If you were to guess how many websites and blogs were on the internet today, what would you say? If you said over a billion, you would be correct. However, the more important question is how many of them active in releasing new content and actively getting traffic to their sites. If you said around a billion, then you would be correct again.

Even with all of these sites in place, it’s still a common mistake to think that nobody reads on the internet anymore. After all, videos have become a staple of internet usage. Believe it or not, recent stats show 77% of internet users still read blog posts regularly–however, we are seeing a big shift from laptop and desktop usage over to mobile and tablet.

In any case, web traffic and content is here to stay. It’s not a question of if you can afford to invest time and money into digital marketing to grow traffic to your site, it’s simply a matter and when and how. If you’re trying to grow your blog and not having much luck, this post will help. Below are five tactics to try that will help you increase your readership.

1. Learn About Your Audience

You might know your industry, but do you understand what your audience wants to read? Make sure you research your audience and what they want to read before you write any content.

Doing this will help you write content that will rank in search engines for highly searched keywords. You can take advantage of free search engine traffic once your blog posts start ranking.

A great way to accomplish this, is to look up any of the popular hashtags being used on social media, and see what people are sharing with others. If you are seeing the same article being shared around, then it’s likely a good one and something you will want to study.

2. Create a Content Calendar

If you want regular blog readers, you need to produce high-quality content regularly. The problem is, this is hard to do on the fly.

Spend some time to create a list of blog posts ahead of time. You want to write your blogs well ahead of time, so you aren’t rushing to publish blogs right before your deadline.

And remember, not all business and product content needs to be basic and boring. Think about new and exciting ways to target new audiences by putting a different twist on your content. Try to go against the norm, and create content with a whole new twist.

3. Build an Email List

If you rely on your visitors finding their way back to your blog after visiting the first time, you’re going to be disappointed with your results. People have no way to know that you posted new content. You’ll only get people coming back on their schedule.

Building an email list means you can reach out to your readers whenever you post new content. You can drive more traffic to your blog every time you write a new post.

4. Network With Other Bloggers

You aren’t alone in your industry. The chances are there are plenty of people who have active readerships available to reach out to. Make sure to reach out to them to form a relationship.

Your goal should be to form relationships that both people benefit from. You want to work with other bloggers to create win-win deals that help both of your websites grow.

5. Create an Engaging Experience

It isn’t enough to make the sale and be done with it anymore. Blog readers want to have a great experience during their time on your website.

You need to pay attention to every part of your visitor’s experience if you want to grow your blog. This process is what is known is growth marketing. If you want to learn more about the process, find a growth marketing conference to connect with other bloggers who are doing the same thing.

Never Stop Trying to Grow Your Blog

Getting readers to follow your blog won’t happen overnight. It will take a lot of hard work to convince people that you’re worth following. For some examples on how to best accomplish this, just take a look at what some of these top brands are going on social media.

As for yourself and your own brand, make sure to use the tips above to grow your blog into a successful website. Just like we highlighted at the beginning of the article… it’s extremely easy to start a website or blog of your own, but the last thing you want to do is fall into the mix of more than a billion other websites and blogs. Put in the time, money and effort to make sure your content provides value and is something that people want to come back to time and time again.

If you want to know more about creating content your readers will love, our blog will help. Head back to our recent articles to learn more about creating engaging content that will keep people coming back.

Ranking in Google is one of the most important things for businesses and brands of all sizes. This is even more crucial for local and small businesses that might not be able to spend as much money as they would like on pay per click marketing and bidding on various keywords to target new customers.

The good news is that through the use of content creation, blogging, and link building, anyone can start ranking on the first page of Google when their content, site structure, and link building efforts all align with each other.

That is exactly what we are going to be looking at today. Instead of just providing you with a few tips to follow, we are also going to highlight some examples and case studies for you to follow as well.

Let’s get started.

Using Long-Form Landing Pages to Rank for Local Keywords

When it comes to creating a website and content, it’s important to make sure you have a process in place that makes it’s easier for you to not only go live with everything, but also over the longterm promotion of your site and content as well. Instead of creating new content every week (and in small 500-1000 word articles), instead it’s better to focus on big money pages that are super loaded with content and call to actions — while also being resources that you can reference to time and time again.

For example, if you ran a local business that was focused on junk removal and location clean up, you would probably want to focus on a prime keyword like “same-day rubbish removal“, while also building out enough quality content on your site to help with ranking, but also providing your site will valuable content in the process.

We can see an example of this through the the site and landing page below.

What you will notice throughout the site is the that all of the content is focused on one common goal, which is to provide the audience with the necessary tools and information they are looking for when trying to find a reliable rubbish removal company. At the same time, the site does a great job with representing themselves pretty well, while also having clear call to actions throughout the site.

Another big point to make, is that there are over 4,700 words of content on the main page of the site. This in itself will help the site start ranking in Google not only for it’s target keywords, but many other long tail keywords as well.

This is also the same tactic that we use on the main page of blogging.org, as it’s also loaded with thousands of words of content, while also walking users through a simple process and giving multiple call to actions along the way.

The end results is that thousands of visitors are redirected back to the main page of the site when first hitting any inner pages through the search results or other traffic sources. And most importantly, all of the content listed on the main page provides real value and gives the end user exactly what they are looking for.

This is a perfect example to follow for anyone small or local businesses that are having a hard time with creating content for their site, while also ranking in Google and coming up with unique content angles and call to actions in the process.

Creating Content in Many Different Shareable Forms

Google loves content and in order for them to rank billions of websites and blogs accordingly, they want to see not only how much content you create — but also how relevant it is, and the many different types of content you are creating. This also helps influence new ways of building backlinks, getting social shares, and sometimes even embeds on other sites.

A perfect example of this can be seen through the creation of infographics, online videos, and shareable content on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

A clear example of this can be seen on Famoid, with their article titled “I can’t Find an Account I’m Looking for on Instagram“. While they break down the process through a bunch of text content and steps on their site, the creation of their infographic to provide visuals of this process is even better.

There are also many other benefits to creating infographics for your text content as well. Such benefits include:

• Infographic visuals are easier to skim and read through versus straight text content
• Infographics are easy to share on social media and will often go semi-viral
• Outreach and promotion is easier when you have something original to offer
• There are plenty of infographic directories you can submit your work to

Best of all, infographics and unique visuals are now faster and easier to create than ever, thanks to free design tools like Canva. If you don’t want to spend your time and effort on creating designs, be sure to also consider your options with platforms like Fiverr or Freelancer, where you can hire graphic designers and content creators at lower prices.

How to Effectively Rank Higher for Easy Local Keywords and Phrases

At the end of the day, all websites and blogs are fighting for top placements in Google, and this is especially true in the smaller and tighter local markets. However, the advantage that bloggers and content creators have, is that it really is easy to rank for local terms when you know what you are doing, and creating real content of value.

Follow each of the examples and recommendations listed above, and be sure to apply them to your content creation and marketing efforts today.

Have you been thinking of starting a blog for your site and not taken the plunge yet? The longer you wait, the harder it will be to catch up to your competition.

Content marketing is the talk of digital marketing. In fact, 55% of marketers say that content marketing is their top priority for inbound marketing.

Here are just some of the quick industry stats and reports to back this up:

1. In 2019, 84.5% of US companies with at least 100 employees will utilize digital content marketing strategies. (eMarketer)
2. 55% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority. (Hubspot)
3. 55% of business professionals say a great story captures their focus and keeps them engaged with content. (Prezi)
4. B-to-C content marketers have increased their use of audio/visual content, written content, and images vs. one year ago. (CMI and MarketingProfs)
5. The top 3 types of content used by B-to-B marketers in the last 12 months are long-form content (in-depth articles, guides), video snippets, and social media stories. (CMI)
6. By 2019, 20 percent of brands will abandon their mobile apps. (Gartner)
7. By the end of 2019, Cisco estimates show 80% of all internet traffic worldwide will be video. (via IAB)

As wonderful and exciting as the idea of having an aggressive content creation and marketing strategy is… it usually isn’t that simple. There are plenty of obstacles in the way — such as the time and costs associated with creating original content. As all bloggers and content creators know… creating ‘great’ content well takes a lot of work, so you might be wondering if it’s worth the effort. This post will remove any of your doubts — especially if you are planning on growing your site or brand through the use of free organic traffic through Google.

Below are five benefits of blogging that will help your SEO.

1. Use More Keywords

You can only put so much content on your product and service pages. If you don’t have a blog, you can’t connect with people who are looking for other topics in your industry.

When you start a blog, you can begin to incorporate more keywords into your site. You can use the Google Keyword Tool to learn what topics people are looking for and create articles for them to read.

Would you rather them read about it on your site or your competitors?

2. Get More Backlinks

Google isn’t quite there when it comes to ranking sites in Google. It still needs a lot of help.

Backlinks are one of the things Google uses to determine if a site is an authority. If you are getting a link from a high-value site, then your website gets some of that authority.

If you create good content, you increase the chance of other websites linking to you. These signals can boost your site in the search engines.

3. Keep Your Site Relevant

Google likes fresh content. It shows that you’re still up to date in your industry.

When you post regular content, Google will keep coming back to your site to see what you have to say. This content is favored more in search engines, which can land you more traffic.

If you don’t have time to keep your blog fresh, then you can hire an SEO company to help.

4. Get Shared on Social Media

Have you heard about how much time people spend on social media every day?

Do you want a hint? It’s a lot.

People don’t only spend their time browsing social media. They also regularly share content they like. If you create good content, you can create social signals for your website when people share your posts.

5. Increase Time on Site

The number one goal of Google is to get people the information they search for. One way it measures this is by the time a visitor spends on your site.

When you provide a lot of content on your site, you’re giving people more of a reason to stay. When someone spends a lot of time on your site reading your content, it signals to Google that your website is high quality. This will give Google more reason to rank you higher.

Learn These Benefits of Blogging Well

Creating great content is one of the best investments you can make for your websites. If you want to be convinced further, just look at the top companies. Almost all of them use content marketing in some way.

Start making content today so you can get in front of your audience.

If you’re convinced that you need to start a blog, it’s time to get your first post up. Head back to our homepage to learn how to get started.

Nearly all market already know the reality about corporate budgeting: the promotion budget is always the first to get reduced. No one dislikes this any more than you do. However, as consumers begin to spend more time online, reducing the digital marketing budget isn’t a good idea.

Regardless of the online marketing strategies, you have implemented or you plan to, none of them will ever be complicated and multifaceted as the search engine optimization strategy. PPC (pay-per-click) might promise instant traffic to your website and quick conversions. Social media is an excellent way of keeping your audience engaged. However, SEO lays the right foundation for an exceptional online presence.

Whether you know what is SEO or not, you need a solid SEO strategy in place to succeed in online marketing. As such, this marketing strategy is worth the investment. Here is why.

SEO is going to be around for a very long time

As long as search engines are alive, so too will SEO, regardless of how many times Google modifies its algorithm. A Post published on Moz makes it clear that SEO will never die as long as different sites continue to compete for placement in the search engine results and the skilled and knowledgeable website owners enjoy the benefits of getting their sites rank better. Every site owner or digital marketer wants to enjoy the benefits of high search engine rankings (traffic and visibility). As long as sites are ranked based on certain ranking factors, SEO analysis and SEO techniques will remain relevant.

It brings tangible results

There are many pages of SERPs that clearly demonstrate how much competition you are likely to face in getting your business website rank on the first results page. A study conducted by the Chitika, an online advertising network, about 95% of organic traffic is lost by the time you check page two results in SERPs. That implies that the top page offers the most visibility, and that means more users are likely to click through to your site and drive traffic.

Local SEO Helps Small Businesses Compete in Search

When you look at SEO as a whole, it’s a very competitive space to be in. For example, just look at the fact that there are now more than a billion active websites and blogs on the internet today — all of which are creating new website content daily. This means it’s getting harder and harder to increase ranking for not just generic and competitive search terms, but pretty much everything.

One area where SEO is still a small business’ friend is through local organic search rankings. A perfect example of this can be seen with any smaller contractor, service, or localized mom and pop businesses.

This useful plumber SEO guide is a perfect resource and example for the many different ways to promote and reach new audiences online with a small or localized business. By using state, city, and zip codes within your content creation and link building efforts, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to get a higher Google ranking, while also reaching your targeted traffic and target market in the process.

Add some remarketing into the process, and you might just see a massive increase in ROI and web traffic in no time.

It is a cost-effective marketing strategy

Though the initial cost of SEO services might be high, and probably you might get a negative ROI for the first month or two, over time, the benefits of search engine optimization will outweigh the costs. A report released by SEMPO revealed that 11 percent of marketing cash is spent on SEO and about 87 percent is spent on PPC. Understanding that SEO efforts are associated with lower CPA (cost per acquisition), as you no longer need to pay for cost acquisition, it makes sense to invest in search engine marketing.

This doesn’t mean that you should flush your PPC marketing campaign down the toilet. Both PPC and SEO are complementary marketing strategies. SEO happens to be the most cost-effective channel you can invest in, particularly if you are looking to see results that last.

The overall number of searches is growing fast

On average, internet users in the United States conduct more than 12 billion searches monthly, according to a report from Comscore. Well, combine that number with the outstanding fact that the first five sear results on the first search page account for about 67.6 percent of all clicks (according to Moz). You will begin realizing how everything adds up, and don’t forget that these numbers are likely to continue growing. Without SEO, your customers will never find you online. Actually, you will be driving them to the doorsteps of your competitors.

…and your competition is catching up

Well, you can spend thousands or millions of dollars on email marketing and paid adverts. However, in the end, if you are not taking the right initiative to enhance your search position, you are at risk of falling miles behind your competitors. Search engine optimization is like a treadmill: the moment you stop running, you simply get flung off. That means if you stop optimizing your website for search engines, your competitors will always pursue their optimization goals and surpass you.

Wrap up

If you intend to roll up your sleeves and get dirty with SEO, first you need to understand everything that’s going on. Learn the basics of SEO and how it is likely to impact your business.

Nobody likes getting spammed, yet there are more than 14.5 billion spam emails sent mailboxes every day.

That accounts for a whopping 45% of all the emails sent worldwide!

Spamming doesn’t only apply for email messages, but also for websites. For example, your spam scoring determines how well you rank in search engine result pages and whether your website is seen well by Google or not.

Certain websites are considered to be spammy based on various factors and flags.

But what exactly is spam and why should you care about it?

Let’s find out in this article.

Spam Scoring Explained

There are various ways you can rank a website.

You can use the Alexa ranking system, Google Page Rank, Moz rank, etc.

Spam is considered to be an unsolicited and irrelevant message used online. Certain backlinks can also be considered as spam if they come from websites with a bad reputation on the internet.

Spam is also used for fraudulent activities such as identity theft. It is estimated that the annual cost to productivity caused by spammers is around $20 billion.

Each website is checked for various flags or signs which indicate spam content.

For example, Moz has released a ranking system for websites which contains 17 different flags for spam.

If a website has many spam flags, its spam scoring is considered to be high and vice-versa.

This metric system helps website owners keep track of their subdomains, individual pages, and backlinks. By monitoring spam on your website, you avoid getting penalized by Google or other search engines.

Site Accessibility and Mobile Viewing

In addition to a site getting flagged for spam, it can also be triggered for bad browsing capability and user navigation outside of traditional desktop usage. With mobile usage now on the rise like never before, Google is putting huge weight into this area for sites of all types. Take a quick look at some of the global mobile usage stats below.

• 71% of users visited a retailer website or used a retailer app
• 64% of users conducted a search on a search engine
• 42% visited a non-retailer website or used a non-retailer app
• 41% visited a store or other location
• 23% looked at images or photos online

To learn more about these stats and how you can improve your mobile usage and engagement, you can refer to this mobile SEO optimization guide. This resource not only dives deeper into what you need to know about mobile usage and keeping your site up to date to avoid Google penalties and spam score, but also how to improve your on-site and off-site SEO to rank above the competition.

How Web Site Spam Scoring Works

Spam scores are easy to determine. They use the Moz Index to check for flags for each subdomain.

When flags are found, they are added to the score. The spam score is cumulative, so the higher the number of flags found, the higher the spam scoring.

• For example, sites with 4 flags have a 7.5% spam probability.
• Sites with 7 flags have an approximately 30% spam probability.
• Sites with 13 or more flags have an almost 100% spam probability.

If your website triggers a few spam flags, it’s not a very big deal. You should be worried when more than 7-8 flags are detected as this can make Google label your website as spam.

It’s important to mention that spam scoring focuses on subdomains only. The root domains are not taken into account.

The spam score takes other factors into account such as external links, the location of the top-level domain, etc.

Let’s take a look at some of the flags checked by the Moz Index system.

Spam Score Flags

These flags can be divided into two categories such as link flags and on-page flags. There are other signals on top of these 17 flags that might contribute to the spam scoring of a website.

#1 – Site with multiple pages but a few links

It is not normal for a large website to have very few links pointing to it (backlinks).

This means that the site content isn’t extremely valuable and Google will eventually rank it lower in search engine result pages.

#2 – Few number of branded links

If a site has a few branded links or branded keywords in its content then it might trigger a spam flag.

Google and other search engines look for anchor text links containing branded keywords. If the total number of branded links is low, that might cause an increase in the spam score.

#3 – Low score on MozTrust and MozRank

These are independent metrics released by Moz.

If a site scores low on these two metrics, it might trigger a spam flag and have its spam scoring increased.

This usually happens for websites with poor-quality content or bad on-site SEO.

#4 – Low number of internal links

An internal link points to a page on the same website.

Internal linking is good for SEO and also helps readers find more information related to the same subject.

If a website has few internal links, this might increase the spam score.

#5 – A high number of external links

Each website must point out to other websites.

However, when Google discovers that there are simply too many external links on a website, this might result in a spam flag.

The spam signal is more evident when the ratio of external links to internal links is abnormal (too many external links compared to internal links).

#6 – Poor-quality content

Google loves websites with valuable, diversified content.

If the content of a website seems duplicated, automatically generated or looks like scraped content, this can trigger a spam flag and the site might be penalized.

#7 – Contact details are missing

All high-quality websites have their contact details prominently displayed on the front page or in a “contact” page.

This helps to build trust with the customers and make it easier to get in touch via phone or email.

Sites with no contact info displayed are considered spammy by search engines and their spam scoring will be high.

#8 – Sites with long domain names

It is not a good idea to have a website like “www.getthebestgamesonlinecheapprices.com”

This is a surefire way to have your website penalized for spam.

It’s called keyword stuffing and Google doesn’t like it anymore, so if you create a website, stick with short and sweet domain names.

#9 – Low number of pages

There must be a correlation between the age of a website and its total number of pages.

For example, a 5-year old website with just 4 pages indicates that the website hasn’t been updated in a long time.

Similarly, a very high number of pages isn’t much appreciated either, so try to be somewhere in between.

#10 – Too much anchor text

The anchor text represents the actual words which redirect you to an external link when you click on them.

It is normal for every web page to have some anchor texts. However, if the page is stuffed with links (25 or more) then this is might trigger a spam flag.

Other Signals For Spam

There are other signals used by the research team at Moz to check for spam.

These signals act as spam flags and they can increase or decrease the spam scoring. Let’s take a look at them:

#11 – A domain name with numerals

Websites such as “www.catfood123.com” are not seen well by Google. Numerals are not required in a domain name and they usually indicate a spammy website.

#12 – Not having an SSL certificate

SSL certificates are a must-have these days.

They ensure that the information entered through the site is encrypted and protected against theft.

A site with an SSL certificated begins with “https://”. A site without it begins with “http://”.

Not having an SSL certificate can be seen as a spam flag, so make sure you always have one on your website to avoid being penalized by Google.

#13 – Titles too long or too short

The title of your web page is very important.

It should convey what’s the page or blog post about and provide interesting information to entice visitors to read more.

Pages with very long titles are considered spammy. So are those with titles made from just a few words.

#14 – Not having a favicon

A favicon is also known as the browser icon of a website.

It is displayed next to the website name on each browser tab. Not having a favicon is usually seen as a spam signal. All trustworthy sites have a favicon and should your website.

#15 – Hyphens in the domain name

Websites such as “www.cheap-cat-food.com” are not seen with good eyes by Google.

Having one or more hyphens in the domain name is usually associated with spammy websites and it should be avoided at all costs.

Reasons To Check the Spam Score

Having a clean website is paramount for the success of your online business.

Checking the spam scoring regularly helps you stay on top of your spam backlinks and avoid a penalization from Google.

Here are a few reasons why you should do it:

1. Prevent bad links from dragging your website down

Each website will eventually have a few spammy backlinks pointing to it. You should run a spam check to see how much weight these bad backlinks carry and which one you should eliminate.

2. See how many spam flags are found on your website

It’s great to know if you are about to be penalized by Google or not.

By running a spam check, you can discover spam flags or signals you previously didn’t know about.

This gives you a clear picture of what to work next to improve your website.

3. Build a better relationship with your customers

Remember that everyone hates spam!

If potential clients look up your website and discover that it has a high spam scoring, they might not want to do business with you.

By keeping your spam score down and trying to optimize your website or blog, you can build a trustworthy relationship with your clients.

Conclusion

Knowing more about spam and spam scoring helps you become a better website owner. You can check your subdomains or individual pages and make tweaks to reduce your spam score.

To extend your knowledge about spam, feel free to also check out our article on eliminating spam comments on WordPress!

The average base salary for an SEO copywriter is more than $60,000.

While that’s not a bad paycheck for any career, when you consider that many copywriters work from their laptop while lounging at home or traveling the world, that number sounds even better.

But launching a career as an SEO copywriter is intimidating.

If you’re thinking about a job change, keep reading to learn the basics of what you need to know to become an SEO copywriter.

In-depth Knowledge of SEO Strategies

If you want to be an SEO copywriter, the first thing you need to do is learn everything you can about SEO strategies and SEO best practices. And there are a lot of them!

You’ll not only want to learn the best SEO strategies for boosting your clients’ websites, but you’ll also want to learn what strategies and ranking factors can hurt a site’s ranking. This will help prepare you to educate your clients if they request any SEO strategy that you know could have the opposite effect you’re going for.

You’ll find an endless number of resources on the web to help you learn all things SEO. If you don’t have any prior web marketing experience, you might want to consider enrolling in a course to help you master the SEO basics first.

Stellar Writing Skills

While SEO strategies are important, if your writing isn’t top-notch, you won’t last long as a copywriter.

Improving your skills in writing, editing, and grammar are a must if you want to land clients and then keep them coming back for more of your SEO services.

Constantly Staying Up-to-date on Algorithm Changes

Simply learning SEO and then getting to work will only get you so far.

In fact, it will only get you as far as the next algorithm update.

Search engines use complicated algorithms to determine where websites should rank. These algorithms are constantly being updated to help these search engines stay ahead of schemers looking to rank their poor quality sites.

The ultimate goal of each update is to deliver the best possible results for any given web search query. Unfortunately for you as an SEO copywriter, the strategies you were using one day to help your clients stay in the top search ranking could actually hurt your clients’ rankings after an algorithm change.

Staying up-to-date on algorithm changes and what SEO strategies are best at any given time is a must if you want to be successful as an SEO copywriter.

Find Copywriting Jobs

Before you can officially call yourself an SEO copywriter, you’re going to have to land your first job.

Without a lot of experience under your belt, cold calling clients aren’t likely to land you your first job.

Instead, it’s best to seek out copywriting job boards or an article writing service that can help connect you with your first client. These job boards often test your skills for eligibility, rather than relying solely on a resume.

Launching a Career as an SEO Copywriter

Launching a career as an SEO copywriter is a great opportunity to put your writing skills to work in a demanding industry. Once you’ve learned what you need to know and started building your resume, you’ll find plenty of job openings and a rewarding career that gives you the freedom you crave.

One great way to build a writing portfolio to launch your new career is to start your own blog to showcase your skills. Click here to learn everything you need to know to do just that.