1. SEO Purposes

You’ll want to learn a little bit of how the search engines work and html to understand how you can use forum postings for SEO purposes. Search engines index information on websites to store in their index.

You can apply a bit of html code to tell the search engines whether or not they will index the links on the page. You do that by using either the ‘no-follow’ attribute or the ‘do-follow’ attribute. The no- follow one tells the search engines not to index the links. The opposite goes for the latter.

To determine whether or not a page is do-follow or not, then you just simple ‘view page source’ while on the page you’re analyzing. Many forums are no-follow, but that doesn’t prevent you from obtaining the other benefits of forum postings; JV partners & driving traffic.

2. JV Partners

JV stands for joint venture and many entrepreneurs start them to leverage someone else’s skills, leadership, and resources. As you become a regular participant in the forum of your choice, you’ll undoubtedly make connections.

I really like to use the internet as a spring board to a real friendship or connection. To do this, you have to elevate the relationship beyond just words. When a connection is made, I’ll set up a meeting on Skype to get to know the person and see their face. Take the opportunity to get to know them. Ask them about their goals and what they’re trying to accomplish.

You might just find out a JV with this new connection will help you both reach your goals and objectives. No JV is the same. Some will be good, while others will be a miserable experience. Do your due diligence before you start a JV with someone.

3. Traffic

How do you use a forum to drive traffic? You’ll be wise to get to know the forum’s guidelines. Some will allow links in the posting itself, while others will not. More often than not, forums will allow for some type of a signature.

Many marketers neglect to take advantage of the signature box. Everyone can improve what they put in their box. Just like you’ll spend quality time crafting the perfect title for a blog post, you’ll want to take some time to create a sentence that will motivate someone to click through and visit your website.

If the website is do-follow, then I would recommend linking to your main blog or website. If it’s no-follow, then I typically recommend you using a capture page of some sort so you can build your email list.

4. Information

If you’re looking for an answer, you can browse the existing threads on the forums. Even I spend time reading forums to learn more information. (Side note: you can use forums to get ideas for blog posts and other content.)

Another option available to you is to start your own thread asking the forum members a question. You’ll find that many forum members will participate and offer up their advice. Make sure you signup for email updates so you know when people have commented on your thread.

Conclusion

Forum postings are a great way to build backlinks to your website, drive traffic, obtain information, and find potential JV partners. Recently mobile developers have entered this space. Among the competitors, I prefer to use Topify. It allows me the ability to participate in my favorite phones will on my iPhone.

The post 4 Reasons Why You Want To Be Taking Advantage of Forum Postings appeared first on Blogging Tips for Writing Killer Content.

1. First off, students are given the opportunity to choose from various schools, programs and courses which are not available in the area where they live in. People who live in areas where it’s harder to attend schools can benefit from an online class in any state without leaving their home!

2. Another benefit of taking online courses, and probably the most popular one, would be that it offers flexibility to students. Because they can attend classes and courses whenever and wherever there is a computer and access to the internet, they can easily plan out a schedule that would work for them. Because of the flexibility offered by online learning, not only undergraduate students, but also individuals who already have full-time jobs or other commitments are able to take supplementary courses and even earn their college degrees online.

3. Online learning allows a more student-centered teaching approach. People learn at various paces and styles. An online education can make sure that a student fully understands the material before moving on to the next lesson, allowing them to learn and perform better at that class.

4. Online course materials can be accessed 24 hours a day every day. This means that students can easily read and review lectures, discussions and other materials relevant to their course. Sometimes students can be distracted, bored or not ready to move on to the next lesson. Having it accessible whenever they like can allow a student to work at their own pace and not feel pressured to follow a strict schedule.

Online Education is truly the new way to take classes. A 2009 study by SRI International for the Dept. of Education found that over the course of 12 years, studying some K-12 classes but mostly college and adult continuing education programs, students who took the same classes online that students on campus took, in the 59% percentile in tested performance over campus-based students, who ranked around ranked the 50% percentile. It’s not a huge difference, but a difference for sure. The ability to control your own education is powerful and can allow you work and study and get that promotion or raise, without pausing.

I’ve included the following infographic to help you better understand online education, the costs associated with it, enrollment stats, and where it’s heading. Hope you enjoy it.  :)

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The post Online Education Is Becoming The New Norm Among Students appeared first on Blogging Tips for Writing Killer Content.

Many business plans leave social media out of their marketing plans, mistakenly thinking that mobile marketing simply consists of taking out a mobile ad that users can see while browsing the web on their smart phones or tablets. Research from social media marketing company Viralheat found some staggering data – 80% of time spent on Facebook and 96.5 percent of time spent on Twitter were through mobile apps while 52 percent of mobile smartphone users visit their social media accounts from their phones every day.

Understanding the important connection between social and mobile marketing, Viralheat released an iPhone app this week that brings social media to you anytime, anywhere.  The app is available in the iTunes store and allows users to: manage their personal and company Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts; engage with their audience through replies, retweets, comments, likes, and more; publish updates and content to multiple platforms using an advanced publishing suite; and analyze Facebook and Twitter likes and followers.  The app is modeled after their web-based product and supports some of the tool’s most popular features.  Access to Viralheat streams allows users to create custom streams based on keyword searches or account types so they can view online conversations and engage in real-time while the publishing capabilities include scheduled publishing, simultaneous cross-channel publishing, and the option to attach photos to a post.

See why Forbes called the Viralheat iPhone app the “best new app for social media on the go,” citing it as a “quick-to-use solution for on the fly.”  In a world where social never sleeps, Viralheat’s iPhone app makes managing social media efforts easy while you’re on the go. Download the app today!

To learn more about Viralheat’s social media marketing suite, visit their website.

The post Social Media and Business in a Mobile World appeared first on Blogging Tips for Writing Killer Content.

According to latest researches, one in every 4 marketing dollars is actually spent on content marketing. Despite the growing popularity of content based marketing initiatives and its penetration rates among all forms of marketing efforts, majority of marketers still do not follow any rules when it comes to content based marketing.

We teach and we are taught all the time that content marketing is the way to go and is the safest and the most powerful form of online marketing. However, it is surprising to note that very few online marketers actually know what to do to make their content marketing initiatives a grand success.

So, if you are clueless about how to integrate this powerful medium to your marketing effort, here we are going to give a roundup of some of the most prominent pillars of content marketing so that you can emerge as a better marketer:

1. Why Content Marketing After All??

Loyal Customers: Okay, so you have just converted one visitor into customer. Congrats, that is cool. But unless and until you earn loyalty of that customer, you might never see him again buying your products or referring someone else about your company.  So, the ultimate goal of an online marketer should not stop at conversion rather the goal should be aimed at earning loyalty of the customers and this can be done by making them subscribed your newsletter , facebook channel or whatever. In short, he/she should be the one helping you reaching out to more potential customers. Pamper them with nice stories, jokes or occasional freebies

Up Selling: Don’t stop at converting customers.  I have seen marketers forgetting everything about their clients once they made the payment. This is a pathetic marketing approach. As they have already put their trust on you, you need try to upsell your products. For say, if a customer brought a pair of shoes from your store, just do not stop at that. You should try to upsell related products like – socks or something like that. If this does not work, don’t be disheartened. Be in touch with them so that you can engage them easily with your marketing initiatives.

What Will You Receive From Marketing??

There are three major areas that any company wants to consider at the end of the day:

• Satisfied Customers
• Revenue
• Lower Expenditures

Content marketing targets the audience in such a way that at least one of these 3 areas show productivity. If not, there is something lacking in the marketing strategy. The study around these aspects can show who are the prospects who are willing to continue business relations or what were the steps that have boosted the company’s revenue or have incurred low expenses. Such parameters should be studied carefully, and should be multiplied effectively for a prosperous business.

2. Who Is The Audience??

Not everybody will be. Try to identify the ones from the crowd, who you target as the potential business prospects, and who can be the long term customers or subscribers to the business. Based on the audience, the content should be created. It cannot be created in air, targeting everyone on the earth, aiming to nobody in particular.

3. Define A Clear Mission:

Something very clear, that can pin-point the main objective, and is targeted towards the core audience. The goal once clear, gives a directed path to the content creation process. It does not go hay wire. The process defines who the audience is, what they expect, and what will be the next step the audience wants to achieve. With the ‘audience’ as the content priority, the marketing can never go wrong.

The post The Pillars of Content Marketing – What You Should Be Doing appeared first on Blogging Tips for Writing Killer Content.

1.     Focus On The Topic

This is the most important and probably the most neglected part of creating content. People think that lengthy articles are always good, so in order to create lengthy and keyword stuffed article people often drift from the “point” of the article. To create a killer article focusing on the topic and remain focused on the topic is most important. If you have decided to write an article about “How to create killer content” you should focus on the points which will make an article loved by Google.

2.     Do Your Research

Without researching it is a very bad idea to start writing content. There is a proverb, which is something like this, “less knowledge is destructive”. So always remember this phrase and do your homework before starting to write a killer content. You cannot focus on a point until you have atleast 80% knowledge of the topic. So it is very important too.

3.     Keyword Research

Keyword is very important if you want your article to be found by Google (honestly speaking only there are many high quality articles available in the internet so only killer content will not work for you). For doing keyword research visit Google Keyword Tool, there type your focused keyword and see what are the search terms around the keyword. Use the best terms which you feel is appropriate for your blog. Then use those terms in your article creatively one or two times each.

4.     Keep Your Readers Busy

Try to provide as many information related to your topic as possible. This will not only interest your readers but will also interest Google and in turn Google will rank your post higher. To this you will have to write the post with clarity. This part also meshes with the first part of focusing on the topic. Donot write “blah blah blah” write about the topic which you have started and keep focused on it.

5.     Engage Your Readers

Try to engage your readers by asking them to comment about their feeling and knowledge about the topic. Ask your readers whether the points you mentioned in the article is acceptable by them or not if not then why and donot forget to reply to the comments.

So tell me did I keep you busy with this post? Did I miss any point? Or do you think any of the above point is unnecessary and it should be included in the post? And also tell me did you read the entire post from beginning if not then “which parts you missed”?

The post Checkout the Top 5 Ways to Write a Killer Content appeared first on Blogging Tips for Writing Killer Content.

What is the best email autoresponder?

There are dozens of email marketing providers out there. New ones coming out everyday as well. The top ones are:

• AWeber
• iContact
• Constant Contact
• Campaign Monitor
• MailChimp

In this post I want to share why I believe AWeber is the best, help you understand the fine print, and help you begin using it. Every marketer needs to begin building an email list right from the beginning. 

1. What are my favorite features of AWeber?

AWeber has livechat, a toll free help line, a pretty inexpensive starting package, and you can start today for only a $1.00. I use the livechat all the time, especially if I don’t want to go digging through the help section to find the answer to my questions.

2. The fine AWeber print

I probably started out on the 30 day $1.00 trial as well. I remember being somewhat scared to add a monthly expense to my business. After the month trial expires, AWeber will charge you $20.00 a month for the first 500 subscribers. I, incorrectly, assumed that’s all it would cost as I kept adding new subscribers to my list.

I was wrong! As soon as you get your 501st lead, your subscription goes up to $30 a month. The rest of the pricing is as follows:

• 500 leads @ $20/month
• 500-2,500 leads @ $50/month
• 5,001-10,000 @ $70/month
• 10,001-25,000 @ $150/month
• 25,001 + @ contact us

 3. How do you use AWeber?

Email marketing has several components: generate leads by adding optin forms to your website, creating a list, creating an attractive giveaway, creating an autoresponder series, and daily messages to your list.  In the following video, I will show you how to do all of these except creating an attractive giveaway –  that’s your job

Notes from the video:

• Create your first list
• Create your autoresponder messages (Pay attention to the intervals – I recommend sending 1 email a day)
• Email your list after you write a blog post. (Give them a small snippet and tell them to read the full post on your blog.)

Will you begin your email marketing journey? Do you agree that AWeber is the best email autoresponder? Why or why not?

The post What Is The Best Email Autoresponder? appeared first on Blogging Tips for Writing Killer Content.

1. The watch industry

There are many different kinds of watches out there – watches for just about every occasion. Some people prefer metal bands, while others prefer bracelet type bands or leather bands.

When you’re buying a watch, you take about three things into consideration:

• the price of the watch
• the style of the face
• the type of band

The only problem with buying a watch is that you’re stuck with the whole thing. There is little room for customization… that is if you don’t want to pay to have someone switch out the band for you.

2. The blogging industry

The internet is brim full of blogs. Moms are blogging about the meals they’re making their kids, fortune 500 companies are blogging about the latest and greatest gadget, and mom and pop businesses are blogging to build awareness about their products and services.

Blogs can be newsy, entertaining, and informative. You’d be surprised how many good blogs are out there. On the other hand, you’d be surprised at how many blogs actually make money.

What makes the difference between a blog that makes money and one that doesn’t?

3. What do interchangeable watches and blogging have in common?

First, let me tell a little story. Out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean lies a series of islands, otherwise known as the Hawaiian islands. How did these islands get discovered? Captain James Cook, a member of the British Navy, was an expert in cartography (the science or practice of drawing maps).

London appointed him with the task of exploring the Pacific. He didn’t find the islands til his third voyage. In his three voyages, he found the Hawaiian islands, Antarctica, and Australia.

I pose an interesting question to you. “What if he had not taken those voyages and mapped the Pacific to the best of his ability?”. We may have never heard of the Hawaiian islands, unless someone else discovered them and lived to tell everyone else.

My clients get to hear this all the time, “You’ve got to get off the informational island!”; otherwise, no one will know about your awesome products and services. In order for ModifyWatches, or any company really, to make sales, they’ve got to tell others about their awesome watches. The same goes for any blog and its owner.

The price must be paid to ‘tell others’ otherwise you’ll stay on the informational island that no one knows about. Products and blogs simply don’t sell themselves.

The post What Do Interchangeable Watches and Blogging Have In Common appeared first on Blogging Tips for Writing Killer Content.

Age of Half-backed content
What is even more frustrating is the fact that marketing gurus are even openly rooting for this ridiculous practice. Now, if this insane practice continues, we are certainly going to see the death of great bloggers and passionate writers, as we know it. When you are crushing them under the sheer volume of work and not letting them any room to breathe, they will slowly start feeling suffocated and eventually, creative and original research work will be going to take a back seat. As a result, mediocre and half-baked content will start ruling the world of online marketing. I hope nobody wants this to happen to our beautiful world of online marketing. So, please for God’s sake end this mad rush for More.

Image Credit - http://www.flickr.com/photos/notionscapital/2493066577

Why Less is More

However, please do not get me wrong. I am not saying that you should be not focusing on increasing productivity at the workplace. Rather what I am suggesting is that you should try to strike a perfect balance between being more productive and creative.

However, just a few years ago things were not that bad. In those bygone days [just kidding], people used to love and appreciate anything that offer ‘more’. Then YouTube, Mashable, Facebook and their likes came into being and started us to show that ‘more’ can be ‘beautiful’. Then things turned for the worse. People in an attempt to imitate their success, started going overboard with the concept of producing ‘more’.

So, finally we have come to this. More and more worthless articles are being added to the web, more pathetic quality videos are being uploaded, more run of the mills ebook are being produced and shared on SlideShare and on and on. The problem is everybody around is aware of this but nobody dares to accept this. A classic elephant in the room problem!

Do Not Produce Garbage
I have seen people creating a long list of keywords for say 250 keywords and they just mail that list to their content marketing department so that they can produce 250 articles within the next few days. Sounds awesome? Of course it sounds. But in the mad rush to secure higher rankings in a set of new keywords and getting the bigger marketing pie, we often tend to ignore something very important.

The purpose of writing content is not to fill out a page with keywords included in it rather; writers have a bigger role to play. They have to write something that should educate the readers, make them feel that they have learnt something new and interesting. So, when you are churning out content mechanically, you are simply going to defeat the purpose.

The only way you can increase the brand value of the organization you are working with is by publishing great quality work. You should not take the shortest route to success by rephrasing existing articles. Rather you should do some research and then come up with something brilliant and thought provoking. And there is no need to expand the article just for the sake for meeting word count. If it is short, be it. No need to stretch it.

The Future of Content Marketing
The future of content marketing is without an iota of doubt is very promising. People have already started realizing the fact that producing junk content just for the sake of meeting target is not going to get their online business anywhere. We, content marketers have to change our marketing strategy from ‘more’ to ‘less’, from ‘doing more’ to ‘doing great’.

The responsibility is ours. We have to make everyone aware of the immense flip side of producing ‘more’ and this is the only way we can put an end to this vicious circle.

This article is contributed by Michael Evans who is managing all the promotional activities of WDR, a retford based web design agency.

The post Why ‘more’ content is disastrous appeared first on Blogging Tips for Writing Killer Content.

But please understand that these SEO plugins cannot help you rank directly on Google or other search engines. There are so many different factors which decides your position. Like Domain authority, Social shares, Page authority, number of backlinks, and most importantly the quality of your content. So just after installing any of these plugin, don’t assume or dream to see boost in your blog traffic.

WordPress SEO by Yoast

A perfect and only need, premium like SEO addon for your wordpress based blogs or websites. I don’t find any reason for not using it on your site. It offers from simple meta data integration to sitewide setting which can help increase your readers and organic visitors.

What I like the most of this plugin is the onpage analysis. And I think it’s the only reason for its popularity. Whenever you write or update your posts, it provide data on keyword density, keyword placement in titles, h1, h2, h3 tags. Apart from that it also scan your article for any links, and if its made nofollow or dofollow. It also offers you the hint on keyword select. Finally it can even check the easy to read scale of your post.

For the sidewide SEO settings it offers one amazing features. It’s known as force rewrite rule. Once you activate this, all the previous SEO settings will be replaced with the one you set via Yoast. You can set the nofollow, noindex, nodir, nodp tags to your blog or on per post basis. You can also have breadcrumbs, can generate sitemaps and can get credits for your posts via RSS feeds.

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WP Social SEO Booster

This is simple yet powerful plugin which can help you optimize your posts for 2013 SEO era. It will help you integrate the twitter card , Facebook open graph tags and finally Google rich snippets. And the best part is that it can help you verify you Google authorship.

This plugin is compatible with almost all famous SEO plugins and can also add the rich snippet for all your posts automatically. It also helps to optimize your images via kraken image optimizer, to improve your loading speed and ranking. Since speed really matters.

{ Download }

Squirrly

A powerful SEO plugin for wordpress which can help you perform complete keyword research within 2 minutes. Actually it’s not completely free, but offers 14 days free trial. It has very similar features to other premium wordpress SEO plugins like SEOPressor, easywpseo.

It can help you with your keyword research, by finding the perfect low competition words and phrases. It provides the live analysis on its competition, its global search volume and shows a bar with different color signs.

It can also help you with onpage SEO by providing useful recommendations on key-phrase density, its positioning, internal and outbond links. It also offers the inspiration box through which you can easily add images, tweets, read blogs posts and others to inspire you though your content writing.

But the most amazing feature is KeenSkim filter which allow you to read high authority blogs related to your targeted keyphrase from within your post editor page. This helps to reduce your time in researching and for creating content idea. Overall its a perfect plugin but for me its price is too high. It offers monthly subscription starting from U.S $19.99.

Apart from all these it can help you verify your authorship, can help to integrate the webmaster tools meta, Facebook and Bing meta data. You will also be able to verify your Google analytic account and all this with one single addon.

{ Download }

The post 6 WordPress SEO Plugins To Improve Your SERP In 2013 appeared first on Blogging Tips for Writing Killer Content.

• It can help build good relationships with the communities related to blogging
• It helps in knowing your skills and existence
• It offers best backlinks for your blogs
• It certainly increases traffic on your blogs.

There are so many comments on the blog page and many bloggers wonder how to gain attention of readers in their comments section. Here are few queries that will help you

Is there any CommentLuv Plug-in?

Everybody loves to see on their blog a CommentLuv Plug-in. This plug-in helps in placing links of the commenters recent post at the end of the comments. This way commenters and readers are able to view the headings of the recent post. If the readers are interested, they can jump over. This provides a great way to increase traffic on your blog page.

Avatar helps a lot

You can add an image and tag on your forums, comments and on posts, specified by your name. It is simply easy to create an avatar. It helps in making out your comments out of the crowd and in gaining traffic for your website. Don’t use your picture; rather use your pet picture, an animation or anything else beautiful in design. It is not recommended to use offensive and rude images.

Adding worth

It is often observed that people use such comments that may suit any blogs that they visit. Add worth to your comments and try to add something informative, funny or witty. You can also add recommendations and insights. A good advice is always appreciated. If you don’t have motivation at that time, you can also leave comments on other blogs.

Comments must be always regarding topics

Every blogger is excited to talk and write about anything but the sections such as comments is not the right place to do such thing. This can create a bad impression and you will even sound irrelevant or you may irritate people. To confirm the relevant comment, you should go through the post and try to understand what the blogger has written. After that, you should leave a comment that must be relevant to the blog. You can also leave your link after your comment

Being nice

To be nice does not mean that you always have to agree with the author. No two persons’ suggestions, ideas and thinking are similar so it’s quite possible that you may not agree or like the others’ posts .You can oppose but in a very polite manner. Give respect and you will get back the respect. Always respect the writings and its author. There are many readers who are interested in exploring our content. Take things positively and handle situations in a polite way .This will help you a lot in making you a great blogger.

Nice comments help a lot in gaining more traffic. If this is properly done, this will help getting huge traffic for your blogs.

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