who are your blogging role models?

I came to know about blogging 4 years back after attending a seminar on ‘Make money with Google Adsense’. I did a lot of research on it and create my first blog in year 2010.

I can’t say who is my blogging role model because I started blogging only because of my interest.

What are your top favorite 3 tools for managing social media campaigns and why ?

Yes, I use the world’s largest Social Media tool and that’s Facebook..My campaigns are running through facebook. After making every post I market them with Facebook Fan pages and Facebook Groups.Where I get More Targeted traffic which can easily boost my blog engagement and sales.

Do you Pinterest for your business, what kind of pinterest tools you use.

I’ve heard that pinterest is one of the growing social media but the major problem with pinterest is that about 80% of the users are Womens. I’m not saying that womens are not interested in blogging and make money stuffs but in pinterest most of them I found out is recipe lovers. So I’m not concentrating much on Pinterest. As I already said I love targeted traffic.

If you are familiar with Internet marketing what kind of tactics you use for your blog reader engagement.

I’m not that much familiar with internet marketing like what others do. But with my potential I make around $800/Month. This may sound low or great, anyway I use a single tactic. “Collect the Trust of My Readers” Actually I don’t even like disturbing or irritating my readers .

Before placing a single ad or a pop-up box I think twice. Grabbing daily readers is difficult job in my point of view. Seeking their attention is also one of the difficult things. Only hard work can make this thing’s happen in the right manner. So I work hard to make my readers happy and as a regard they believe the products I recommend then finally a good amount of Income I get out of it.

That’s the real tactic I use.

What Is Your SEO Super Power?

The answer for this Question may sound weird but to be honest I don’t do that much of Off Page SEO, I mostly concentrate on ON Page SEO. I’ve some common strategies in Onpage SEO and I do use SEO pressor plugin.

As I said I don’t care much on off page SEO but Social Media Optimization is one of my weakness and I think I’m doing good with it.But the best thing I’ve found out is that I get some good organic traffic with my current strategies. So that’s my Super Power.

How Do You Conduct An SEO Experiment?

Experiments??! Oh God this one remembers me my old blogging times. Really I was a scientist who does all the experiments and fails on it. When I was a newbie I’ve done many foolish experiments maybe that’s why I’m making some decent money now.

But don’t think that I’m an expert now, according to my point of view there are no experts in blogging as the blogging system is changing day by day.

Anyway coming to my point, now at the current blogging journey I’m not doing any experiments. It’s not because I’m a big blogger but really I don’t have time for doing these kinds of experiments.

And when I think there is a need of experiments I’ll surely do that but I love my blog a lot and I’m not ready to take big risks on that.

What kind of SEO Tools Do You Use And Why?

Yeah! Just like other blogger’s out there in the blogosphere I also use some SEO tools. The main SEO tool I use is Keyword Planner and Long Tail Pro. Even though both are keyword research tools I feel comfortable when I’m using both. The purpose of using it is quite simple; to survive in this SEO sea I need them.

Keyword research is one the important thing I do and if you find the best keyword then you just need to write the content with some On page SEO. It will surely boost your rank. Good rank is equal to good quality blog. Between I also use the SEO pressor plugin to analyze my OnPage SEO.

What blogs do you read? Tell me about an article you recently read that stuck out to you.

I Normally read some blogs which are on blogging niche and as well as some other niches too.

Especially I love reading ShoutMeLoud and enstinemuki.com and Aha-now also especially I get attracted to a title I will never miss reading it .And here is one the title that attracted me www.aha-now.com/make-money-blogging-online/

A client asks you to build a strategic plan for their website. What steps would you go through?

A Strategic plan for a Website. Yes, if someone comes like that, I will ask some questions to them which will be related to their company and finally I’ll make a market watch of that company and its online competitors. After finishing these jobs I can suggest them with different strategy and they really differ with the type of the company.

What are the Secrets of Affiliate Marketing and are you associated with any kind of affiliates.

There are no secrets in my affiliate marketing. But as I said the super secret is gaining trust and If I made $100 from affiliate sales it’s just because of the trust I’ve with my readers. I use some hosting affiliate program which yields me a good income to make my living.

Hostgator is one of the best affiliate program I use and other affiliate programs like Bluehost, Shareasale, Clickbank etc. To be honest affiliate programs are really cool if you have some readers’ trust, so it’s time to build it up.

Do you use Blackhat SEO tactics in a white hat way. Like scrapebox …

Black Hat SEO is something scary in my point of view, because when I try it there is a chance for getting ban from Google. So I’ve decided to not try it and why Should I. Between I don’t really know about using Blackhat tricks in the whitehat way. I’ve heard that ScrapeBox is good and I’m going to give it a try sooner.

What are your biggest client hurdles?

“Client Hurdles” A bit confusing question, to be frank I don’t accept all the client requests but while managing my clients I had this feeling like one in the Olympics. In some cases it makes me feel funny. Yeah really when my clients are asking me to teach them about a thing which I’m not familiar with I get a mini heart attack.

But I won’t give up I’ll manage them with some stuffs and will learn about what they asked finally deliver them a worthy answer. I think this is a good way to learn new things.

On Optimizing a Site – Briefly Tell us what a Search-friendly Site Looks Like?

Actually a Search Engine Friendly website should look like a plain and bad looking one..!! Just kidding but there are some facts in that, if you are designing a well looking website managing headings etc. for good SEO is a difficult job on the other hand it’s kind of easy in a plain theme. But to survive in the current market we need looks.

According to me the first priority is readers if the readers are comfortable with the website looks then Google also likes that because Google is more interested in the comfortability of the users. So better keep a design which is comfortable with readers and I’m sure Google also likes that.

On Google – Tell me about the Latest Changes at Google ?

Yeah As I’m reading some blogs as I said, I’ve noticed some changes. I can say two of them – You’ll get Ad penalty if you place ad above the fold.  2. Guest Blogging For SEO is Kind of Dead. That’s for new.

Is Author Rank is the latest technique of off page SEO ? Do you think Google give preference to this ?

Yes, Ofcourse Google gives preference to it. If you have more Google+ followers you can get good rankings. And I don’t think this is a new update it’s here since some years. Whatever, try to build some followers it will really help in case of traffic and rank.

What Are Your Relationship Building and Outreach Skills?

As I said earlier building trust and relationship is behind my success and I won’t take a single decision which hurts or make feel like bad for my readers. Just like others I also reply to the comments interact with them through social media but the best part of it is that when you are recommending them the right thing then there is more chance for them to reach success there you earn real trust and it’s a best way to boost your sales, really I believe in that I hope that’s my Outreaching Skill.

Do You Share Your Strategies Transparently With the SEO Community?

Yes, I do! Because I never forget the way I came through. Once I was also a newbie and I really know the difficulty in learning blogging as well as SEO. Especially learning SEO without some help is really untolerable. So I arrange some group chats, Share some SEO tips and Of course through personal chatting also I help them at my maximum.

Do you have any Questions to ask, Do you have more  Marketing Strategies to share. So go on share in the comments below !!!

Dont forget to share this awesome interview in social media. I will be pleased if you share this now !!! Cheers!!! Join BloggersIdeas on Facebook, Google+ & Twitter ?

 

Hey !! Today at our Expert chat section we had  Adam Connell with us.  I know you are excited to read another stunning interview from our interview series.

This weekend I am interviewing one of Best Blogger Adam Connell. He is doing really well in Online Marketing and making his living online.

Can you tell us something about your blogging journey. How and when did you enter into blogging? And who are your blogging role models ?

My blogging journey first started at university, I was studying music technology (yep, quite different from what I do now), I watched a guest lecture from a guy that taught music business – this lecture was all about digital marketing and inspired me to learn more.

I started reading books and blogs like ProBlogger and Copyblogger.

When I was coming to the end of my course, I chose to do my dissertation on Music Marketing – I found the research process so interesting that it then gave me a new direction in life – Marketing.

I started learning how to build websites with WordPress, read up on blogging, learnt more about marketing while working in retail. Within a few years’ time I landed an amazing opportunity managing a marketing agency.

Raw experience being ‘in the trenches’ so to speak allowed me to beat qualified marketers with years of experience to the job.

There were even a few people at the group interview who were members of the ‘Chartered Institute of Marketers’ here in the UK.

There are a lot of people that I think of as role models, for example Darren Rowse who has created some very popular blogs and also a really strong community.

Also, Adrienne Smith – I do consider her the Queen of Engagement. Looking at the number of blog comments Adrienne gets I really don’t know how she manages to respond.

Jon Morrow – Jon wrote the most popular post ever to be published on Pro Blogger that generated over a million views. Jon is an incredibly inspiring guy.

There are others that I look up to, but I could probably write a post on that alone.

What are your top favorite 3 tools for managing social media campaigns and why?

Hootsuite – As it happens, Hootsuite came out on top of a recent group interview I published where 46 experts shared their top social media tools. Hootsuite is super easy to use but has some incredible features including a mobile app and a new feature called the ‘Hootlet’.

Social Oomph – I think this tool deserves more credit, it’s incredible and used by the SmallBizTrends.com team and JeffBullas. You can schedule updates, find people to follow, monitor analytics and a lot more.

Inkybee – I use this tool to find and track relationships with online influencers. I wrote a guide on how to do this here.

Do you Pinterest for your business, what kind of pinterest tools you use.

Pinterest is one of those social sites that I just don’t have the time to devote to right now. Time is precious and you have to focus on what gets you results.

I have no doubt that with some time I could quickly start getting results but right now I stick to using the Bookmarklet and the desktop site. I do hear Viraltag is quite an impressive tool though.

If you are familiar with Internet marketing what kind of tactics you use for your blog reader engagement.

I focus on a few different things, the main one being detailed and actionable content.

I make every post as detailed as possible, you may have seen this referred to as ‘long-form’ content and it works. Chances are you won’t see me publish a blog post with less than 1,000 words, most end up being over 2,000 and I’ve published posts with over 4,000+ words.

When you create a powerful resource for people, they appreciate it and are more compelled to say thank you or engage in the discussion.

Another tactic that works extremely well is building relationships (I’m sure Adrienne Smith who I mentioned earlier would agree with me here) – Relationships are powerful, you need to forge relationships with other bloggers and continue to nurture them.

The final tip I’ll leave you with for this question is – marketing your content to influencers.

If you have a small audience and think “wow, how can I expand my audience like all those popular bloggers” – don’t worry, it will happen.

Mention industry influencers in your content, tell them about it and ask them to help you share the content.

It works really well.

What Is Your SEO Super Power?

I’m not sure if this would class as an SEO super power, but within just a few months I was able to build and launch a blog that organically earns links from industry influencers and ranks well without much effort at all. All while generating an impressive amount of social shares and contributing to a number of expert SEO interviews.

Traffic, social shares, engagement and authority – that’s what it’s all about.

How Do You Conduct An SEO Experiment?

I think of experiments as very controlled, while I do test link building and SEO tactics, I wouldn’t consider them an experiment.

The experiments are better saved for people with access to serious amounts of data like Moz, SearchMetrics and other analytics/data companies.

What kind of SEO Tools Do You Use And Why?

Here are the main SEO tools that I use right now:

BuzzStream – to help manage relationships and link building campaigns

Moz – I am really liking the new Moz Analytics, and they have a bunch of other tools that give me some great insights. The Moz Toolbar is incredibly useful to to give me data on the fly.

Ahrefs – A great site explorer with some other impressive tools; I think Ahrefs visualizes data an a very easily digestible way.

Google Webmaster Tools – say what you like about Google, but WMT provides a lot of great insights.

There are a few more tools, but I could talk for hours on this topic.

What blogs do you read? Tell me about an article you recently read that stuck out to you.

I read all the usual – Moz, SEJ, SE Land, Marketing Land, Clickz, KISSmetrics, Quicksprout, Kaiserthesage and Boost Blog Traffic.

As for a blog post that stuck out to me, this post on GrooveHQ’s blog is awesome – find out how they failed their way to the top of Hacker news and grabbed themselves 33,000+ visitors to a single blog post.

A client asks you to build a strategic plan for their website. What steps would you go through?

It all starts with understanding their business and their customer. Most importantly, the problem that their customer has and how their products/services solve the problem.

The next steps include competitor research, keyword research, ensuring the content has the right content and landing pages.

The website needs to be able to convert so that’s always a high priority. You could blast as many visitors as you like a website but if it doesn’t convert then you’re just wasting your time.

Next, we’d put together a content plan for the clients blog and research all of the market influencers and devise a plan for tapping into their already established audience.

This is a very skinned back look at the type of things that we do at UK Linkology. There are a lot of other tactics we employ, but these are what we find gets the best results.

What are the Secrets of Affiliate Marketing and are you associated with any kind of affiliates.

There aren’t really any major secrets, it’s actually really simple – make sure everything you write adds value.

Thin content that provides no value will just cause you to fail.

Quality first, then quantity.

Do you use Blackhat SEO tactics in a white hat way. Like scrapebox …

I use Scrapebox, but I don’t use any Blackhat SEO tactics – if you’re going to do things the white hat way, then do it the white hat way.

There’s no ‘half in half out’ type thing here, you’ve got to be fully invested in using white hat tactics – if you don’t then you’ll get a nasty surprise from Google.

Sure, there may be black hat (well more like grey hat) tactics that may work for you but it’s not going to work for long.

Google will bring it’s net in at some point, so I’ll put it to you…

Do you want your website to still be here in the next 3-5 years?

In that case focus on doing things the right way.

What are your biggest client hurdles?

I don’t tend to have many hurdles with clients, but the biggest issue is usually budget and a lot of clients find it difficult to understand that digital marketing and SEO is more expensive now.

Once I had a client email me a link to a company selling SEO services on Ebay boasting page one rankings for 10 target keywords – guaranteed. The sales page mentioned things like wiki links, article marketing and what was most worrying “blog posts on our blog network of 2,500 websites”.

Along with the link to this, my client basically asked me why we don’t buy this to get them ranked cheaper.

The answer was simple – because we want your website to actually rank well in Google for the foreseeable future rather than a quick shoot to the top followed by a swift kicking out of the top 100 search results.

These cheap SEO services run on a high churn rate. If someone says they will guarantee rankings, run for it. You can’t guarantee rankings in a third party search engine.

On Optimising a Site – Briefly Tell us what a Search-friendly Site Looks Like?

A search friendly site could incorporate a lot of things – crawlers need to be able to access the site, you need a sitemap, a site designed for user experience, unique content that targets your keywords, a site that loads fast and engages users. Mobile ready and designed to allow users to share your content easily. Meta data and Schema are also a must,

Also, be careful of the use of canonical tags.

There is a lot more to it, but I guess you could say this is the foundation of building a visible site.On Google – Tell me about the Latest Changes at Google

Some of the recent updates include the likes of Humming bird which is highlighting a move to understand user intent.

Penguin 2.1 was also unleashed a while back and continued the war on webspam.

We also saw how Google were moving to 100% (not provided) – which will make it more difficult to find which keywords are referring traffic. Although the majority of my traffic has been (not provided) for a good while now.

Despite all of these changes, nothing has really changed – it’s obvious that Google are trying to improve organic search results so they display more relevant and authoritative content for users.

What direction should we take moving into 2014?

The same direction as before, nothing has really changed. So it’s time to carry on creating great sites geared towards users with content that our readers love.

I hope this interview helped you all the bloggers out there. These questions are brilliantly answered by Adam. I appreciate his time and pleased to see that he answered questions genuinely. 

Got the Inspiration from this proficient Blogger Adam, now boost your Blogging Journey with these strategies !!You can also Join BloggersIdeas on Facebook & Google+ for more similar updates.

Even today, there are those new businesses and entrepreneurs that consider the“blogosphere” an unknown entity. But the writing is on the wall, and according to Social Media Today  all stats point to blogging as the driving force of online marketing. In fact, those businesses with an eye for the prime demo of 21-35-year-olds should know that some 53% of bloggers are in this age group.

That makes for a large sphere of online influence. On the marketing end, the data is just as ironclad,with 67% of B2B marketers using blogs to increase their leads. All these stats serveto buttress one point: blogging today is integral  to small businesses and large.

                                                                                        Image Credits: rockbot.com 

Those on the smaller end — startups and their ilk — are likely still finding their footing when it comes to that perfect marketing strategy. Now that it’s established just how crucial blogging is in today’s world of commerce, the next step is implementing it properly in an overall plan of attack.

To this end, here are a few things every small business owner should know about blogging.

Be in it to win it

Blogging for business is not hobby, and therefore it can’t be treated as such. Google,that most giant of search engines, won’t waste precious algorithm time on a blog with less then 50 posts.

And even after hitting that number, the page rank will still likely be low for some time. That’s why business owners need to commit for the long haul. That means publishing at least two posts a week – preferably more.

Hire out (when necessary)

Those starting a muffler shop or small health food store, for example, may rightly feel some apprehension about undertaking a task that doesn’t fit in their wheelhouse. That’s okay. Those who don’t have the stomach for clacking away on the keyboard for hours a day can enlist content writing services from outside.

There are plenty of pro guest bloggers and SEO firms out there who will be happy to compose professional blog posts tailored to a specific audience, for a fee. Again,those who are apprehensive about shelling out this extra cash should remember this particular stat: 77% of all Internet users read blogs.

Publish first at home

Social media is great, and it is inexorably linked to blogging and business. However,social sites serve a specific purpose and should never be the launching pad for content. The goal should always be for business owners and marketers to first publish at home, on the business’ website, with a goal to getting folks to share it across social platforms.

Be personable and useful

Especially useful. Blogging is not the appropriate medium for the hard sell. This is a brave new marketing world, and in this realm folks want their content to be of some use in their daily lives.

The aforementioned health food store, for example,can publish blogs detailing low-calorie recipes that readers can prepare quickly at home. And if these blogs can offer a personal touch, such as writing in the voice of an employee or even the owner, then all the better.

Conclusion

The above four tips should provide a decent roadmap to those business owners new to blogging on how to cultivate success in that world. Above all else, diligence is the most important thing. Setting a regular, weekly blog schedule and adhering to it is paramount. Only then will the blogging strategy pay dividends.

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As part of our Bloggers Ideas interview series, today we have Karan Singh of bloggingways.net discussing techniques about SEO and Social Media for Marketing.  Karan has tried his best to share some skilled techniques he is using currently. I know This interview is rather long, but is worth for all bloggers & webmasters !

First of all please introduce yourself to my readers and tell me about your blogging career. Why did you choose blogging?

Hi! Myself Karan Singh Chauhan as an 20 years old engineering student and a part time blogger as well. Blogging is my passion and I jumped into it in late 2010 just for fun and to increase my popularity worldwide. At that time, I was in 12th class as a non-medical student. I had a lot of knowledge about Computer in the field of basics, software, hardware and web designing etc because from 6th class he started doing extra courses of it. And from this, my life changed dramatically and gets involved in the world of Blogging. Giving Special thanks to my God and Blogger (WordPress later on) which gives me the platform to express myself in front of the whole world by choosing this way Out.

2.) What is the focus of your blog and why did you choose that niche?

I blog and the owner of Blogging Ways which is a popular How to Blog, SEO and Make Money Online Site found in 2012 under the guidelines of famous experts like Mohammed Mustafa of MBT. Our blog aims at providing quality articles related to SEO, Make Money Online, Blogging tips, WordPress tricks, Social Media News and Web Hosting tips. I choose this niche as it attracts me and had a lot of scope in the future. Also I had too much interest in Making Money and Search Engine Optimization.

What type of wordpress plugins you are using to supercharge your blog.

Well Currently I am using 40+ plugins at my blog. For supercharging my blog, I use W3 total cache, jetpack, Akismet, SEOPressor and many more plugins like this.

Recommended:  20 Best wordPress Plugins

What are the best wordpress themes you would suggest to bloggers.

Actually I only believe in Genesis Framework and all its supported themes. I choose Genesis themes because they all are well structured, nicely coded, SEO optimized, lots of inbuilt features, looks awesome and less loading time of them. Therefore I suggest switching to Genesis at only 59$ one time and child themes at 19$. Another good themes include thesis, Elegant Themes etc.

Your blog is running on which hosting services , which hosting service you would recommend.

Currently My blog was hosted on Indian Web Hosting Company named as BIGROCK and soon I am going to switch to BlueHost because it’s the best WordPress hosting solutions providers ever and recommended by most of the bloggers online. Apart from it, its customer support is damn good!

Recommended: Best WordPress Hosting

What are different ways to increase facebook likes ? How can you increase twitter engagement. Please tell us some tactics.

Well to increase Facebook followers, I use Facebook Page Promoter Lightbox plugin which acts like a popup box when somebody opens my site first time. On the other side, I also organize contests and giveaways on my blog to increase my Facebook engagement. For Twitter, I used to display followers buttons on my site and participate in “you scratch my back and I will yours” like websites such as Twiends etc.

What kind of social media management tools you are using for your blog and also in SEO.

I actually use Buffer App and HootSuite to manage my social media campaign. Buffer helps me to schedule my posts at any time. Apart from it, they also helps in SEO as well!

How to increase linkedin engagement and how to get traffic from Linkedin ?

For getting traffic via LinkedIn, all you have to make your profile killer and relevant, be active and consistent, join groups, post blog articles as status and share your linkedIn profile url with your friends in circle etc. Also display LinkedIn button on your website or blog.

Are you using pinterest for your blog. What kind of tools you are using and how much traffic you get.

To be honest, I am not very much interested in using Pinterest and I just pin my post after publishing, that’s all I do. Usually I get 40-50 visitors from Pinterest.

How to decrease bounce rate of a blog.? can you suggest some methods to reduce it.

There are many online articles about decreasing your’s blog bounce rate and some of them are below that actually works-

1. Less Loading time of blog’s theme

2. Showing Random and Related Posts

3. Beautiful theme and design

4. Interlinking is must

5. Quality Content and easy to read

What e-mail management tool should you use?

I use Aweber and Google Feedburner in order to deliver my blog posts to my readers. This helps me a lot in order to get new 500 subscribers per month. So must give a try to Aweber at only 1$.

Do people need to spend money (e.g., PPC, paid advertising, etc) to make money with affiliate marketing?

If you are an online blogger just like me, then there is no need to spend extra money on PPC or Paid Advertising. But as a business point of view, you can invest money as per your goals. Note- PPC results are temporary and disappears when you have no money so please try real SEO.

What blogs do you read in Affiliates? Tell me about an article you recently read that stuck out to you.

I only read Zacjohnson.Com to read affiliate tips from my Affiliate guru Zac Johnson. Everything comes with time and there is no such article that stuck to me for ever. Actually I read all the articles there and gain knowledge as per time.

What are the Secrets of Affiliate Marketing and are you associated with any kind of affiliates.

Well there is no such secrets, all you have to follow these guidelines below-

1. Choosing the right product to promote.

2. Know How to Promote it

3. Communicate with your affiliate representative

4. Negotiating Higher Payouts

There’s a lot of competition for marketers out there, especially established, quality marketers, how do you survive in this tough competition.

Well I only believe in writing quality articles, do not stuff keywords, follow Google guidelines, do not buy backlinks and ultimately your blog will be survived and be the top of search engines. That’s it!

What’s the best advice or tip you’ve discovered about blogging since getting started?

One thing I definitely learned is that Go slow, Go right, Go better, success will comes towards you! He He! This is my own quote, never mind. Note- If you have your own thoughts, your goal will be achieved faster. The only time you should care about what anybody else thinks, is if you’ve built up a very loyal audience who trusts you a lot.

How can readers of the blog get in touch with you? (social/blog urls)

MY BLOG- www.bloggingways.net

Twitter- @BloggingWays

Facebook-

Google Plus-

Thanks, appreciate it!

Finally Finished !!

I hope you enjoy this amazing interview with Karan. He tried his level best to share awesome techniques he has been using on his blog. Share this interview with your blogger friends so that they can learn more awesome stuff and make their blog a great identity.

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Hey you bloggers we are back again with another stunning interview session!

As part of our BloggersIdeas interview series, today we have  Professional blogger  Adrienne smith, She loves sharing what she have learned over at her blog, adriennesmith.net.

She ‘ve become pretty much a fanatic for all things having to do with blogging, driving traffic to your blog and building relationships with your readers. She is keen blogger and always ready to help fellow bloggers.

Lets explore with Adrienne.

Please tell us about yourself and your educational background ?

I want to thank you as well Jitendra for this opportunity and I’m happy to be here.

My name is Adrienne Smith and I’ve been online now for seven years.  I was an executive assistant for over 31 years while in corporate America.  When our company downsized I made the decision to do something else with my life and eventually found my way to the internet to see if I couldn’t build a business online.

It took me quite a while to understand how this all works and what it was that I enjoyed doing the most.  Blogging just ended up being what I loved and my passion has always been to help others.  Those two things just ended up going hand in hand.

As far as my educational background I didn’t attend college and I’m pretty much self-taught.  Everything I learned how to do I either did it on my own or took a course to learn the skills.

I’ve always loved to learn although at times it can be rather overwhelming.

With increased volatility in the search engine landscape, how do you see SEO’s future shape up in the time to come?  Does it still remain competitive to Paid Search Marketing?

In all honesty, SEO is not my area of expertise and I don’t even write for the search engines anymore.  I did back when I was doing just affiliate marketing and wanting to rank for certain terms.

As I ventured away from that though I started writing more for my readers and stopped concentrating on SEO.

The one thing I know we all can be sure of is that SEO will never die.  Without it there would be no search engines so I’m sure as the years go by that Google will continue to improve how content is being found in the search engines although we may not always agree with those changes.

I don’t want to get on Google’s bad side but I can’t ever seem to please them so I concentrate more on referral and social traffic.

I don’t do any paid search marketing so I can’t really comment on that.

How do you increase your Facebook shared post reach to your audience? Any ideas?

I haven’t concentrated much on Facebook to be honest with you.  Ever since they changed their algorithms in order for us to pay for our content to be promoted I have put more focus on other social platforms.

Now when my product is released hopefully this October, I may concentrate more on their ad network then promoting to just my fan base.

I haven’t taken the time to really grow that mainly because since they changed the way our fans see our content I didn’t want to be obligated to Facebook in that way.  I know I would have a much better reach with their ad network then just my fan base.

What is call tracking in SEO, why it is important. Please give examples?

Again, SEO is not something I do but I have heard of call tracking and I believe this is how it’s defined:

“It’s a way for online marketers to track which sources, campaigns and keywords generate phone calls.

 From what I’ve heard some of the biggest companies in the world use call tracking to measure the effectiveness of their PPC campaigns and SEO efforts. I can see why these companies would value call data significantly.

Marketing agencies also use call tracking. They use it as a way to prove their worth to their clients.  It is especially popular among agencies that do PPC and SEO work.”

How do you optimize 404 page errors on websites?

I have a custom 404 page so that if someone lands on that page I have a cute message waiting for them.  I actually direct them to my “Start Here” page so that they can find the information they were searching for.

Once I release my upcoming product I’ll have an advertisement on that page directing them to that as well.

I think that you should use this page to the best of your ability since people will have issues at times finding what they want.

Google Recently launched Panda and many big businesses got badly affected by it, were any of your sites affected by it?

None of my sites were affected by Google Panda.

What is the reason behind your Blogging success?

I was determined and consistent.

I had listened to so many people tell me what to do that I added what they shared plus what I felt comfortable doing and it just seemed to work well for me.  I did what I knew would bring me results and I did that five days a week consistently.

Still to this day I do those action steps which is why my blog has remained where it is with my readers and I’ve built up a great community, subscriber list and client base.

According to you, what are the best ways to promote a Blog?

For me personally I love blog commenting.  I do promote my posts on the social media sites as well but by commenting on other posts and putting yourself out there in front of enough people then they’re going to pay attention and be eager to see what you’re all about.

Of course, your comments have to be genuine and add value to the conversation because that’s what will make you stand out.

How are you building relationships with your Readers. How do you make them stay on your blog?

I truly care about my readers and they can tell from the content I write and how much I’m eager to help them.

When you like someone and you know they are helping you, you just want to hang around them for a while and learn more from them.

When you reach out to them and let them know that you want to help, no strings attached, people are more open to wanting to come back time and time again.

It’s not just about the content you write but people just want to know you truly care.

Penguin Proof, Panda Proof link building – Do those things exist.(I’ve been seeing link builders package or talk about this one on their services offered) ?

I seriously don’t pay attention to things like this.  I’ve never heard of either of these terms.  I do my best to provide valuable content to my readers that will benefit them so as long as you focus your efforts on delivering in that way I just don’t worry about Google’s next big thing.

Call me naïve if you want but I have yet to be affected by any of their changes so I must be doing something right.

How many years have you been blogging. What do you feel about blogging?

I’ve been blogging for six years and I started on the free platforms.  I’ve been blogging on AdrienneSmith.net for five this past June.

I love blogging and I feel it’s the best way to get in front of your target audience and let them know who you are and what you’re all about.  It’s the best way to help them learn, grow and solve their problems all while building relationships with them that can lead to having them either purchase what you promote or tell their friends all about how fabulous you are.

How many blogs do you have. Which blogs do you follow regularly?

I have three blogs at this time.  One is inactive and I started it because of a course I was taking several years ago.  I wanted to keep it up as a reference.

The other one I have I’m fixing to take offline because it promotes an affiliate product that I believe has run its course.

There are several bloggers that I met at the beginning of my own blogging journey that I look at as really dear friends.  They all write such wonderful content in different niches and I can honestly say I still follow them to this day.  Those people are:

Now there are a lot of blogs I visit regularly so that would be pretty long list.

What are your tips on traffic generation? Please reveal some must use techniques to get more traffic to new blogs?

Well as I mentioned earlier, blog commenting is my favorite way of getting out there in front of people and it’s the reason I am where I am today.  By leaving genuine comments on people’s blog they’ll start to really notice you.

People pay attention to that and will start reaching out to you because they want you to do the same thing on their blogs too.  It’s the best traffic source for me still to this day and has brought me so much success.

The other ways I drive traffic to my blog are by using Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Triberr.

There are literally dozens of ways to drive traffic to your blog but you have to find where your target audience hangs out plus you have to enjoy those platforms too.  I’m on several others as well but these are my best sources to date.

If you have any questions  about this interview, please do ask in the comments below !

Dont forget to share this awesome interview in social media. I will be pleased if you share this now ! Join BloggersIdeas on Facebook, Google+ & Twitter .

Maintaining a blog on your website is critical to its search engine optimization (SEO). That’s just a small piece of a successful content marketing, though. You also need to use guest blogging to get traffic and earn authority in your field.

Effective guest blogging builds trusting relationship between you and your audience, aids in building backlinks, and helps your site move up in the SERPs.

As with other forms of digital marketing, there is a lot involved in guest blogging. Grow your audience through guest blogging, and enjoy all the benefits this marketing tool provides.

Identify Your Goals

Before you create a blog post for another site, you need to identify your goals. Common goals include driving traffic, building a social media following, getting inbound links, and building a large email list. Once you know what you want to accomplish through guest blogging, you will be ready to begin.

Find Opportunities

There are countless guest blogging possibilities for every site owner. You just need to find them. Perform a search for websites — your neighbors in the niche, have loyal readers, and possess a strong presence in all kinds of social media.

If you find a website that meets these criteria, a guest blogging gig will assist you in reaching your aims. Here are just some ways that’ll help you reveal opportunities for successful guest blogging.

Use Google

Begin by creating a list of keywords related to your industry. Then, open up Google and get to work.

Begin by searching for “(your keyword) guest post.” Then search for “(your keyword) submit a guest blog post,” “(your keyword) accepting guest posts,” “(your keyword) guest post guidelines,” “(your keyword) guest blogger,” or “(your keyword) become a contributor.”

Your searches will bring back numerous results. Go through the results and look for sites that meet your criteria.

Use Twitter

Then, repeat the process on Twitter search. You will find some additional opportunities on the social media network. Vet each one and add those that meet your required parameters to your list of opportunities.

Search for Prolific Guest Bloggers

Every industry has its own set of prolific guest bloggers. You will notice these people posting on the top blogs in your industry. Using your list of industry-related keywords, search “(keyword) guest post by” to find the top bloggers in your niche. Add the websites to your list.

Analyze Competitor Backlinks

There is a good chance your competitors are already guest blogging. Use Open Site Explorer or another backlink tool to search for backlinks. Look through the links and pick out the ones that direct to guest blog posts. Add them to your list as well.

Is there any way to simplify this process of search?

Making the lists of potential bloggers is truly time consuming. We’re constantly looking for services that would do at least a part of this job.

One of the recent findings is Adsy – a guest blogging platform where you can select bloggers from a huge inventory, sort them according to the parameters you find important, and then order blog posts. We particularly enjoy the possibility to order the posts’ creation – very handy if you don’t have enough time to do it yourself.

Your Steps Before You Create a Pitch

Once your list is finished, you need to do some research before making your pitch. It will help you stand out in the crowd of other site owners when you contact the bloggers you’ve chosen.

Get to Know the Site

Many guest bloggers make the mistake of pitching a post before they know much about the site. Once you create your list of potential opportunities, take some time to get to know each website. Read the content so you are familiar with what is important to the site owner.

Make a Name for Yourself

Next, comment on the site’s content and share it on social media. If you post valuable comments, you will begin to stand out to the site’s owner. That can help you when you pitch your guest blog post.

Choose Your Topic

After you spend some time learning about and interacting with websites, you can start to think about the topic you want to cover. The topic you choose is extremely important. You need to find a way to add value to an already valuable website.

Begin by deciding the type of content you want to produce. You can create a piece in response to something that is already on the website, provide additional information on a topic that is important to readers, or write on a topic that has yet to be covered on the site but fits into the niche and is likely to be popular with the audience.

Narrow Down the Topic

After you come up with a general topic idea, go to BuzzSumo to narrow it down. Let’s say you want to write a post about internet marketing for beginners.

You would type that topic into the search box, and then the tool will show you the most popular posts on that topic. You don’t want to copy these article titles verbatim, but they will give you some insight into what is likely to be shared and commented on.

Create Your Pitch

Once you have your topic, you’ll be ready to create your pitch. This is another area where many people make mistakes. They think they can just email a site owner and ask for a guest blogging gig. To be successful, though, you need to follow a certain process.

Check the Guidelines

Most sites that accept guest posts have guidelines for guest posters listed on the website. The guidelines will include the types of posts accepted.

The guidelines also might include information about the pitch. Some site owners want you to submit an email pitch or fill out an online form, while others want you to submit the completed post. If you have to submit a full post, there will also be format guidelines. Follow this information to the letter, or your pitch/post will likely be ignored.

Write the Email

If you have to pitch the post, using the proper format is essential. Use these tips to create a powerful pitch.

Personalize the Introduction

People who own popular websites get lots of emails, and far too many start with “Dear Sir or Madam” or another generic opening. It’s important to find the blog owner’s name and use it to open the email.

Introduce Yourself

You need to let the blog owner know who you are. When you do this, focus on your blogging skills. Some blog owners only open their blogs up to other bloggers, so you need to mention that you maintain your own blog.

Provide the Benefits

You can’t just say that you’re a great blogger. You need to prove it. Explain why the site owner should publish a guest blog from you. Include links to at least two of your best performing posts.

Provide the Pitch

Next, you need to include the pitch. Pitches need to be short and direct and include the post title, along with a brief description. Keep each pitch within two or three sentences or use bullet points for easy reading.

It’s a good idea to pitch at least three blog posts. That way, the site’s owner can determine which post is right for the website.

Create the Post

If your pitch is accepted, you’ll need to deliver on your promise by creating an amazing guest blog post. There are a few things to keep in mind when creating your blog post.

Start with a Killer Title

You submitted prospective titles when pitching your blog post. You can tweak the titles if needed when creating your blog post as long as you maintain the essence of the pitch. Make sure the title uses action words and invokes emotion. It should also outline the benefits to the reader.

If you need help creating a headline, use CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer. It will help you create a clickable headline.

Educate the Readers

Guest blog posts are not advertisements. They are pieces of content that educate readers. Create a blog post that delivers a great deal of value to the readers.

Include Links

It’s always a good idea to link to one of the host site’s pages. Look for relevant blog posts and link to them inside of your own guest blogging post.

You should also include source links to back up claims that you make in the post. This will show people that you have done your research.

Add a Call-to-Action (CTA)

Most guest bloggers realize they need to include a CTA, but they fail to do it properly. They use the CTA to try to get visitors to go to their own website or buy their products. Instead, use your CTA to ask people to leave comments. If people comment, the post’s engagement levels will skyrocket.

Check the Formatting

When you complete the guest blog post, go back and check the formatting. Posts should be formatted like other posts on the blog. Some blogs use lots of headers and images, and you should do the same if you want your post to appear on the site. You should also look for quotes, bold text, and other special formatting.

Create Your Bio

Before you even submit your guest blog post, work on creating your bio. It is almost equally important as the post you’ve written because this is how people will know more about you. A well-crafted bio will help you multiply the effect of your guest blogging goals.

Many people create guest blogs to drive traffic to their websites. If that’s your goal, add a link to your bio that sends people to a place where the traffic will be the most beneficial. Many people create custom landing pages for this purpose. The landing pages align with the topic of the blog and give additional promotion to products or services.

Getting backlinks through bio is another popular goal. Think through the anchor text you should have for the backlink and then include it in your bio. This is trusted to be an excellent way to get a high-quality link to your site.

If you plan to build your email list, include a link that directs people to sign up for your list in your bio. You might even want to talk about what your list delivers in our bio.

Similarly, you can use your bio to create a social media following. Instruct people to follow you on Facebook, Twitter, or another social media account and provide a link to it.

Don’t make the mistake of trying to reach all of these goals in your bio. Identify one the most important goal and create your bio to reach it.

What to Do After Your Post Is Live

You might think your work is done after your guest post is live, but that isn’t the case. You need to engage with the audience, promote the content, track your results, and repeat the process.

Engage with the Audience

Your goal is to invite people to engage and interact with your blog post. When they finally do, respond. This helps in two ways. First, it allows you to connect with the new audience you’ve reached through the blog post. Second, it makes blog owners incredibly happy.

They love it when their guest bloggers don’t just spot having got the backlinks, but rather engage with their readers. Do so, and your chances to get posted again will be much higher.

Promote the Post

You can’t count on the blog owner to do all the promotion instead of you. You also need to share and promote the post to ensure it will perform well. Use email marketing and social media to attract more audience to your guest blog posts. This will help you interact with even more people, boosting the engagement levels and traffic.

Track the Results

You will likely create lots of blog posts over the course of your career, and some will perform better than others. Measuring the results is necessary so you can determine which posts perform the best. Then, you will know which topics and websites help you reach your goals.

Google Analytics is an excellent tool for tracking results. The Advanced Segments feature lets you create different segments for your referral traffic. Create segments for each of your guest blog posts and then look at the conversions, top content, demographics, and more. Use that information to create highly effective guest blog posts moving forward.

Repeat the Process

Your guest blogging efforts shouldn’t be a one-time thing, but rather should be repeated. As soon as you post one guest blog, start crafting the next one. The more often you repeat this process, the easier it will be to achieve your goals.

Also Read:-

Get the Most Out of Guest Blogging : [Latest Guide] How to Grow Your Audience With Guest Blogging 2022

Guest blogging is easily one of the best content marketing strategies available. It gives you instant access to a new audience and helps you position yourself as an authority in your industry. It’s also an excellent way to connect with important blog owners in your industry.

Take your time when researching guest blogging opportunities, crafting pitches, and creating posts. If you rush the process, you are likely to make a mistake that will derail your campaign. Or, leverage the help of third party platforms, like Adsy the we’ve mentioned earlier.

This way you’ll be able to get remarkable results from your guest blogging and save your time and effort. Move forward carefully, and you’ll reach a huge audience and meet your goals.

 

Whether you’re starting a personal blog on the side for fun or launching a blog that needs to generate income, understanding the importance of SEO (search engine optimization) and how to incorporate it into your content matters. This understanding can make the difference between creating a successful blog that people care about and creating a flop that does nothing but take up space online.

SEO stands for “search engine optimization,” and it refers to the process through which you make your text easy for search engines (like Google or Yahoo) to understand. There are a variety of practices that fall into the broad category of SEO. For example, researching which blog titles are going to work best and draw the most traffic is a form of search engine optimization.

Search engine optimization has gotten a bad reputation in the blogging community because many bloggers want to focus on creating stellar content, not on selecting which keywords will help Google rank their blog higher. Additionally, old SEO practices like keyword stuffing made blog content almost unreadable.

However, when you do it correctly, SEO will enhance your content, not detract from it. Doing SEO research can help you pick a topic that your readers will care about and focus on that specific topic. If you choose the right topic, using your keywords will be an organic process, and they’ll flow seamlessly into your text.

Your readers should never notice that you’ve used SEO best practices. Ultimately, search engines value good content above anything else. So, if your focus is on creating high-quality content, you’re already off to a good start!

Now that you understand what SEO is and how it can be used in conjunction with creating high-quality content, lets go over some quick and easy SEO tips that you can start putting into practice today. We’ll talk about creating SEO-Friendly Titles and descriptions, optimizing your text, and other SEO best practices to create a blog that not only tells a story, but knows who it’s telling that story to.

Optimizing Titles & Descriptions

The first step to creating a more optimized website is to improve the quality of your titles and your blog descriptions. Do some research into keywords that your viewers will care about. Your best bet, when you’re starting out, is to use long-form keywords that don’t have a lot of competition but do have a lot of traffic. As your blog becomes more and more well known, you can slowly start incorporating more short-term keywords into your blog.

Once you’ve chosen a list of keywords, you should make sure that your keywords are in both your title and your description. Skip the cutesy titles like “What we did this weekend,” because no one is searching for that. Instead, create a specific, searchable title, such as “How to make the most out of a weekend in Bar Harbor, Maine.”

Then, in your description, you would again write something like, “We spent a weekend in Bar Harbor, Maine. Here are our top 5 takeaways.” This tells search engines–and your readers–exactly what they’re getting with the content you’re posting.

Framing your titles and descriptions with search engines in mind also tends to put the focus on the reader rather than on you. This makes your content more exciting and engaging, and ultimately improves your content.

Optimizing Your Text

Once you have a killer title and a description that draws in organic traffic, your next step is to optimize your text. It’s important to remember that only one page can make it to the top of a Google search. If multiple blog posts are trying to rank for the same keywords, you end up competing with yourself.

Consider combining similar topics into one piece of long-form pillar content rather than writing multiple short pieces about the same thing. When writing new content, consider new keywords that you can try to rank for.

You don’t want to stuff your text with the keywords you’re trying to rank for. Instead, try to use them naturally 3-4 times throughout the whole blog post (or 2-3 times if it’s a shorter blog post). By choosing your keywords before choosing your topic, you can make this a lot easier on yourself.

Other Best Practices

There are other ways to make your blog show up higher in google. Spamzilla is a great resource for finding expired domains that you can use to generate more backlinks to your website. You should also keep in mind that the search engines now give preference to websites that are mobile-friendly. For this reason, you should reduce image sizes and limit flashy texts or gifs that might not show up as well on phones.

SEO doesn’t have to be a negative term. As a blogger, you should care about optimizing your blog so that the right readers can locate the amazing content you have to offer. As your SEO knowledge grows, your readership will grow as well!