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How To Make Your Blog Hit A Tipping Point

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Blog Tipping Point

The tipping point is one of the most desired points to hit for any blogger. The tipping point represents a giant surge of traffic that increases beyond expectations. It is the type of traffic that takes a blog from a few hundred visitors every month to thousands of daily visitors in a relatively short period of time.

When my blog hit its tipping point, it originally got 500 views every month. Then, month by month, my viewership doubled until this blog got to 25,000 monthly views. It only took a few months to make that big transition. While this transition was taking place, I was utilizing many tools and resources to grow my presence, but I did not know everything that I know now. In order to make your blog hit a tipping point, these are the six things you need to focus on:

 

#1: Provide Valuable Content

Promoting your content only goes so far. One thing that determines your success as a blogger is how many people promote your content. Few people are capable of making content go viral on their own.  Only the Oprah types can accomplish such a feat. 99% of the time, content goes viral when the people in your audience share that content with their friends, and those friends share the content with their friends. Repeat the process a dozen times with each friend, and then you have viral content.

However, people are not going to talk about your content just because it is there. People primarily talk about extremely poor or valuable content. The poor content gets bashed while the valuable content gets praised. Valuable content is the content that wins on the web and gets shared the most. Valuable content results in more returning visitors and stronger relationships between you and your readers. Don’t be afraid to provide free value on your blog. In many cases, it is the free value that encourages the sale. So you’ll make more money anyway.

 

#2: Grow Your Email List

You have to listen to me on this one. I started focusing on my email list a few years after creating this blog. That was by far, undoubtably, without question the biggest mistake I made with this blog (I’m emphasizing this for a reason). Out of the first 100,000 visitors who visited this blog, I didn’t even get 300 subscribers because my blog was poorly optimized to get more subscribers. Your email list is so important because it gives you an easy way to communicate with your subscribers, and the click through rates are incredible. Even if you only get a 5% click through for your emails, that is a much higher statistic than the percentage of click throughs you would get on social media (almost always under 1%).

Some marketers go as far to say that the size of your email list indicates your income. Most of the successful bloggers who make six figure incomes have over 10,000 subscribers (although having 10,000 subscribers does not guarantee a six figure income, having that many subscribers is very helpful). These blogs get a surge in traffic when an email blast gets sent to subscribers promoting the latest article. Imagine having a list of 10,000 email addresses, and 7% of those people clicked on the link. That’s an extra 700 visitors just from that one email. Some of those visitors may decide to share the blog post on social media (very helpful for SEO) or write a blog post about your blog post. Most of the blog posts that I promote on this blog (that aren’t mine) are blog posts written by Seth Godin. I’ve been reading his emails every day for over two years. That’s not a coincidence. I typically share links to blog posts that I read in my inbox first.

Don’t make the same mistake I made. Build your email list now. It is your number one priority for turning blogging into a full-time income.

 

#3: Grow Your Social Media Audience

Once you write valuable content and have landing pages set up to collect email addresses, those pages need visibility. The web is a noisy place with millions of blogs. Someone finding your blog (or anyone’s blog for that matter) is like finding the needle in the haystack. Some needles in the haystack get found more often than others. In order for your needle (blog) to be found in the haystack (the web) more often, you need to promote your content on social media.

Not only is building your social media audience a great way to promote your content, but it is essential towards establishing your authority on the web. Having a large social media audience gives you better social proof. Think about it this way. Would you rather buy the Twitter guide from the person with 100 followers or the person with 100,000 followers? Would you rather take the Facebook course from the trainer with 1,000 Facebook likes or the trainer with 1 million Facebook likes. When you grow your social media audience, you can use the social proof to boost your credibility.

No matter what you do, never resort to buying fake followers. Not only does it hurt your credibility, but the fake followers will never engage with you. They will also make your real followers feel uncomfortable. Here is an interesting case study from Social Media Today about someone who bought 50,000 Twitter followers (and was disgusted by the results).

 

#4: Boost Your Blog’s SEO

To many bloggers, SEO is still confusing. The main reason SEO seems confusing is because there are so many factors that go into a search engine’s ranking system. Some search engine tactics such as adding alt tags do not necessarily improve the value of your blog posts. Those types of search engine improvements are the ones that get done behind the scenes so search engines can understand what your blog is about.

My recommendation is to only learn a few SEO methods at a time and implement them one by one. Focus on improving your blog’s bounce rate, linking to your other blog posts, including alt tags in your pictures, growing your social media audience (that helps with SEO) and writing longer blog posts (while keeping the value). My recommendation is to master one of these tips at a time and then move on to a new set of tips. You can start with any five tips you desire. I wrote a blog post that contains a few more tips about boosting your blog’s SEO.

 

#5: Put In More Work Than You Already Are

If you want to make it to the next level in anything, then you have to put in the next level of work. The more time you commit to blogging, the farther you will go. If you spend twice as much time researching different tactics you can use to boost SEO, get more subscribers, and grow your social media audience, then you will have twice as much knowledge in those areas. If you spend twice as much time writing content, then that content will probably be longer and more valuable.

It is possible to reach a tipping point for your blog, but reaching that tipping point (or anything important and worth the time) is not an easy task. I wrote blog posts every day even when I knew no one would see them. It was the process of writing every day that allowed me to get better, learn new tricks, and turn my blog into what it is today.

 

#6: Persistence

A blogger’s journey is one of persistence. For the average blogger, it takes a few years before his efforts turn into a full-time income. Every blogger, even the most successful ones, started out with no audiences of their own. Successful bloggers had to fight their way through the noise as they grew their email lists and social media audiences. It takes months of research to master SEO and a few weeks of research to learn what happens when Google comes out with a major search engine update.

If you are persistent, and you learn new techniques along the way, then you will become a successful blogger. Be patient, continue to put in the work, and success will greet you on the other side.

 

In Conclusion

Tipping points take a lot of work to pull off, but any blogger can experience a tipping point, the moment when traffic soars more than ever before. Even the most successful bloggers experience tipping points in their social media audiences, blog traffic, and the number of subscribers they get.

The key to becoming a successful blogger is by being persistent and learning new techniques along the way. Which tip was your favorite? Do you have any additional tips for bloggers who want to reach their tipping points? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

The One Simple Way For Entrepreneurs To Get What They Want In Life

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The One Thing

Who wants to be successful by doing what they love? I’m sure everyone’s hand would go up. It is a shame that we are not properly trained to be successful by doing what we love to do. We are trained to get a job and work in the status quo, but for most people, the status quo does not offer a lovable job. There is a distinct feeling of dignity and happiness to make your own success instead of working for someone else.

Every entrepreneur takes a bold step by getting out of the status quo (or never being a part of it), but not all of these entrepreneurs are successful. Many entrepreneurs are rising stars who are not household names quite yet.

If you are like most entrepreneurs, you have an array of tasks to complete. If someone asks you how many tasks you have to complete today, you may say dozens. You may have the sticky notes, the score cards, the plan, and everything else all laid out so you can easily accomplish the tasks in front of you.

It is a shame that few or even none of the tasks most entrepreneurs perform line up with what they truly want in life. The primary reason most entrepreneurs do not reach their high standards is because most of their time gets split up until only the crumbs are left. These crumbs of time are all entrepreneurs allocate to the one thing they want at that moment. Maybe you want to be a millionaire, see your training course get twice as many sales this month, triple your blog traffic in the next quarter, or something else.

The one thing you want, the most important thing, is the one thing you need to spend the majority of your time on. If your one goal is to become a millionaire, you need to carve out 50% of your time towards that goal. You need to grow your email list, create the products, find partners, and make your products wildly successful. If you are focusing on anything that derails you from your one main goal, then it is a distraction. As New York Times bestselling author Gary Keller puts it, “until your ONE Thing gets accomplished, everything else is a distraction.”

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/1xck0wi”]The one thing you want, the most important thing, is the one thing you need to spend the majority of your time on.[/tweetthis]

Of course, events outside of our businesses will call for our attention. Attending the kid’s soccer games, seeing loved ones, and having dinner with your family are three of the many events that are more important than goals and business. Entrepreneurs work on their own schedules which means they control how long they work, but they also control when they take breaks. You don’t want to work on your business at the dinner table when you should be talking with your family members instead. Business is important, but it should not consume your life.

The reason many of us feel consumed is because our tasks do not line up with the one thing we want. If your one goal is to grow your Twitter audience, then don’t focus on growing a Facebook audience. Sure, if your Facebook audience becomes big, you can promote your Twitter account to that audience. However, growing a Facebook audience takes time, and now you have less time to grow your Twitter audience. Then you may give Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube a try all in the effort to grow your Twitter audience. Creating accounts on all of those social networks and updating them with new content takes up time that you could have used to learn and implement powerful techniques that could have grown your Twitter audience.

This is why social media experts encourage users to focus on one social network at a time. If we split our time amongst different social networks, we will have many small audiences instead of one large audience. I would rather have 5,000 followers on one social network than 500 followers on 10 social networks.

The days of your one thing in life constantly getting the crumbs of your time are coming to an end. In order to truly move forward in your industry and get what you want as an entrepreneur, you need to make your one thing your top priority. In fact, you should allocate 50% of your time towards your one thing. If you want to be a millionaire, 50% of your time should be spent implementing the most important parts of that plan. The other 50% of your time can be carved out to various tasks that are not as important, but those tasks should only be completed after you complete the important tasks that move you closer to the seven figure income.

 

In Conclusion

Logically speaking, the one thing you want to do in life should be the one thing that you spend most of your time on. Although the logic is simple to follow, the actually implementation of this logic is almost never done. We need to identify the one thing we want to do in our lives and then take the bold steps needed to make that one thing happen. Then, everything else that is needed will fall into place. It is better to be good at one thing than it is to be mediocre at 10 things.

6 Reasons To Get On Pinterest If You Haven’t Done So Already

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6 Reasons To Get On Pinterest If You Haven’t Done So Already

We have a natural tendency to go to the things that are the most popular and follow the established leaders. Of all of the social networks, Facebook is by far the most popular one. With over 1 billion users, it dwarfs other social networks in sheer size. Twitter and Instagram are two of the numerous social networks with over 200 million active users.

The social network that does not get as much attention is Pinterest. Although it may not be as big as Facebook, Pinterest still has millions of users that are sharing and engaging with content. Pinterest is constructed in a unique style that makes it different from all of the other social networks. Never before has a social media user been able to categorize and present information in the way that pins and boards make possible.

If you are not on the Pinterest bandwagon, then it is time to get on. Many businesses are using Pinterest to interact with millions of people and build strong connections along the way. Pinterest is not another fad. Here are six reasons why you need to get on Pinterest if you are not on it already.

 

#1: Pinterest is growing

Pinterest is not just the fastest growing social network, but it is also the fastest growing site in history. It reached 10 million monthly unique U.S. visitors faster than any other site on the web and, according to Alexa, quickly emerged as one of the Top 100 websites on the web.

The great thing about Pinterest is that it will continue to grow. There will be a day when Pinterest exceeds 200 million users, then 500 million users, and although this may take a while, 1 billion users. My belief is that if a social network has over 100 million users and continues to grow, it is bound to exceed 1 billion within a decade just like Facebook. Since Pinterest is continuing to grow, it is easier to become an established player on that platform. Some people who have under 1,000 followers on other social networks have over 1 million Pinterest followers. It is a completely different playing field, and since it is still emerging as a top social network, you can make the splash now to boost your chances of becoming popular on it.

 

#2: Pinterest allows content to be organized better than any other social network

On a majority of social networks on the web, content is presented on a user’s feed in chronological order. My most recent tweet will be directly under my pinned tweet, and if you have a few hours to scroll though my profile, you will find my first tweet that over promoted a product link that no longer works (thank goodness it’s at the bottom).

Pinterest is different. While the option to view pins in a chronological order exists, you can also view pins based on categories that a user provides. On my account, I have categories dedicated to Twitter, Facebook, blogging, inspiration, and other topics as well. Those are my boards, and they allow my followers to find specific information.

Some of my followers don’t care about Facebook. Now they no longer have to scroll though information related to Facebook. These followers may only care about Pinterest tips and nothing else. I have an entire board that only contains Pinterest tips. This kind of organization makes it easier for you to present your expertise and for your audience to find exactly what they want.

 

#3: Pinterest allows the real you to come out.

One of the most common mistakes people make is being way too professional. It seems as if some people are only posting links to articles and sharing their expertise. While it is important to humanize your social networks, Pinterest presents a wonderful way to do that. While it is possible to categorize different aspects of your niche, it is also possible to categorize your interests and hobbies outside of your niche.

I have boards about 3D printing, Legos, bookshelves, and other things that have absolutely nothing to do with my niche. Yet, I continue to pin on these boards because I enjoy those topics. You can be professional and give expert advice, but in order for people to remember you, they need to know you beyond your expertise.

There are many people who say that one great way to get more followers on Pinterest is by following other people. However, we only remember a few of the people who said that. Typically, these are the people who share their hobbies and interests outside of their niche. Pinning on boards that allow people to get a deeper understanding of you outside of your niche will allow people to remember you.

 

#4: Pinterest can drive a big amount of traffic to your blog

Just like any social network, Pinterest can drive a big amount of traffic to your blog. The only difference is that Pinterest can drive a ton of people to your blog quicker than the average social network. A statistic that I often reference in my blog posts about Pinterest is that 80% of pins are repins. This statistic indicates that people are constantly sharing other people’s content.

If you are constantly pinning your blog posts, some of your followers may constantly repin those pins. Getting enough repins starts a snowball effect in which numerous people from different audiences start to repin your pins. Then, their audiences see those repins and share them. The snowball effect continues.

On Twitter, only 1% of tweets are retweets which is why the average tweet is not shared as often as the average pin.

 

#5: Pinterest is constantly getting easier to use

When Pinterest was new, you could not pin anything without being on Pinterest’s website. Scheduling pins and getting statistics were also practically impossible to do at a fair price. The tools that are available for Twitter were not available for Pinterest.

However, Pinterest is now getting easier to use. More blog posts have the “Pin It” button at the bottom of every blog post. Others have incorporated a “Pin It” button that shows up when a visitors drags his mouse onto a picture in your blog post or any picture on the blog.

Not only have plugins and blogging services caught up, but Pinterest caught up as well. You can now send a pin without being on Pinterest. You just need to have the “Pin It” bookmark installed on your web browser. If you are not using this bookmark, you can get it here. You can also see how your blog is doing with Pinterest analytics. Track how many repins, clicks, and other engagement statistics your blog gets on Pinterest. You can also track other cool statistics such as how many daily views your Pinterest account gets.

Scheduling pins has been made easier by ViralWoot which allows you to schedule up to 100 pins every month at no cost. There are monthly payments that allow you to exceed 100 pins, but having this option available is a game changer. If you only send out three pins every day, you won’t have to worry about exceeding the monthly limit.

It is easy to imagine better Pinterest tools at lower prices (or with no price tags attached) making their way on the web very soon.

 

#6: Pinterest is addictive

Not only is it true that Pinterest holds the title for fastest growing website on the web, but it is also one of the most addictive websites on the entire web. There are many Pinterest users who are on the social network for hours of time, which is more than enough time for people to find your account, follow you, and repin your pins.

Since many people stay on Pinterest for a long period of time, more people will see your pins. Some of the people who see your pins may decide to repin them or click on the pictures to get redirected to another webpage (such as one of your blog posts). Pinterest is where people stay for a long period of time, and that is the exact place where you need to bring your business, blog, and ideas.

 

In Conclusion

Pinterest is a rapidly growing social network. Since it is not as big as Facebook yet, it is easier to grow a big presence on Pinterest and become one of the leaders of your niche. Some of the people who have millions of Pinterest followers only have a few hundred followers on their other social networks.

Moreover, Pinterest is gradually getting easier to use. The “Pin It” bookmark makes it possible to pin without being on Pinterest. It is easy to imagine changes similar to this one being implemented so it is not necessary to be on Pinterest to interact, comment, and pin.

Are you on Pinterest, and if not, do you plan on joining?

How To Find Your Blogging Niche

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How To Find Your Blogging Niche

If you have not created a blog yet, this blog post is especially for you. If you have a blog, and have not identified your blogging niche yet, you must identify that niche before you write another blog post. Every successful blogger knows what their blogging niche is, and by learning what your blogging niche is, you will know what you need to write about so you can become a successful blogger. Knowing your blogging niche is important for the following reasons:

 

#1: You get to know who your target audience is.

Just because someone visits your blog does not mean that person is a part of your target audience. Your target audience consists of people who were interested in your niche before visiting your blog. That means when these people visit your blog, they already have a strong interest in what you are providing.

Knowing your target audience also allows you to know who you need to interact with on social media. Not every social media user is created equal. If you are a digital marketing expert, you do not want to build a following around karaoke. You want to build your audience around people who want to learn more about digital marketing.

 

#2: You get to specialize your writing.

Believe it or not, it is easier to specialize your writing than it is to constantly write about anything. Although that statement may be difficult to believe in, writing about anything brings forth an infinite amount of choices. Being given that many options makes it difficult to make one decision. It is easier to make a decision you have faith in if there are only 10 options on the menu than if there are 1,000 options on the menu.

You can write about an experience, a motivational quote, a music song, an animal, your trip to the zoo, a long rant that you read from a blogger named Marc Guberti, or anything else. When you choose to write content for a specific niche, you will always have a general idea for what your next blog post should discuss.

 

#3: You know what to build your presence around.

In order to build your presence, you need to build that presence around one niche. When we think of Steve Jobs, we almost always think about Apple and nothing else. Some people also think of Pixar, but ultimately, when we think of Steve Jobs, we also think of Apple. You want to make sure people can easily associate you with a niche when they think of you.

Now that you know what to build your presence around, there are fewer obstacles holding you back. The main obstacle in the beginning is before you choose what you want to build your presence around, you tinker around with numerous niches. I wrote blog posts about the Red Sox, Yugioh Cards, and Legos before I started this blog. All of that time taught me about blogging, but now that I have chosen digital marketing as my niche, I waste less time.

 

#4: You know which niche is going to be your money maker.

In order to make money on the web, you need to create products and offer services such as eBooks, training courses, and consultation sessions. Once you identify your blogging niche, you are also identifying the niche you use to create products and offer services. When your blogging niche and your products match up, some of the people who visit your blog end up becoming customers.

By focusing your efforts on one niche, you will focus more of your time strengthening a few areas of your money making strategy instead of spending a little time implementing different methods to bring in a small income (i.e. taking surveys, clicking ads, tweeting ads to a small audience, etc).

 

How To Identify It

Identifying your blogging niche will allow you to save valuable time and grow the right audience. When I refer to a blogging niche, I am referring to a niche that you can stick with for many years to come. Ask yourself these three questions so you can identify the right blogging niche for you:

  1. What topics do I enjoy writing about? The only way you are going to make it as a blogger is by enjoying what you do. That way, when the journey gets challenging, you embrace the challenge when most people would give up. Besides, you are doing what you love to do. Create a list of all of the topics that you enjoy.
  2. Which of these topics do I know a lot about? Now that you have the list of all of the topics that you enjoy, identify the ones that you know about the most. If you make it big as a blogger, it is entirely possible that you will be writing about this topic for many years (or even decades) to come.
  3. Which of these topics do I enjoy learning more about? You must strive to constantly learn about the niche you choose so you are able to write more blog posts. If I stopped learning about digital marketing last year, I would not have been able to share the thousands of methods that I have learned within a year to grow your presence on the web.

You need to choose a niche that applies to all three of those questions. The niche must be something you enjoy writing about, are an expert in, and enjoy learning about. There is no in-between answer. Do not choose to write about a topic just because it is popular or your best friend likes that topic. If you can find a topic that satisfies all three of those needs, then you have successfully identified your blogging niche. With your blogging niche identified, you can now put content in front of the world that is related to your blogging niche instead of any blog post idea that comes up at the spur of the moment.

What is your blogging niche?

10 SEO Mistakes That Will Hurt Your Blog’s Search Ranking

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10 SEO Mistakes That Will Hurt Your Blog’s Search Ranking

Millions of blog posts are being written every day for various blogs across the web. One of the obvious facts that new bloggers learn quickly is that not all blogs and blog posts get equal attention. On a particular blog, some blog posts get more attention than others. There are some blog posts on this blog that always get more traffic than others. There are also some blogs that get more traffic than other ones. Out of all of the blogs I have, this one is by far the most successful.

The amount of traffic your blog gets is dependent on social media and SEO. Social media covers the sharing aspect and growing an audience on the networks you use. However, SEO is a much deeper concept that a select few understand. To everyone else, it looks like the extensive math problem that takes up the entire chalkboard.

Understanding SEO is important because it is a big avenue for traffic. Some people get thousands of daily visitors from SEO which means it is valuable. Although SEO is not exactly the do or die stage of a blog, it is important, and here are 11 mistakes you need to avoid so your blog can have better SEO.

 

#1: Not submitting your blog’s sitemap to Google.

One of the reasons why blog posts do not get SEO traffic is because they are not even indexed by Google. A sitemap presents all of the contents of your blog in a way that makes it easier for Google to read them. Submitting your blog’s sitemap to Google will allow them to properly index your blog posts. Indexing your blog posts on Google makes it possible for anyone to find any one of your blog posts with a particular search phrase.

There are many options for creating your own sitemap, but out of all of the options, the Google XML Sitemaps WP plugin is the easiest to use. This plugin makes it easy to create an XML sitemap to submit to Google so all of your blog posts can be properly indexed. Once you get your sitemap, head over to Google Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap.

 

#2: Not knowing the difference between http and https

Actually, there is no difference, and that’s the problem. Search engines see http://www.example.com and https://www.example.com as two different websites with identical content. This is duplicate content that search engines associate with plagiarism. As a result, your SEO ranking will go down for both the http and https versions of your website.

In order for you to identify whether your blog has this problem or not, simply enter http:// before your blog’s URL. Then, do the same thing but with https:// in the front. When you do this, check your URL for spelling because you do not want a misspelled URL to give you the wrong webpage.

Your SEO is doing just fine if one of the two options worked. If both options work, then your blog’s SEO is getting hurt. For a WordPress blog, you can change your blog’s URL by going into settings–>general. Then, you can change your blog’s URL to your preference so people can either use http or https to access your blog. Visitors should not be able to use both http and https to access your blog.

 

#3: Not having meta tags for your blog posts

Search engines have a big responsibility in organizing billions of blog posts based on popularity, keywords, and value. Although search engines have this big responsibility, they struggle to understand a majority of blog posts. The reason why some valuable blog posts are not getting any search engine traffic is because they do not have meta tags.

I got introduced to meta tags more than a year and a half after I created this blog. I had to go through every blog post I ever wrote and add meta tags to them all. It was painstaking work that took several months of my time, but it was all worth it. My search engine traffic jumped up significantly after making the change. Any of my blog posts that were already doing good traffic from the search engines got a big jump in traffic.

I use the Add Meta Tags WP Plugin to add meta tags to all of my blog posts. I include keywords in these meta tags so search engines can pick up on them and promote my content. Meta tags, especially the meta tags with the right keywords, make it easier for the search engines to understand what your content is.

 

#4: Not understanding how Google sees your blog

Google sees your blog completely differently from you. It does not see the colors and pictures that may be on your blog posts. In order to make it easier for Google to see the way your blog looks, use the data highlighter in Google’s webmaster tools. Once you verify your blog, the data highlighter will allow you to let Google know how your blog looks (pictures, text, author name, etc). Using the data highlighter only takes 10-15 minutes, and it can have a big impact on your search engine traffic.

 

#5: Not improving your blog’s bounce rate

Your blog’s bounce rate allows search engines to identify how interesting your blog is. If your bounce rate is 100%, that means people are visiting your blog and then leaving without reading another article. A high bounce rate is bad for SEO and results in fewer conversions.

In order to see where your bounce rate is at, verify your blog with Alexa and then see their stats. Your blog’s bounce rate should be under 70%. A bounce rate under 70% means that at least 30% of your visitors are reading multiple articles on your blog. The lower you can get that bounce rate, the better your SEO and conversions will be.

You can lower your bounce rate through a variety of ways. Here are some of them:

  1. Include links to your older blog posts in your new ones
  2. Use Hello Bar to promote one of your articles, or better yet, a landing page
  3. Show related articles at the bottom of every blog post
  4. Show popular articles on your sidebar
  5. Redirect people to another page on your blog after they subscribe. This page should contain links to the best content on your blog.
  6. Show summaries of blog posts so people have to click (lowering bounce rate) to read the entire blog post

Most people do not see a sudden drop in their bounce rates. It takes a few weeks before seeing a significant drop in your bounce rate, and when I say significant drop, that usually means a 5-10% drop. Getting your bounce rate under 60% means you are moving in the right direction.

 

#6: Stuffing keywords

For a long time, keywords were the focal point of SEO. If your blog post had a lot of keywords, it would be on Page 1. If I decided to write the word “SEO” 100 times in all of my blog posts about SEO, those articles would have been #1 on Google. However, many people abused this rule, and Google sent their panda after those people. Many blogs suffered under the wrath of the panda, even the blogs that were getting millions of daily visitors.

If you try to stuff your blog post with keywords, then the search engines will make it more difficult for people to find your content. The worst part about keyword stuffing is that there are many offenders, but few people know that they are breaking the rule. My rule of thumb is to never use the same keyword twice in the same sentence. Synonyms are also very useful. If your keyword is “giraffe,” you can refer to the giraffe as an animal in one of your sentences instead of referring to it as a giraffe in every sentence of your blog post. Using synonyms to replace keywords will boost your blog’s SEO.

 

#7: Having too much anchor text

Anchor text is any clickable text in your blog post that leads to any webpage. In this sentence, “10 Easy Ways To Enhance Your Blog’s SEO” is anchor text. It is a clickable link that leads to another webpage. Anchor text is great for SEO and bounce rate, but having too much anchor text in one blog post can also be harmful.

The search engines won’t like it if you have dozens of anchor text links in the same blog post. However, there are worse consequences of having too much anchor text. The success of a blog all depends on how many visitors it gets and what those visitors do when they get on your blog.

If you have dozens of anchor text links in your blog post, it will be more difficult to read. I make my blog posts as easy to read as possible by writing short paragraphs and only having some anchor text. Imagine how different the reading experience of this blog post would be if every other sentence was anchor text. For the average person, it would be too much to bear, especially when there are other blogs on the web without that much anchor text.

 

#8: Letting spam comments infect your blog

Most of the comments you will get for your blog will be from spammers who are promoting their links without even bothering to read your content. New bloggers who want to boost their social proof often make the mistake of approving these comments. These bloggers reason that, based on the numbers, it is better to have 1,000 spammy comments than 10 real comments.

Having 1,000 comments indicates a popular blog, but the search engines know better. Not only are the links from most spammy comments bad (i.e. Get 5000 Twitter Followers For Just $3), but when engaged readers think of commenting on your blog, they get to see all of the spammy ones first. Would you want to comment on a forum group where all of the members were saying things like, “This is the magic pill that will make you lose 100 pounds in 10 days,” or, “Get a six-pack in six weeks”? You will lose the type of interaction that matters–the one between you and someone in your targeted audience.

 

#9: Not taking social media seriously

Social media is anything but a fad. It has completely transformed businesses and allowed blogs to suddenly become popular. The main reason this blog is popular is because of my Twitter presence. My SEO traffic has really been kicking in lately, but that is because I also get traffic from Twitter. Every day, I am getting hundreds of daily visitors from both Twitter and the search engines.

In addition to boosting your SEO traffic, social media allows you to interact with your targeted audience. I have made many wonderful connections on Twitter. Some of these people share my blog posts and buy my products. Social media is one of the most valuable traffic generating assets known to mankind.

 

#10: Not taking backlinks seriously

Backlinks are one of the most intriguing parts of SEO. When people think of backlinks, they think of the old and worn out practice of buying backlinks in bulk. Google caught on, and now the mighty search engine measures backlinks by quality instead of quantity.

When Google caught up to backlinks and declared quality over quantity, many people assumed that backlinks were simply dead. For a very long time, I assumed backlinks were dead just like many people who read contradicting advice on the web.

If you still believe backlinks are dead, take a look at the Alexa ranks for the most popular blogs on the web. Then, scroll down to see how many backlinks they have. Most of the popular blogs that are getting thousands of daily visitors also have thousands of backlinks. If you want to get more backlinks for your blog, implement these tips.

 

In Conclusion

SEO is a powerful way to get more traffic from your blog. Many of the mistakes people make are based on misconceptions and contradictory advice. I have tested various methods to boost SEO, and these are the good ones. However, SEO chances rapidly, and the methods to boost SEO are always subject to change.

You want to implement the methods that work now before Google changes the rules again with another panda attack. Implementing the methods now will allow you to get more visitors and allow more people to remember you. That way, if Google levels the SEO rules again, you’ll still get a lot of traffic from the people who remember you.

7 Reasons Why You Need To Schedule More Blog Posts

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7 Reasons Why You Need To Schedule More Blog Posts

To some, the idea of scheduling blog posts may sound unnecessary, but in reality, scheduling your blog posts in advance is a utopia. Is that a bit of a stretch? Maybe, but scheduling those blog posts in advance does come in handy. Here are seven reasons why you should start scheduling more blog posts.

 

#1: You get more comfortable as a writer

The key to producing valuable content is to be comfortable as a writer. If I had to rush this blog post and have it done by the end of the day, it would be tough to read. Being forced to write a 1,000 word blog post (which could sometimes turn into a 2,000 worder) with a time limit removes the comfort of writing.

However, I always have a month’s worth of blog posts scheduled in advance so I can comfortably write my blog posts. I can go in depth and provide more examples.

 

#2: You get to write longer blog posts

When you schedule numerous blog posts in advance, you are giving yourself extra time to add more meat to your blog posts. The reason why longer blog posts are better is because your readers stick around for a longer period of time. I could have listed these seven tips in just 50 words, but then my readers wouldn’t stay on my blog for a long period of time.

In addition to making your readers stay on your blog for a longer period of time, longer blog posts allow you to bring the main points home. I could have just mentioned that you have to get more comfortable as a writer and then went into this method. However, going more in depth allows more people to understand that something is important.

You must go into detail about why something is important instead of just stating that it is important. Being able to write longer blog posts allows you to develop a stronger why for your readers.

 

#3: You have the option to focus on more important goals when necessary

If you have months of scheduled blog post, you can take a month off of blogging and consistently publish new blog posts at the same time. In essence, your blog will temporary be systematized. Now you have the option to temporary focus all of your attention on more important goals.

When I have three month’s worth of blog posts scheduled, there is no reason for me to write blog posts at the same pace. Rules and concepts occasionally change in my niche which means if I continued at my pace and had 6-12 month’s worth of scheduled blog posts, some of them would be outdated by the time they got published.

Instead of writing more blog posts, I put more content into my books. Instead of writing 2,000 words for one of my book and a blog post each day, I am writing 4,000 words for one of my books and nothing for my blog for an entire month. That’s an extra 60,000 words for the book. The best part is that I continue to publish content on my blog at the same rate as I was before without writing a single blog post in an entire month.

 

#4: You have more control over your schedule

One of the biggest things I feared as a new blogger was getting home from an event at midnight and having to write the blog post at midnight so I could publish it at 9 am Eastern–the same time that I always publish blog posts on this blog. Luckily, that has never happened, and that’s only because I write blog posts in advance.

Scheduling blog posts gives me the ability to take a day off. I never have to write a blog post or send an email on major holidays because they are all scheduled. I get to spend time with my family instead, which is more important to me. Scheduling blog posts in advance makes sure that you never sacrifice family time so you can write the blog post that you need to publish tomorrow.

 

#5: You can do more research

Providing research in a blog post makes that blog post more interesting. If your research is related to your blog post, your readers will enjoy learning about the useful facts. For example, there are over 1 billion Facebook users. This is an interesting fact that I stick into many of my blog posts about Facebook.

Doing more research will also allow you to learn new things about your niche. The prime purpose for some of the research I conduct is to obtain new knowledge about my niche that serves as inspiration for my future blog posts. Knowledge is power, especially when it is on your side.

 

#6: Your content will grow in value

Since you are writing more comfortably, and you are able to write longer blog posts, your content will grow in value. When I first started this blog, I understood the advantage of having scheduled blog posts. As a result, I went on a complete working frenzy to schedule as many blog posts as possible.

When I rushed my blog posts, I was not doing a good job. Some were filled with basic typos that a spell check would have caught, and there were a few that confused me when I looked at them a few months later. I started to get comfortable with writing when I had numerous blog posts scheduled in advance. Then, I wrote better blog posts that, since being published, have been shared thousands of times across the web.

 

#7: You will be more a committed blogger

The more of your time and work you put into a project, the more committed you become. The typical college athlete is more committed to a sport than the typical athlete in elementary school.

The same concept applies for blogging. If you have numerous blog posts scheduled, you have more commitment because you know at this point that you have written thousands of words for your blog. I am committed to blogging because its fun, but another factor is that over 400,000 words are on this blog. It would be very difficult to simply walk away from all of that hard work.

Scheduling blog posts in advance will allow you to see the work you have accomplished. Seeing this work may make you think of your future in blogging, and that thinking process may boost your commitment.

 

In Conclusion

Scheduling blog posts in advance presents bloggers with many benefits. The main benefit of scheduling blog posts is that you become a better writer in a variety of areas. You may learn how to write more content in a shorter amount of time, write higher value content, and become a more committed blogger. I attribute the value of my blog’s content to the fact that I was able to schedule blog posts in advance, and therefore I could write comfortably knowing that I have months of blog posts scheduled in advance.

How many blog posts do you schedule in advance?