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With a little delay, I’m publishing my monthly SEO & internet marketing roundup. As it was the first month of a new year, there were many posts predicting what will change in the SEO world during 2015. I read some excellent posts, in my opinion and am now going to share those posts that were published I the last month of 2014.

If you think that I missed something, then you can get in touch via this form or by using my Twitter account.

“How To Generate 36,282 Readers — and 1,000 Email Subscribers — From Your Next Blog Post (Case Study)” by Brian Dean published on his blog. The post is actually a bit long, but you should definitely find 20 minutes to read it. There are 3 steps according to Brian:

  1. Find high quality content
  2. Improve it
  3. Promote using email outreach

What he used to promote the post via email:

  • Announced a post to his email subscribers
  • Informed his expert contributors
  • Offered his post to expert roundups like mine
  • Linked to his new guide from older posts
  • Added “click to tweet” buttons for each tip
  • Used Twitter as a source of promotion
  • Contacted .edu sites
  • Contacted people he mentioned in the guide

 

“The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Creating Your Own Digital Marketing Plan” by Dennis Seymour on Leapfroggr. It is another very long post at 7,000 words that is actually written very well. The digital plan marketing consists of 5 different steps that you should consider:

  1. Search Engine Optimisation
  2. Pay Per Click Marketing
  3. Social Media Marketing
  4. Email Marketing
  5. Conversion Rate Optimisation

Each step has sub categories so the content in the post structured very well and easy to read.

 

“Internet Marketing For Nonprofits” by Temitope Odurinde. It is one of the best internet marketing guides for charities and nonprofit organisations. Most charities are not aware of Google Grants and other online tools that can help to get more donations. In the post, Temitope describesin detail the following tips for nonprofits:

  1. Google Grants For Adwords: Each officially registered charity can get a free £6,500 grant from Google Adwords team.
  2. Video advertising: YouTube is offering a few very helpful features for charities, too. These include a donate button, live streaming, call-to-action overlays, video annotations, and production resources.
  3. A tutorial on how to add donate button to Facebook page.
  4. An introduction to the Media Trust company.
  5. A review of Grow Your Charity Online tool from Media Trust and Google team.
  6. Pay with a tweet for eBook.
  7. Building email list to inform people about your news or events

 

“6 Inbound Marketing Techniques Every Business Should Use” by Neil Patel on MarketingLand. In this post, Neil talks about the most effective kinds of marketing for business owners. He feels that inbound marketing is what you should consider and he explains why. Modern inbound marketing consists of traffic from search engines, email forms and content publication.

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Here are the 6 techniques:

  1. Give Away A Free Guide That Is Directly Related To Your Business
  2. Pick One Or Two Keywords And Optimize The Heck Out Of Them
  3. Build Your Personal Brand
  4. Ask And Answer Questions On Social Media
  5. Create An Email Popup
  6. Guest Blog

I can’t say that you will find a lot of new information here. On the other hand, all content written in this post works well in 2015 and you should take it into account.

 

Have Google Released A Mobile Algorithm, We Think So…” by Alex Graves on David Naylor blog. In the month of January, 2015, some webmasters noticed a big drop in mobile traffic. Few SEO’s who have a big influence on webmaster world assumed that on Monday, the 26th of January; there was a significant update in Google mobile search results.

At first, people thought it was a new Panda or Penguin update. However, John Mueller from Google confirmed in a video hangout that it was not Panda or Penguin. At the same time, webmasters noticed that with the drop in mobile rankings, they received a message in their Webmaster Tools account saying that their website was treating mobile search users.

Does it mean that mobile friendly website is now an important search factor for mobile search?

 

“Quality Content Factors: A List That’s Actually Helpful” by Nate Dame on Search Engine Land. The author explained the 20 characteristics of great content. I’m not sure that I agree with all 20, but the majority of them are quite helpful for those who regularly blog. Some of them are very obvious like item number 10. : )

So here are they:

  1. Help The User Complete A Specific Task
  2. Organize Thematic Subsections
  3. Make Sure It’s “Made To Stick”
  4. Write A Strong Title & H1
  5. Make Sure It Inspires, Educates and/or Entertains
  6. Ask Yourself If You Would Share It
  7. Make Sure It’s Relevant
  8. Watch Your Word Count
  9. Write For Your Audience (Not Your Peers)
  10. Proofread!
  11. Ease Up On The Primary Keyword
  12. Fact-Check
  13. Clearly Define Author(s) On The Page
  14. Check The AlchemyLanguage API
  15. Don’t Send Mixed Messages
  16. Link To Good Sources
  17. Link Natural Phrases
  18. Avoid Bad Sidebar Content
  19. Make It Visually Appealing
  20. Offer Unique Value (Not Just Unique Content)

“Link Expert Eric Ward Talks Fear And The Evolution Of Links” on WebProNews. It is not a post but actually an interview. But since it is very good interview, I decided to include it in my monthly roundup. Eric is working in link building industry from 1994 and he is quite knowledgeable regarding what changed since that time. Well, I’m sure most of you know it, too, but Eric described some very important changes that you missed or probably forgotten.

One of the biggest change during these 20 years is that majority of webmasters today fear links, when in the mid of 2000-x, they tried to get them as much as possible. I even remember this table that people used to increase their Page Rank. Today, page rank is not a ranking factor anymore. Quality content is what matters nowadays. Long posts rank better when, in the past, the average article was 500 words long.

page rank table

There you have the best posts, in my opinion, during the month of January 2015. I hope you liked them too. 🙂 Please share your comments below or contact me via this form or via my Twitter account.