If you asked 10 SEO experts what it took to get a website to rank well in search engines 9 of them will probably tell you great content. If you’ve been researching for a while you’re probably tired of hearing it. Even Google themselves consistently suggest creating “great content” and a spesific technique frequently mentioning is writing blog posts. Defining what makes high-quality blog content is difficult tasks, but we decided to give it a shot anyway…

This is content that has limited intentions. Typically the creation of this content took little to no effort and is placed on a blog to make it appear active or to try to get a blog to rank based on the keywords within the content. Typical ways this content is created…

• Rewriting a blog post found on another site.
• Article Spinning – is a black hat SEO technique where you place an article into software which then automatically rewrites the article. As you can imagine this doesn’t create very great content and it can be typically spotted just by reading a few sentences.
• The writer wrote on a topic they knew nothing about.

Audience Size: Small to nothing.
Engagement: None
Life Span: 0-1 day

This is content that’s typically produced by inexperienced publisher who has either never written on the web before or has attempt to write based on some vague understanding of SEO which has lead them to stuff it with keywords. D content can also be a post that’s has little to no words that really holds little to no value to any reader. This might of been better to publish on a microblogging platform like twitter rather than a blog.

Audience Size: Small
Engagement: Little to none.
Life Span: 0 to a few days.

This is content that can be found on the average blog. This content is interesting to a small audience and has some value to that audience. There is nothing wrong with a blog post that fits this category and it may even get some social engagement (blog comments, tweets, likes, +1s, etc). Content of this category is usually good enough to help your site rank and keep your website fresh.

Audience Size: Medium
Engagement: Some
Life Span: 1-2 weeks.

This content typically appears to a fairly large audience and gets a lot of social engagement which lasts a few weeks after the post goes live. Content of this type may not get the attention it deserves due to lack of blog authority. If this is the case the blogger should continue to write great content and work on getting it in-front of their target audience. A great way to do this is through social networks.

Audience: Medium to Large
Engagement: Good
Life Span: 1 to 3 months.

This kind of blog post is the cream of the crop. This post not only gets very good social engagement but it has engagement for a much longer lifespan of the average blog… possibly a year or two after the post was written. Content that fits this category is probably lengthy (400+ words) and has other forms of media (images, documents, videos, photos, etc). If you have a website with little to no visibility then you may want to consider offering content of this quality to a more authoritative site where it will get the visibility it deserves.

Audience Size: Large
Engagement: Great
Life Span: 4+ months.

If you want to maintain a respectable blog you should aim to write blog content that’s at least a C. If you have the ability to consistently create A and B content then congratulations you’re probably already doing well!

What grade do you think your average blog post fits into? Maybe you have a different opinion on how this scale should work… we’d love to hear it!

I hope this post is at least a C+

In the business world, a brand ambassador is the embodiment of the brand. A brand ambassador is the face, name, or voice of a product that distinguishes the brand from others. Their job is to be the spokesperson and more, ensuring that the portrayal of a product or brand is consistent across platforms. For website owners, the brand ambassador plays another kind of role which is similar but also different. After all, blogging is different from making TV commercials. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need a brand ambassador on the web.

Gives Your Site a Personality

The brand ambassador for your website should be the personality who promotes the image you want to portray. Why is it important for your site to have personality? First of all, your readers are going to want to know who you are and why you’re doing what you do. Readers are getting more and savvier, and they no longer take the advice of an anonymous blogger without reading a bit more about them. If they don’t trust the personality behind the blog, they won’t be compelled to come back and read more.
A brand ambassador can be the personality of your blog, giving readers the consistency of a face to go with the name and brand of your site.

Blog Writing, Maintenance and Promotion

Your brand ambassador should be at the center of your online promotional efforts. They are the face and personality of your website, so they should be around when big things happen. But they can also provide much needed regular maintenance. The brand ambassador can be the primary blogger for your site, bringing in guest bloggers when appropriate. By having a successful and like-able brand ambassador you will be making it easy to keep the focus of the blog and promote it when you want to bring in new visitors. They should also make sure each new blog posts gets as much visibility as possible through social media and other online communities. Or maybe your brand ambassador outsources their blog writing to a service like ours…

Makes Social Media More Successful

Another way that brand ambassadors improve the performance of your online business is by being the face of your social media campaigns. People respond to people, and they follow the advice given by the people they trust. You want to be a resource or an attraction for your readers. You want them to come back, you want them to share your posts, and you want their friends to visit your site. Social media is a powerful tool, and you can boost its effectiveness if your readers are engaging with a brand ambassador via social media.

Who is This Brand Ambassador?

For many people, the brand ambassador for a new blog or affiliate site is themselves. Either the primary owner of the site or one of the team members becomes the brand ambassador as they also become the marketing director, blogger, and reputation manager. There is a lot of work to be done when you start up a site, and jobs can get tight. There’s nothing wrong with finding a brand ambassador that can represent your site for you.

Get out there and be or hire a brand ambassador today! They can be your SEO, Site Promotion, Online PR, Blogger, Social Media Manager and Reputation Manager all in one. Now if you’re a larger business you’ll probably want to have more than one.

At Blog Hands we practice what we preach. How can we expect anyone else to believe in our process if we don’t? Just like what we offer our clients, our strategy starts with blog post writing and promotion… what better way to show you our process works than showing you our very own website analytics…

Our Non-Branded Organic Search Traffic:

We’re happy to report that our organic search engine traffic is up 998% over last year and continues to climb.

Our Obstacles

Like any internet marketing campaign there are some kinks in this graph, but if you do things right the trendline will be in the right direction. We expected a kink in December since during the holidays people are spending less time on their computers and more time with family. The drop that really upset us was in February, which was cased by a malware injection. Sadly this is part of managing a website and tends to happen when you’re not looking. The good news is we were able to clean it up and created some great content in March and April which has taken our website to new heights.

Please learn from us and make sure you have someone keeping a close eye on changes to your website. If this does happen to you, we recommend Google’s guide for dealing with malware and hacked sites. Then pick up your online marketing where you left off. As long as you fix the problem as quickly as you can and get right back to the internet marketing strategies that work, you should be able to bounce back like we did.

What Else Did We Do?

The core component of our online marketing strategy is exactly what we sell. Creating great blog content and marketing it on networks with strong communities. I like to think of this as the engine to our internet marketing strategy. Don’t get me wrong… while we think our service is great you should consider marketing your website in another ways. Here are a few other things we did this year that helped grow our online visibility…

• Guest Blogging – We reached out to a few blogs that we felt had an audience that was very similar to ours and wrote blog posts that they could use. Check out our post on business2community.com titled “5 Habits to Catapult Your Small Business Blog to the Next Level”. We’ve been testing out providing this same service for our clients and are thinking of rolling that out sometime this year. Would you be interested?  We’ve also accepted a guest blog post recently.  A representative from theceomagazine.com wrote a great blog post titled “Why Companies (and CEOs) Should Blog”. If you’re going to accept guest posts we recommend that you be selective and make sure what they wrote will make sense on your website.
• Social Media Engagement – At Blog Hands we feel that engaging your audience on social networks like twitter is just as important as rankings in Google. Spending as little as a half hour a day answering questions on sites like Twitter can go a long way.
• Press Releases – When we have something we feel newsworthy happen, press releases are a great way to get the word out. They also typically rank, at least for a short time, for your brand name. Getting good news in front of people looking for information about you. We suggest only doing press releases for something that’s truly newsworthy. This guide may help you find think of something newsworthy to talk about.
• We Put People First – No matter how important having search engine rankings is, real people always come first. Whenever we find ourselves debating whether or not we should make an adjustment to our site for SEO purposes we always ask ourselves “is this going to improve our user experience?”. If the answer is no, then we should put our times on something that will.
• Analyzed the data and made tweaks – We are always making small tweaks to our website and blog posting strategy and we recommend you do the same. How do we do this? For us it all starts with consistently reviewing the data that Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools provide. Analytics can tell you what content is working and what keywords are driving the most traffic. While Google Webmaster Tools is great for looking at what your website is showing up in the search results for, even if you’re not getting clicks, which can help you identify new opportunities. Google Webmaster Tools is also great for finding out about sites that have linked to you that you might not of been aware of. If someone links to you there may be an opportunity to form a strong business relationship.

I hope this gives those of you who aren’t already using our blog writing service some insight into what type of results you may expect. If you’re still on the fence or maybe just looking for some advice please contact us… we’ll be glad to help.

Many people have built successful affiliate sites that bring in a secondary or even a primary income. Affiliate sites are one of the most simple types of online businesses to set up, and the Internet is full of advice about how to do just that. But not everyone is successful. In fact, the vast majority of people who start out with an affiliate site end up giving it up and not making money. The primary reason that affiliate sites fail is a lack of traffic, especially relevant traffic. And the best way to generate relevant traffic to an affiliate site is with a blog with great content.

Google’s Stand Against Affiliate Sites

Not only are blogs a great tool to use to built a successful affiliate site, they are also recommended by Google. Google has recently taken a stand against affiliate sites that are built just as affiliate sites. In other words, they’re not returning sites for search results because the site offers no new or useful information to their users. With heightened attention from Google, you’re probably wondering whether an affiliate site is a good idea at all.

Here’s the good news. Google has advice for would-be affiliate site owners: “Use your website to build community among your users. This will help build a loyal readership, and can also create a source of information on the subject you are writing about. For example, discussion forums, user reviews, and blogs all offer unique content and provide value to users.”

What Google has to say about your affiliate links…

So they don’t want you to sell stuff that users can just as easily find on Amazon or Ebay, but they don’t mind if you sell stuff if your readers are at your site because they’re interested in what you’re saying on your blog (or forum, or reviews). In other words, having a blog should be the first thing you do if you want to make money with an affiliate site, according to Google. Get people interested in what you have to share, and have relevant affiliate ads that your readers are likely to click on.

Blogging Helps Set Your Affiliate Site Apart

In many ways, Google is not just cracking down. They are also working to provide a relevant and useful service through their search engine. If they turn up results that their users aren’t looking for, they’re not doing their job. A website that is all affiliate ads and uninteresting, but SEO rich, copy does not really interest web users. They end up on the site, realize all they’ll find are ads, and click the back button.

So an affiliate site that is successful is actually called something else. The best thing you could call it would be a blog, and not just any blog. Provide something interesting for your readers to find when they arrive at your site. When they click around, they’ll see more of what they’re interested in, because the blog has good content on an interesting topic. They’ll come back again and again, and they are the most likely web users to click on your affiliate ads.

More advice from Google on how to set your affiliate site apart…

Over the past year we shared some of the ways we come up ideas for our blog posts. From basic everyday ways we brainstorm ideas to more complex ways like using various tools to target what works for your competition. Based on the response we received from these posts we’ll continue to share our ideas with you. Here are out top 4 from the year…

Get Ideas From Your Competitors
Analyzing what’s working for others is one of our favorite ways to identify blog topics. It helps you identify what’s already working. Don’t overuse this technique because you may end up losing your originality. Mix up this technique with others and make sure when you do use an idea from a competitor to add your own creative spin.

Get Blog Ideas From Tiwtter
Twitter… now a household name and in my opinion the most important marketing tool invented since Google. It’s also a very valuable tool for getting ideas for your blog posts. Since we did this blog posts I’ve come up with a few new ways to get ideas from twitter… but I’ll save those for another post

Inspiration for Your Blog Posts and How to Find It
In this post we had five of our writers write down one way they came up with blog posts and this list was the result of that exercise. These are some solid ideas that are used by many bloggers.

A Few More Blog Writing Ideas
Not our most creative blog post title… but to the point. This was the blog post that started it all and due to it’s success we wrote the others. This post gave our readers 6 ways to come up with blog posts…. that’s it… nothing more to say about this one. hehe.

If these posts inspire just one person, it was all worth it. Let us know what you think and we’d love to hear how you come up with writing ideas and overcome writers block.

Here are some of our favorite posts from other blogs…

• 7 Effortless Ways to Find New Ideas for Your Blog
  
• Blogging Ideas for 2013: 5 Ways to Build Your Topic Pipeline
• How to get blog posts ideas for your blog
• How to Get Killer Blog Post Ideas
• 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers

Not every good writer or blogger is also a photographer. As a blogger, you’ve probably seen some beautiful blogs that have stunning original photography and wondered whether you should go out and take a photography class. While that is certainly a fine idea, there are other, quicker ways to get great images for your blog. Good images are important, because readers are immediately engaged when they see a good visual. You may not have to take photos, or even pay for them, but don’t forego images simply because you don’t know where to look for them.

Free Image Resources

There are plenty of places to start, and even more websites not listed here. You’re guaranteed to come up with many results at any one of these sites.

• Compfight.com is a great resource with a simple-to-use interface. You can search either commercial or creative commons licenses, or any. They have tons of free images, but they also provide professional stock photos for as little as $1. This makes them a great resource, no matter your budget.
• Photopin.com is very similar to Compfight, in that it’s simple and quick to use. They also have the option to choose from images you pay for and images that are free to be used either commercially or creatively. You’ll find that you get a ton of images back and they are mostly high quality.
• Search.CreativeCommons.org is the Creative Commons search engine. You can choose to search Flickr, Fotopedia, Pixababy, and Google Images, among other options. They also have music and other media that is under the Creative Commons license and free to use and share.

Besides the Photos

What do you do if you need images besides photos? Do you need an icon or illustration for your latest blog post? With the creativity of the Internet behind you, you can also find these types of images to use for free or very cheap.

• IconFinder.com provides icons in multiple formats including PNG and SVG, which can be filtered by license. You can also choose the background – either white, black, or checkered. Check them out when you need a quick icon. iconarchive.com is also a great choice.
• getfireshot.com  allows you to take screenshots with your browser. Screenshots can come in handy, especially if your blog post is a tutorial.
• pixlr.com is a completely free online photo editor. It’s features can be closely compared to Photoshop which will run you more than a thousand dollars.
• Fiverr.com OK so it’s not free but fiverr is a place where people are buying and selling services for just $5. You can post a request that someone draw you just about anything for $5, or you can browse the listed ads from providers.

Building a successful blog takes some work and it doesn’t happen over night. In the long run, making money from a blog may turn out to be easy and liberating, but before you reach that point you’ve got to put in the work. One part of great content is great images that capture the attention of your intended audience.

If you can’t take them yourself, finding photos online is a great option. Of course, it may also be fun to stretch your creative muscles to see if you can take great pictures with a bit of practice. There’s always back-up at the sites listed in this post.

This is a guest post from the new Norwegian edition of The CEO Magazine, if you’d like to know more about next month’s issue, check them out online for a preview of what’s inside.

Blogging is a form of communication through a website where an individual or group of individuals create news posts, sometimes once a day or several times a day, about any topic. Blogging has evolved over the years, allowing many people to have a platform to voice their thoughts on the day or on news. In addition, blogs allow for comments from website visitors. These user comments open up conversations between other users and even the blogger. Good blogs allow for bloggers to interact with all posters. Blogs can be focused on a number of topics, including business. However, there are many blogs that are facilitated by businesses themselves or members of a business. For a business, it is important to blog to the general population. In addition, it is important for CEOs to blog also.

Blogging Allows for Low Cost Networking

Blogging has served many businesses well in providing a cheap and effective way of networking the business brand, goods, or services to consumers. Blogging is relatively cheap and can be free if the company only utilizes free blogging platforms. Even if the company wants a detailed blog website and a paid blogger to post updates, the cost of maintaining this would be low compared to other advertisement and marketing strategies.

Blogging is Great for Search Engine Visibility

In that same vein, blogging is an excellent marketing strategy for SEO. When posting updates related to the company, the blog posts are brought to the top of search engine results from rich keyword usage. The result, depending on the topic of the blog post, will be that some of these blog posts will reach the top of search engine results. Say a realtor business has a blog and a post about housing prices in a particular region. If written correctly, the blog post could reach the top of search engine results if a user is searching for information about a region’s housing prices. These high search engine results help users find the business and potentially investigate the business more.

Blogging Humanizes Communication with Your Customers

Another benefit to blogging is that blogging tends to be a humanizing communication. Blogs are written in a personal, conversational tone and so the blogger for a company tends to write in a welcoming way for readers. In addition, blog posts from a company can serve other purposes for consumers. With the Realtor company example, the blog can post exclusively about housing news and housing marketing posts. This kind of blogging is attractive to consumers since it provides useful information to consumers instead of news exclusively about the company. This humanization and providing useful information instead of company news attracts users to see the human-side of a company.

All of these tips and strategies can be used for a CEO’s strategy to blog. It is important for CEOs to blog since it further humanizes the company and the CEO, who could be seen as distant from consumers. The added benefit to a CEO blogging is the CEO is not only the authority of the company, but the authority of the particular industry. With the realtor example, a CEO of a realtor company would be considered an expert to many consumers in the field of housing. What the CEO posts about housing can drive the general conversations about their industry across the web. The CEO’s opinion on the blog post can serve as an education tool, a conversations starter, or tools that can help consumers and other businesses. These factors not only humanize the CEO, but adds prestige and authority to the CEO by consumers.

Blogging is a medium of connection, so businesses and CEOs can find it fruitful to blog. Blogging can be fun and helps spread ideas about particular industries. Without focusing too much on the business per se, a business or CEO blog can reflect positively on those figures.

I got a  Samsung Chromebook a week ago today and so far I say hallelujah! Okay, maybe that was a bit over the top, but so far I like it. I’ve been an advocate for netbooks even during its decline due to the popularity of tablets and have been steadfast in my advocacy. I use 3 different computers on a daily basis which has lead me to use cloud services that make my transition from computer to computer easy. This is why my transition to a Chromebook hasn’t felt that disruptive to my everyday computer usage.

Lots of Power, Little Money

At $250 you’re probably thinking this laptop is going to be a sluggish machine with a tiny keyboard, and I don’t blame you. There were a lot of laptops in the netbook category that were lackluster. I consider myself a poweruser, my Desktop PC can run any video game you want to throw at it and I have spent a lot of time working to get the best performance out of just about every machine I’ve ever owned. I have to say I was very impressed with how snappy this laptop was, especially considering the hardware wasn’t necessarily top notch. It appears Google has eliminated many of the unnecessary processing your normal PC has to do… giving you the ability to get great performance out of a low end/low cost machine.

Who Needs Software?

You as well as many others are probably thinking “what about all my great Windows software?” and I say “great software?” I’ve been able to look at this as a strength. There’s no need to download software, then get unwanted toolbars or applications running in the background slowing you down. Since everything runs through Chrome it eliminates many of the annoyances of owning a PC… Including viruses.

Blogging on the Go

As a blogger the laptop is great. You have everything you need out of the box… a browser. Load up Google Docs when you need to make some rough drafts, turn on some tunes with Pandora when you need some music, and load up hootsuite to connect through social networks. Since the battery life is long I can leave my power cord at home when I go out to a local coffee shop to do some work.

It’s been a great experience so far and I see myself getting a lot of use out of this little machine.

This year Kred created a leaderboard for elite bloggers and we are excited to announce that we have been featured on their list. To be honest we’ve been more active users of Klout as a social influence metric but this recognition created a renewed interest in kreds unique system. At a closer look Kred says they score your social activity by your trust (how influential are you on other users) and generosity (how do you help other people spread their message). Learn more about Kred here.

What do you think about Kred?

If you’ve had a website for a while you’ve probably created some videos, infographics, slide shows, whitepapers or other form of rich content. Placing that content on your website is great, but if you’re site doesn’t have a large audience it might never get seen. By promoting that content in the right channels you can get it in front of eager eyeballs. Below I’ve selected what I think are the very best sites to promote your content. These choices were made based on the search visibility of the site, the size of their active community and the potential of referral traffic to your website. There are many other places you can promote your content that didn’t make the cut. Contact me if you want more suggestions.

Infographics

Videos

Youtube

Documents

Photos/Images

Flickr

Imgur

Blog Posts

Everything

Placing your content on these networks will not only help get it in front of the large communities found on these websites but also improve your search engine visibility.

Do you have any other places you’d recommend?