ranking your content in the search engines · 2016-07-01 · a big part of creating and ... not...

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MODULE 5 BLOG PROMOTION AND MARKETING STRATEGIES Introduction Hello, this is Stefan, and welcome to Module 5, “Blog Promotion and Marketing Strategies”.

Ranking Your Content in the Search Engines Now that you know how to create high quality content for your niche or market, and you are now publishing it on your blog, it is now time to promote your blog, market it, and start to attract people with your content, so that you can start to build an audience and have consistent traffic. A big part of creating and publishing high quality articles on your blog is to rank them in the search engines. We are first going to talk about ranking your content in the search engines and then I am going to share with you different strategies than can allow you to promote and market your content, which will also help your content rank better in the search engines. In order to successfully rank your content in the search engines, you must make sure that you have optimized your blog and your content for specific keywords. We have already talked about this in an earlier module, which is the on-page SEO. Make sure that you understand that and that you go through that lesson again on how to properly and effectively optimize your content, based on certain keywords. If you have optimized your blog and content with on-page SEO, than the next step is to focus on promoting and marketing your content by having quality, relevant authoritative websites link back to your blog or content.

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By doing this, this tells Google and the search engines that your blog and content is popular, which will increase the visibility and rankings in the search engines. This is known as off-page SEO, all the things that you do outside of your website and outside of your blog, and that is what I am going to show you and focus on with you in this video.

How to Promote and Market Your Blog Content Consistently create and publish new articles on your blog. This is the most important thing when it comes to blogging, even for YouTube and social media, is that you always have to be adding value and creating new, high quality content that can attract more people to your blog and website. The more content that you have published, the higher that your chances are that your content will start ranking in the search engines for many short-tail and long-tail keywords, which will bring in traffic through the search results. Not only that, but the search engines love consistency and frequency, they love content. If you look at the biggest websites on the Internet, whether that is Wikipedia or CNN, these websites have millions of pages of content. They are publishing new articles, new stories and new pieces of content every single day, and in many cases, dozens, if not hundreds of times/day. As a result, CNN and Wikipedia are websites that successfully rank and attract millions of people to their websites. Always understand that, the more content that you publish, than the more traffic that you are going to be able to attract to your blog and website. The search engines reward you for frequency and consistency, so that is very important. I recommend that you create a schedule for yourself, whether that is posting once a week, once every two weeks, once every three days, every day if you can, or even three times a day; the more the better. With the Yoast SEO plugin, which you should have already installed in a previous module, there is something called an, “XML site map”. Every website, by setting up a site map, what it does is it makes it easy for the search engines to find your content and index it within the search engines.


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The search engines, such as Google, they have what are called “spiders” that crawl the Internet and find, based on different site maps, all the latest content that is published, and they index it in the search engines. I will mention that it can take time for new content to be indexed and ranked in the search engines, so be patient. Focus on consistency and on adding value for now, and in later modules I am going to show you how to track the visitors of your blog and website, how to improve and optimize your businesses, processes, and all the things you have learned so far. Make sure to SHARE all of your content on social media. One important SEO ranking factor, which I mentioned previously in another video, is social signals, which is also known as social sharing. The search engines will determine whether your content is popular or not, based on social signals, which is why it is important to share all of your content on as many social media platforms possible. For example, you should always be sharing your articles and blog posts on your Facebook fan page, your Twitter account, your Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc. Now, I primarily covered Facebook and Twitter with you, but you should be setting up Google, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Tumblr. There are always different social networks that are appearing all of the time, and it is important to always stay on top of them. Facebook and Twitter are the top ones, but why not utilize Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest? Regardless of whether or not you intend on building a following and marketing on those platforms, make sure that you do it so that the search engines can see that your content is being shared, and that it has all of these social signals to it. It is definitely beneficial to set up all those other platforms, and there are platforms on WordPress that can help you automate this. I mentioned in a previous module the JetPack plugin, which is something that comes with your WordPress blog. If you have not installed it with Bluehost, you are going to want to make sure that you set up a JetPack. There is a feature in it called “publicize”, and it can allow you to automatically share your content on your LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter and your Facebook page the moment that you publish it, and so that is what I personally use to publicize.



There might be some other plugins out there that you can find that can increase the reach and can automatically publish your content to even more social networks, but that is the one that I use that I recommend that you set up and optimize for your blog content. Not only that, but when you share your content on social media you share it with your followers; people that are on your Facebook page or Twitter page, etc. When you share it with them, and if your content is good, than it increases the chances of them sharing your content as well, so they can share it with their friends. From there, a viral effect can occur, and then you are going to attract more followers and subscribers to you, so that is another core benefit; when you share it, you attract more people. The more people that you attract, than the more chances that your content will be shared by others. Make your content GREAT or EPIC. Focusing on creating quality content will take care of most promotion and marketing of your content. If your content is amazing, people will naturally share and promote your content, and that is what I found for myself. Truthfully, I do not really focus too much on promoting and marketing my content; we share it on social media and we do a few things that are mentioned here. For the most part, the reason why my blogs and brands have been successful is that I focus, primarily, on creating quality content. People that consume my content like it, they share it with people, and I’ve had a few videos and blog posts that have really taken off and become viral, just because the content is that good. In the same way, when people say that you have a quality product, than the marketing will take care of it; the word of mouth and the product will sell itself. It is the same thing with high quality content. Focus on that; that is really the 80%. Sometimes, I see people that have low quality content, and they are trying to focus on marketing and promoting it, however you cannot market or promote something that is not good because people are going to come to it, they will feel misled, and it is not going to add value to them.



If you focus more on the content itself, 80% on the content and 20% on the marketing, promoting, and sharing of it, that is what is going to allow you to have the most success in building your blog and your brand. Also, make sure that it is easy for people to share your content. I already recommended in a previous module about the SumoMe plugin. I hope that you have set that up. SumoMe has a feature in it, where you can use a social sharing bar on each of your blog posts inside WordPress, and that is really beneficial because when people go to your blog content, they can easily share it on their Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, or whatever it might be, with just the press of a button. Having a plugin like that on each of your blog posts is valuable and will allow your blog posts to be easily shared, if they are really good and high quality. My experience has been that, once you attract followers and subscribers, than they will start sharing and promoting your content with others. I have a few pieces of content that are really high quality, and I can’t tell you how many blogs, websites and social media people have shared different things that are on my blog. I found that that is what the search engines want; they do not want you to over-manipulate them and create content that have low quality links and that has “spammy” stuff, you will see that all the time on the Internet. People will use bots and software’s, and things that are black hat, just to try to promote their content, and that is not what Google wants. They may penalize you for that, and so I recommend staying away from it. As I said, you want things to happen organically and naturally, over time. It takes time, so be patient. Focus on consistency, and your content and blog will slowly start to take off. Here are some more specific strategies to promote and market your blog content: Find places online where people are interested in your niche or content, and share it with them. Facebook Groups You can search for your niche keywords on Facebook and find groups related to your niche, join them, and contribute to them by sharing content with the group members.



For example, you could go to Facebook and type in weight loss, fitness, dieting, or nutrition, the related keywords to your niche or market. So many different groups have thousands of people in them. Join the groups, and when you join the groups, make sure that you are not just there to market and promote yourself; make sure that you are there to help people and answer questions, solve problems, meet people’s needs and be helpful. Be a contributing member of these groups and be helpful, and then once in a while, share your content and say, “Hey guys, here is a great article that I put out that has some weight loss tips that I’ve learned that can help you lose weight a lot faster”. You can then link to some of your articles and content. I found that to be a very effective way of promoting content. There are many different Facebook groups that I am a part of, in different niches and markets, and oftentimes, if I have got something good, Ill share it in those groups. Sure enough, people will enjoy it, they will receive value, and they will head over and find out more about my blog and website. Forums and Message Boards There are many different forums and messages boards where many people are hanging out, based on different niches and markets. There are a lot of fitness-related ones, like Body Building, Testosterone Nation, My Fitness Pal, and many others in the health and fitness market. In every niche, there are forums and message boards, places where people are hanging out and contributing, asking questions, asking for help, posting content, and all that sort of stuff. I recommend that you find and identify where people are hanging out. Where are the different forums and message boards within your niche? For example, if you go to Google, you can search for your niche keywords and find forums related to your niche, join them and contribute by sharing content with the members. Typically, if you go to Google, type in your keyword and you also type in “message board” or “forum” with that keyword, and Google will help bring up different forums and message boards related to that keyword. For example, if you wanted to find a fitness forum or message board, you could just type in “fitness forum” or put “fitness message board” in Google and that will pull up a bunch of different forums and message boards.



Blogs Another place to find people in your niche and promote your content is on other blogs. For example, you can search for your niche keywords in Google, let us say its fitness, so you could search for “fitness blogs” in Google, find other blogs that are related to your niche, and contribute to them by leaving thoughtful comments and liking to your content in a helpful way. Now, when you do this, you want to make sure that you don’t over-do it because a lot of blogs moderate their content, and if you are there just to promote or market yourself or your content, they probably aren’t going to like that. Other blogs, their focus is on their audience; they want to make sure that whatever is on their blog is going to be helpful and will contribute to their audience on their blog, and that includes comments. If you are there just to exploit, take advantage of, or market the people on other people’s blogs, a lot of bloggers aren’t going to like that and they are just going to delete your comment. When you find other blogs in your niche, you are going to want to start commenting and being an active contributor. Make sure that you are following these other bloggers in your niche, and leave helpful and insightful comments, thanking them and showing appreciation, maybe expanding on what they said, and providing some additional content. By doing this first, and not promoting your own content, it is going to help build some goodwill between you and the blogger. The blogger is going to see that, notice you, and be like, “Who is this person that is commenting on my blog now? He is providing some interesting insights and helpful information”. From there, what you would want to do, is every once in a while, you could leave a comment and mention an article that you have published on your blog that is related to something that is on another blog, and then just provide a link. By doing that in a non-intrusive way, and by adding value first and not just promoting your content, than the blogger will be okay with it. I have had many people that have commented on my blog. I see that they are consistent in commenting, they are helpful, they have good intentions, and then every once in a while, they might link to their own blog or something that might be useful, or a video, or whatever it might be. I’m totally cool with it because I know that person is trying to serve and be helpful, whereas I know the



Difference when someone comes to my blog and they are just posting links and comments; those are the ones that are deleted or banned. Therefore, blog content is a fantastic way to drive more traffic and promote your blog or website in your content, as well as provide high quality backlinks that are relevant from other blogs. In turn, this will help your content rank better in the search engines. Bookmark your content on social bookmarking sites. There are a number of social bookmarking sites that are very popular on the Internet; the most popular ones are Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Scoop.it, as well as Delicious. There are many more that are out there, and there is different software’s that can automatically submit your content to a bunch of social bookmarking sites. I do recommend to manually submitting your content, at least to these five websites, and it is pretty straightforward to do. You just have to sign up for an account and then you can easily share. In addition, part of the SumoMe plugin that I mentioned can allow you to share your content on Dig, Reddit, and StumbleUpon, with the press of a button as well. Keep that in mind, but just by sharing your content on these different social bookmarking sites, what it does, is it allows you to track more people to your content, and it also shows the search engines that you have more quality links from authoritative websites on the Internet that are pointing back to your content and website as well. Again, you get the benefit of your content ranking higher in the search engines. You can also outsource this if you choose. You could hire a virtual assistant to do this for you, if you want, or you could go to Fiverr.com and just search for “social bookmarking”, and there are a number of Fiverr gigs, where you can pay someone. For $5 or $10, they will manually submit your content and blog post to the different social bookmarking websites. Guest Blogging Guest blogging involves finding other blogs in your niche, contacting them, and asking if you can contribute an article or a piece of content to their blog.


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When you do this, you want to make sure that you focus on adding value to them, to their blog, and to their audience, because bloggers are not going to allow you to post a low-quality article on their blog. That is not going to be relevant or useful for their audience. They are not going to like that. Their audience always comes first, so add value to them and their audience. In exchange, request to be able to link back to your blog or a piece of your content on your website, so that now you are getting a quality link back to your blog from someone else’s blog that is high quality, authoritative, and relevant to yours. In turn, the search engines will see that, such as Google, and as a result, they are going to help rank your blog and your website a lot higher in the search results. Not only that, but you are also leveraging the audience, traffic, visitors and subscribers of someone else’s blog. If people on the other person’s blog read your article, enjoy it and receive value from it, than they are going to want to find out more about you, they are going to want to click the link and head on over to your blog, check out your content, and then potentially become a subscriber of your blog as well. Submit and publish articles to other popular blogs or directories in your niche. You can find the top news or content blogs/directories in your niche, or just online in general, and become a guest contributor for them. There is many different websites like this, such as LifeHack.org, Elite Daily, Medium, Quora, EzineArticles, etc. These are the main ones that we contribute content to that helps promote my blog and my content as well, so similar to guest blogging, you are submitting articles to other websites, and in exchange, are getting a link back from an authoritative and relevant website. Again, that helps you with the search engines, as well as helps you leverage other platforms. Because a lot of these websites, such as Medium, Elite Daily, or Life Hack, are already very authoritative websites with Google and the search engines, your content will rank a lot higher on their websites, more than your own, because your website might be brand new.



It can be a very effective strategy to publish unique content on other people’s blogs because those can rank in the search engines and continue to drive traffic back to your blog and continue promoting you.

Guest Blogging Examples I’m now going to show you some examples of guest blogging, as well as how you can submit articles and content to other authoritative blogs and websites on the Internet to help promote your blog and content, and also to get a quality link back. There are a number of blogs out there, in different niches that allow and accept guest blogging. Not every blog will allow guest contributors and guest blogging, but the majority of them do, especially if you can provide something that is high quality, that is useful for their audience, and that is relevant. That is the most important thing, making sure that it is high quality and relevant. Bloggers and people out there on the Internet want quality content that their audience and their followers will enjoy. If you can save the time of them having to create content, and you can provide it to them, for free, and then in exchange, get a link back to your website or blog, it is a win-win for both sides. For most blogs out there, you are going to have to contact them. Do a Google search and search for the different blogs; be aware of what the different blogs are in your niche, contact them, and ask to contribute a guest post to their blog. I recommend making sure that, when you do that, you have a few different ideas and headlines, you have done some research, and you are familiar with their blog. Again, you want to make sure that you can provide something that is relevant to their blog, that would be helpful for their audience, and that is a similar style and the same level of quality that the blog already has with their content. So, reach out to them and have a few different titles and ideas that you can submit to them. If you have already written up articles that are unique, than you can submit those to them as well, and say that, “You can publish this on your blog, but just make sure that you link back to my blog, in exchange”. Oftentimes, by already having the content written, and you submit it, it can increase your chances of getting that guest post approved and added to their website.



If you can show them examples of other content that you have written so that they can see the quality, that is very useful. Make sure that you are coming at it to add value and not promote; promoting yourself, your blog and your content is always a secondary benefit that you get from it. A number of blogs make it clear and provide instructions for people that want to submit guest posts to the blog. In the case of my blog, “Project Life Mastery”, we always have many people that contact us that want to submit articles and be a guest blogger. We have a page, like this, which says, “write for us”, and we direct people that want to guest post to this page. It explains how to get started, the importance of quality, and letting them know that we are not going to approve every article, because we want to maintain a certain level of quality and a high standard. It explains the word count and general information as well, like, “Why to Write for Project Life Mastery”, “5 Ways to Write a Great Guest Post”, “How to Submit an Article”, etc. If you want to submit to our blog and be promoted by us, than you can go to this page.



Project Life Mastery gets 3000-5000 unique visitors, every day. When you submit a guest post to some blog posts out there, not only can you get in front of their thousands of visitors, which can give you a huge boost, but oftentimes a lot of bloggers will share it on their social media, with their followers, and they might even mail it out to their email list. This is a very effective strategy that can help you build your name and brand online quickly. If other blogs have a page like this, that is awesome. Again, you can find many blogs in your niche by just searching around on Google. Here is another website, Young and Raw. They also have a “write for us” section, so there are many guest contributors on this blog. You can see that there are many different names here, so very common in many different niches, and they make it very easy for you to contact them. Again, before you would submit, you would want to look at their other content and make sure that you can submit something that is relevant to them. This is a hugely popular blog on the Internet, and I know the owners of this blog as well. Project Life Mastery Guest Post Examples George Smolinski, “The Four Hour Physician”



He contacted me years ago. He has a blog and a book as well, and he is an expert on outsourcing. You can see here that he submitted a high quality article to my blog, and he has a few links. Here is a link to his website, “The Four Hour Physician”. When you are submitting guest posts, you want to make sure that you are not over-doing it with your links back to your website in any way. He just has two or three links back, and I am happy to promote him, in exchange, because he has provided a quality article for my audience, which they really enjoyed. Jeff Liu, New Breed Man

You can see that there is a link to his website, “New Breed Man”, and again, there are many different examples out there of guest blogging; it is a very common strategy. When it comes to different websites, there are websites, such as, LifeHack. LifeHack is a popular website on having content for communication, lifestyle, productivity, tech and work. If your content is relevant to this niche or these different subjects, than this could be a fantastic website for you to submit content.


http://www.newbreedman.com/

http://www.lifehack.org/


Typically, when you are accepted to submit content to websites, like LifeHack, they will give you your own username and password to log into their WordPress dashboard, in which case you write-up the content in WordPress and then submit it to them. From there, they are going to have an editor that goes over it and makes sure that it meets their standards of quality before they submit it here. Some of these websites, like LifeHack, have thousands and thousands of visitors and followers, and so you can really get some big traffic and a big boost back to your website. Elite Daily Elite Daily is very common for news, dating, life, etc. Whatever the niche is that you are in, there might be different websites, but these are the top ones.


http://elitedaily.com/


Medium Medium is very popular for many different subjects and niches; I think pretty much any niche can submit to Medium. You can see Gary Vaynerchuck submitting some articles here; you can just reach more people, and again, get quality links that go back to your website. You can sign up for an account and then just click on, “write a story”. Quora Quora is a website where many people ask questions, and you can comment and provide answers. You can do a keyword for different search words related to your niche, and again, just get some extra promotion back to your blog as well. Ezine Articles This is an article director, and there are many different article directories similar to Ezine Articles that you can join, free, and they have many different categories here.


https://medium.com/

https://www.quora.com/

https://ezinearticles.com/


If you look at some of these articles, usually they have a link back to a website, so these are just a number of different ways that you can promote your blog and content by submitting on other websites. The more backlinks you have than the higher your website and content will rank in the search engines. I recommend that you take advantage of all these strategies that I am sharing with you, but again, remember to focus on quality content and be consistent with it; that is the 80%. All of the other techniques and strategies that you learn are only going to provide a 20% benefit, so it all starts with quality content and being consistent over the long-term.

Assignments

Create a consistent schedule for article creation, and make sure that you are publishing more high quality articles. This is a never-ending process, you always have to be creating high quality content and publishing it online on your blog.

Make sure that you start promoting and marketing all of your blog articles with the strategies that are mentioned inside this video.

Resources and Links Yoast SEO

Jetpack (Publicize) SumoMe Digg Reddit StumbleUpon Scoop.it Delicious




https://jetpack.com/support/publicize/



http://digg.com/

https://www.reddit.com/

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

http://www.scoop.it/

http://del.icio.us/


LifeHack.org EliteDaily Medium Quora EzineArticles

Conclusion Thanks so much for watching the video! Make sure to leave a comment below and I will see you in the next video.


http://www.lifehack.org/



https://medium.com/

https://www.quora.com/

https://ezinearticles.com/

ranking your content in the search engines · 2016-07-01 · a big part of creating and ... not...

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