As we come towards the middle of the year, here is my monthly roundup of the best articles in SEO and internet marketing niche for the month of April, 2015.
If you think that I missed something, then you can get in touch via this form or by using my Twitter account.
“How To Write A Blog Post” by Gary Dek on Start Blog 123. In this post, the author provides readers with a list of basic tips and tricks that will help writers get the most out of each blog post. Following are just some of the thoughts that are covered:
- Spend time crafting an intriguing headline
- Hook your readers with a great introduction
- Get straight to the point
- Address your readers directly
- Write as you would speak
- Use subheadings for better readability
- Use visuals
- Be a storyteller
- Connect with your readers on a personal level
- Write a strong closing paragraph
- Proofread, edit, and fact-check
- Use relevant social sharing buttons
- Publish consistently
I’m sure some of you think that these tips sound very broad – but if you want to write a good blog post – it’s important to spend time editing, improving, and honing your skills. Gary also included a collection of best practices, according to him, for creating B2C and B2B blogs.
“How to Use HARO to Earn Valuable Mentions and Links” by Jared Carrizales on Heroic Search blog.
Some time ago, I created an account for myself on HARO after reading a post by Brian Dean – unfortunately, I didn’t really dedicate enough time to exploring the service more. Though I know it’s possible to get great mentions from journalists and strong links on HARO – I’ve neglected to use it to its full extent so far.
In his post, Jaren provided a collection of fantastic information complete with examples and pictures- after reading it, I’ve been convinced to try HARO properly.
“3 White Hat Link Building Techniques That Go Far Beyond Links” by Ryan Stewart on Ahrefs blog. There are a number of great blog posts out there about link building, and the most valuable are those that combine link building techniques to the current time. For example, though directory submission was a suitable option for link building 5 years ago, it no longer works today.
In this post Ryan writes about these 3 techniques:
“Blog commenting” – Placing relevant comments on relevant sites allows you to benefit from great mentions, as well as potential leads. It will take some time because to leave a good comment you must read blog post at first.
“Alert The Press And Make Them Link To You” – This technique is obviously a bit tougher, but if you can get a link from trusted news sites, you can be sure the benefits will be huge.
“Networking With Results In Mind” – Your networking opportunity could arrive in the form of an expert roundup, like this one that I published last week “Proven Tips To Get More Twitter Followers That Work In 2015”. It is very easy to write good information for a particular topic and in return get a link from trusted website. Note that it takes some time to write a good roundup, so if you received an inquiry to participate in one, don’t hesitate, and send your response. Good roundups always appear on good sites.
“It’s Official: Google Says More Searches Now On Mobile Than On Desktop” by Greg Sterling on Search Engine Land. It is not a big surprise that internet going deeply into mobile world. However, not many people expected that mobile searches would actually overtake desktop soon. This means that the recent Google algorithm that ranks mobile-friendly websites higher is very important nowadays.
“How Much Has Link Building Changed in Recent Years?” by Paddy Moogan on Moz blog. This is a very interesting and very detailed post by Paddy. Well done. We all know that in the past 5-10 years link building has changed a lot. Perhaps the most important factor to consider is the way that these changes link to Google Penguin and Google Panda. These algorithms forced webmasters to review their link building policy and to find how to get backlinks naturally.
In this post, the author points out that links with targeted anchors are not as widely used today – because it can be dangerous. I remember when some time ago it was enough to submit your site to few quality directories with the same anchor and within few weeks you were rank high for that keyword. However today, things are quite different.
“The Path to Email Marketing Success: Best Practices and Strategies of 15 Smart Marketers” by Javier Sarda on NewsLetterBreeze blog. Very informative post that can show you some smart techniques to improve CTR or your email marketing campaign.
Email marketing today is a very powerful way to tell your subscribers about your new post or product. Also, email subscribers are more likely to make a purchase on your site than most regular users.
Javier in his post has analysed:
- 15 marketers
- 56 different subscription forms
- 49 reasons to subscribe
- 440 specific newsletters
The post itself is very long but has a great deal of useful information.
“Low-Converting Landing Page? Test These 17 Things Right Now” by Eric Barrier for Gauher Chaudhry blog. The landing page is a very important part of a successful websitem and if you are selling something or getting subscribers or something else, you definitely must spend some time on creating high-converting landing pages.
In this post Eric will show you 17 things that can help to transform your landing page from low-converting to high-converting immediately. There are some basic tips, for example:
- A red coloured button gets more clicks than a green coloured button
- Signup forms on the left of the page are more effective than those on the right
- Which parts of your landing page require the most focus
“Why You Need An SEO Checklist” by Dennis Seymour at LeapFroggr blog. Today if you work as SEO specialist, you must do a lot of things with a website to make it rank well. Day-by-day, the SEO world is changing and techniques that worked in the past are not as effective today. That is why you need a SEO checklist.
With SEO checklist you never forget anything about SEO again.
What is important is that Dennis created well-designed infographic where you can find the following categories checklist:
- Research
- On-Page SEO
- Off-Page SEO
- Everything else
“126 Must-Read Traffic Generation Case Studies” by NinJaOutReach. This is a very detailed post and very good work by the author. They selected 126 of the best traffic generation case studies on Internet. The post contains 13 chapters:
- Chapter 1 – Content Marketing
- Chapter 2 – Link Building
- Chapter 3 – SEO
- Chapter 4 – Social Media
- Chapter 5 – Facebook
- Chapter 6 – Twitter
- Chapter 7 – Conversion Rate Optimization
- Chapter 8 – eCommerce
- Chapter 9 – Outreach
- Chapter 10 – Make Money
- Chapter 11 – Niche Websites
- Chapter 12 – Paid Advertising
- Chapter 13 – Other
“7 Steps in Creating a Winning Social Media Marketing Strategy” by Michael Patterson on Sprout Social blog. Although this post was published in March, I was only made aware of it when a Twitter follower of mine brought it to my attention. Social media can build upon organic traffic to give you more leads and more potential conversions than ever before. Also, according to some researches, traffic from social media converts better.
In this post you will find 7 steps that can help you to create a good social media marketing strategy. Also what I liked is that the author showed real examples on few social platforms like Google+, Twitter or LinkedIn.
“65+ Sites To Find (FREE) Amazing Public Domain Images“ by Shae Baxter on his own blog. This is a great list of public domain images. Very often when I work with some new blog post, for example with this one, I’m facing with the problem to find nice and at the same time not used and not copied image. Some stock photos websites are very expensive. Now I know a list of such sites where I can look a picture for my future posts.
There you have the best posts, in my opinion, for the month of April 2015. I hope you liked them too!Please share your comments below or contact me via this form or via my Twitter account.