
"We've used Mequoda's strategies and techniques to sell thousands of books, videos, and subscriptions."
- Charlie Spahr, Executive Director, The American Ceramic Society
If you find the concept of blogging several times a day exhausting, join the club. However the one thing that publishers have over any other type of content-creators is an endless supply of content that can be re-mixed and re-purposed into new, evergreen blog posts. These 28 ideas for blog posts should get your motor running!
Catch up on the Mequoda Daily’s blog posts for this past week
Don thought it would be fun to write a post that “explains our methodology for quantifying an uber market.”
Do you know what that means? To quantify an uber market?
Thankfully I know enough to write this post, but I’m fairly sure that 99% of you out there don’t. And that the remaining 1% is probably exclusive to Mequoda employees and our Board of Directors.
Website usability tests are performed to determine if websites are functioning correctly. If they aren’t, users will have a hard time executing on their desired tasks, leading website publishers to fail in building rapport and generating revenue from these users.
Best blog names contain a keyword phrase
One of the huge advantages of creating a new portal brand is having the chance to pick the name with SEO in mind.
This is our absolute favorite strategy for naming blogs and portals. In this principle strategy for choosing the best blog name we take your uber phrase and put the word “daily” behind it.
It might be true that some sites are “winning” the search engines simply by existing and being a well-known reputable sources, like the New York Times or Wall Street Journal.
But it’s even more true that most of us have to work at it.
Don calls SEO “the new direct mail.” Keyword research and implementation is perhaps the most complex, yet effective way to drive the more search traffic to your website. The basic strategy of good SEO is that you can research your keywords, optimize your content, track your progress, and re-do the whole process.
Gutenberg is dead. And you will be, too, if you don’t make the transition now to meet the public’s growing demand for digital information.
Fortunately, there is one resource, one unique program that can change the way you, your staff and your entire organization think of the Internet and help you catch up to the future. Mequoda’s Internet Marketing Intensive has guided some of the oldest and most respected publishing companies in the world including Meredith, Rodale, Interweave and more, in growing a single-digit percentage of their revenue from online sources to earning 20%, 30%, 40% of their revenues digitally. And because the demand for digital products is growing exponentially, so will their revenues.
Will yours?
Catch up on the Mequoda Daily’s blog posts for this past week
So, you’re the keyword checker in your publishing company. Maybe you’re the editor, who writes blog posts and optimizes them for the web. Or maybe you’re the analyst who compiles the keywords for the editors and copywriters to use. Either way, your sacred title of keyword checker comes with great responsibility to help your business improve and get more traffic from your research. And not just new content either, so keep reading.
These SEO copywriting tips will help you rank higher, attracting new audience members
SEO copywriting is a unique creature, pairing creative content with technical guidelines. To be successful at the craft, one must strike a chord with the audience members by appealing to their emotions, self interests and mind set, following keyword phrase parameters that have been created by Google.
Proven methods and a new idea for blockbuster SEO campaigns
A lot of people offer advice about the importance of SEO campaigns and SEO copywriting. And a lot of that advice tells you to start by developing a free report, then research your keywords and finally, write a landing page letter that’s been optimized for search engines using those keywords.
I’m not giving that advice.
So there’s an article you want to write, and you’re diving into your Keyword Universe, a giant spreadsheet that’s filled with columns of keywords ready for the taking and for optimization. Unfortunately on this day, there are keywords you want to use, but you have no idea how much competition is out there.
The quick answer is that it’s easy. Go to Google.com and search for your keyword in quotes. Below the search box, Google will deliver the number of pages that are competing for that keyword.
Catch up on the Mequoda Daily’s blog posts for this past week
UberSuggest will help you find some keyword phrases that Google may have missed
The Google Keyword Tool is very helpful in the process of keyword research, but like most other things, relying exclusively on one tool could be hurting your overall results. Perhaps Google’s Keyword Tool isn’t returning every aligned phrase that is beneficial to the audience of digital publishers.
Today we’re focusing on SEO tips specifically for bloggers. To have a successful blog you need to maximize your traffic. This is usually done by having as much new content as possible, after all people will be looking at your blog to find new content, not to look at the same stuff they’ve already seen. To make things simple, content drives traffic.
Below we have a few tips from top bloggers on how to improve blog SEO in order to produce maximum amounts of traffic.
10 tips for developing findable content
An audience development blog is a valuable tool for interacting with online audiences and establishing a reputation within your market.
As any audience development professional will tell you, SEO is one of the most important components of developing an audience development blog. Below, I’ve listed a collection of SEO blogging tips that will help you better understand the process of driving targeted traffic to your website. The majority of these tips will be discussed in more depth during our Playing Nice with Google Penguin webinar, which shares key insights on avoiding penalties associated with Google’s recent algorithmic changes.
Five steps to an audience development plan
Writing for audience development begins with keyword research. What are your audience members searching for? How many people are searching for the content you provide? What is the related competition on the keyword phrases that you want to rank for in search engines?
Knowing the answers to these questions will provide you with a foundation for your audience development plan. Let’s take a look at a step-by-step approach for audience development writing.
The impact of content marketing
There was a time when I approached being an online editor purely from a journalistic standpoint. My background, comprised of editorial and marketing experience, allowed me to focus on the ways I was communicating to my audience – yet I was unsure of the impact I was really having.
This issue is similar to a problem many editors and writers have: a lack of objectivity with their art form. We’ve all experienced it. You create a piece you absolutely love, and feel connected to, but it just doesn’t reach the amount of people you expected.
Depending on your background, the switch to email copywriting can bring a few additional challenges for writers. This is the case especially if the email copy is also going on the web for search engine optimization purposes.
Beyond the points of striking an emotional connection and presenting the content with a direct response for the reader to take, you need to be using email subject lines that get opened and words that entice readers to come back for more.
These audience development tips will help you attract, obtain and convert casual visitors to your website
There are plenty of ways of executing audience development efforts in the digital landscape. Today we are going to discuss a few of them.
For organic audience development we suggest utilizing search engine optimization, SEO copywriting and the distribution of SEO press releases. These audience development methods will help you target audience members through search engines by utilizing keywords relevant to their interests.
Using the Google Keyword Tool to determine audience interest
Gail and I just moved into a new house in a new neighborhood. We’re only about a mile from our old house, and still in the town that we’ve lived in since 1987. Still, everyone I meet is new to me. Once or twice a day, I’ve been having the new neighbor conversation. Most of the time, it includes the question “what do you do for a living?”
The Blockbuster SEO Post has become legendary in a short time because knowing how to create Blockbuster SEO Posts can lead to immediate traffic boosts. Sometimes this increase in traffic can account for thousands of new visitors each month.
If you are unfamiliar with the process of creating Blockbuster SEO Posts, take a look at this article written by Don Nicholas, which highlights five steps for writing and titling these articles.
Extensive keyword research is a digital publisher’s best friend. It is used not only to find what audience members are searching for, but it also helps quantify competition and the cost associated with keyword campaigns.
Beyond the well-known Google Keyword Tool, there are a couple of additional free tools that will help you develop your keyword strategy.
SEOs track results so their success can be substantiated. However, before overall results can be formulated, there is the need to create an accurate and extensive keyword universe.
The Google Keyword Tool helps in this process by generating related keywords for your main keyword phrases. In addition to helping you develop your keyword clusters, the Google Keyword Tool provides information on competition and search volume, allowing you to create a strategy that focuses on keyword battles that you can win.
If you’ve never been trained on best practices for leveraging organic content, than you are likely missing out on website traffic
SEO blogging is unlike anything traditional editors are used to. There is a personal connection expected throughout the world of blogging, and to succeed within it, you need to be a positive source of content and collaboration. This involves supplying the market with high-quality content, building a strong community and shared valuable viewpoints.
Catch up on the Mequoda Daily’s blog posts for this past week
Discover what your audience is searching for with the Google Keyword Tool
If you aren’t already utilizing the power of the Google Keyword Tool, you are likely missing out on a bigger audience of devout followers.
One of the featured 30 minute interactive workshops at the Mequoda Bootcamp focuses on using the Google Keyword Tool to find the keyword phrases your audience members are searching for.
Discover the secret behind Blockbuster SEO posts that generate hundreds or thousands of unique monthly page views
If you want to attract a more targeted audience, and receive hundreds or thousands of new page views each month, try following these steps.
First: Open up your Google Visibility Report (GVR). Sort the Keyword Competitive Index (KCI) of all the keywords listed within your keyword universe so that the keyword phrases with the highest KCIs are at the top.
3 reasons why SEO is necessary for success in online journalism
Last week at the Mequoda Summit East 2011, I took part in teaching our SEO Workshop.
Norann Oleson, Mequoda’s Keyword Specialist, led the first part of the workshop, where she showed the audience how to compile a keyword universe by utilizing the Google Keyword Tool. Attendees discovered how to determine annual search volumes for keywords and competition on those terms.
Mequoda System Strategy Workshop discusses why Google AdWords should be in your traffic mix
We don’t always talk about this directly, but it’s important to bring people to your website who are ready to buy.
For any publisher with a store, AdWords will almost always be a positive part of the mix for selling aligned products like books, online courses and DVDs.
Tips from PR Newswire on selecting the best words for SEO success
SEO is not just for blog posts; it has found a place all throughout the Internet, from image tags and video transcriptions to optimized press releases.
SEO is ultimately all about reaching your audience. You need to use and understand the language employed by your target audience members.
Documenting characteristics of your core customer will help you target more efficiently
Before the search engine optimization process and SEO campaign deployment can take place, you need to carefully identify the associated customer demand.
Remember, the customer is the reason SEO is performed. In order to target accordingly, you need to successfully determine the needs of your audience members.
7 steps for natural SEO writing
In yesterday’s Mequoda Daily, I discussed what it takes to be labeled as an SEO native.
Like the vast majority reading this article, I am an SEO immigrant. However, unlike most, I’ve spent years understanding, practicing and teaching the SEO writing process.
How we can all learn to think about SEO first
Print editors were trained long before SEO, and as digital immigrants, they often find it difficult to incorporate the SEO process into their writing.
Over the years, as an instructor and coach, I have taught hundreds of people how to properly use SEO in their daily writing. During my exposure with teaching SEO, I’ve witnessed a specific emotional progression that takes place. First, the student shows excitement about SEO. After attempting the process, the feeling shifts to “this is harder than I thought.” Then, some get angry and frustrated and begin to resent the process, as they aren’t good from the start. They begin to stress over the new skill as it begins taking more time to get their work done.
The most relevant keywords may change, but our step-by-step process remains the same
In yesterday’s Mequoda Daily, we discussed using Google Insight for Search as an assistant for continual keyword research.
If you are familiar with Google Insight for Search, you know that it can help you find the keywords that resonate the best with your audience.
If you’re not knowledgeable on a specific topic, YouTube can help you learn some relevant keyword phrases
How often are you given keyword topics to research that you are unfamiliar with?
As publishers occasionally switch focus towards different parts of their content, it is certainly possible that an editor who was hired for his or her knowledge on a specific topic, may be given the task of building a keyword cluster on an unfamiliar topic.
Free tools that will immediately help you find new keyword phrases
Keyword research should be done consistently because change is constantly taking place.
Some keywords you focus on will lose popularity and others will become more popular. Sometimes, keyword phrases that you never thought of could develop into a trending topic, or a search term that could bring in hundreds or thousands of unique visitors to your site.
YouTube’s Keyword Research Tool won’t help your SEO workflow just yet
I recently stumbled upon YouTube’s Keyword Tool (log into your YouTube account to view). It’s looks like an early version of Google’s Keyword Tool, which is the same tool that Mequoda uses to find keywords and perform SEO research internally and for clients. Unfortunately it’s doesn’t provide us with the same fruitful results that the Google Keyword Research tool does.
Power words proven to get more emails opened – the rest is up to you!
Wouldn’t it be great if every article you wrote got read by every single person who subscribes to your email newsletter? What if every subject line you wrote was so powerful and gut-wrenching that every person who saw it couldn’t help but read it?
Unfortunately, even the best, most profound subject lines will still get passed by because of spam filters and people’s overcrowded inboxes. However, there are still things you can do with your subject lines that will increase open rates, and one of the most important things is learning how to write better ones. In fact, mastering this craft will give you more success in getting web traffic from your Twitter and Facebook headlines too.
Learn the formula for our Keyword Competitive Index and begin targeting keywords more effectively on your landing pages
So you’ve painstakingly taken the time to develop an extensive keyword universe that includes thousands of keywords relevant to your audience’s search habits.
That’s great, but your work isn’t done yet. After compiling a comprehensive keyword universe, you need to differentiate between keywords by its competitive index.
Start treating your lists equally by building your social media lists with new free products
Social media list building requires less effort than building your email list. Less effort on the side of the subscriber, because you won’t ask for an email address, and less effort on your part because you don’t need to create a whole elaborate name-squeeze page for each an every one you release.
Order this 90-minute webinar and discover a step-by-step process for taking visitors from search to conversion
Three effective uses of keyword research include audience development, website taxonomy and article tagging
In yesterday’s Mequoda Daily, I discussed the impact that Mequoda System publishers have experienced from Google’s Panda update.
All of the Mequoda Systems we’ve analyzed thus far have seen an increase in the overall number of Google listings for their keywords by at least 15%.
Content marketing and SEO will help build long-lasting relationships
Our Mequoda Summit West 2011 wrapped up today with an optional social media workshop.
During the last few days, a lot of great information has been shared with a savvy group of online publishers and content marketers.
5 Advanced Google Search Tips for Editors
Google is a great tool to use for writing headlines that will get found and bring you new traffic.
Furthermore, Google Analytics is a great tool for an in-depth drilldown on your keyword strategy. Utilizing it will help you determine which keywords demand more attention through added content and optimization.
If you aren’t experiencing success with content marketing, it may be due to these reasons
Content marketing is starting to become an illustrious method for showing audiences who you are and what you’re business is all about.
Some individuals just starting out in the realm of content marketing don’t fully realize how to do it effectively.
Some job responsibilities are “non-negotiable”, especially when it comes to audience development
The job of modern online editors is constantly evolving.
Today, companies are focusing on metrics to inform editors on how their content is working from a business standpoint. Some of these companies are even incentivizing editors with bonuses if they reach specific editorial goals.
A look at our half-day intensive on SEO at the Mequoda Summit West 2011
In the Mequoda Daily yesterday, I discussed persuasive online copywriting.
The skills associated with SEO copywriting will be taught at length during our half-day Mequoda SEO Workshop at the Mequoda Summit West 2011.
Free tools for bloggers that will make editorial management a multi-dimensional experience
As a professional editor and blogger, there are certain tools you use on a regular basis. Your blogging platform is instrumental, but you probably also use simple networks like Twitter and Facebook to share that content that you’re creating. Possibly, you’re taking it one step further and submitting it to bookmarking site.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), there’s still plenty more you can do. As editors we have more time than we know what to do with, right? Just kidding.
Creating free products to build your email list is one of the fundamentals of SEO campaign management
One of the main topics of our SEO Campaign Management Basics white paper (free), is how to create, write and market a free white paper. While our ultimate goal online is to increase revenues, we can’t do that without a considerable email list. And how do we grow our lists? We give stuff away.