As we approach the middle of the year, here is my monthly roundup of the best articles in the SEO and internet marketing niche for the month of September 2015.
If you think that I missed something, then you can get in touch via this form or by using my Twitter account.
“The Fundamentals of Ethical Reddit #Marketing” by David DiGiovanni on Search Engine Journal. I have to say that this author clearly explained whether or not Reddit gives dofollow or nofollow links.
“After checking a handful of links, all links submitted to Reddit start out as nofollow links. Links on Reddit become “dofollow” links after they receive a score of two or greater (score = upvotes – downvotes). So a random link submitted to Reddit provides no direct SEO value as a link unless other users upvote it.”
If you want to be successful on Reddit, you must do the following:
- Contribute value.
- Be honest with our users.
- Be accessible.
- Use Reddit to create better content.
- Hold a Reddit AMA.
“3 Killer Growth Hacks for Twitter, Reddit and Google+” by Ryan Stewart on Matt Woodward’s blog. This is a very interesting read by Ryan where you can find:
- How black hats abuse Reddit for huge traffic.
- The one Google+ trick responsible for driving thousands of visits over and over again.
- How to hack Twitter traffic using down right dirty, disgusting spam.
“The Ultimate Guide to Twitter Chats by SEMrush” by Olga Andrienko on SemRush blog. Twitter chats are a very powerful way to get new followers and, sometimes, to get new leads. Nowadays, you can find Twitter chats related to almost everything.
For example, this twitter account tweets everything related only about Herefordshire. After engaging with them via Twitter, you may also get a link from http://www.thisisherefordshire.biz/. In the post by Olga, she explained very well how you can create your own chat:
- Find a catchy hashtag.
- Choose a time slot.
- Pick topics that will interest your followers.
- Create your own question.
- Invite guests.
- Create promotional materials.
- Don’t forget about images.
- Share promotional materials with your guests.
“Content, Shares, and Links: Insights from Analyzing 1 Million Articles“ by Steve Rayson on Moz blog. After analysing 1 million articles, they took a look at the correlation of shares and links to understand that gets both shares and links and to identify the formats that get relatively more shares or links.
Here are some of the most interesting quotes from the summary:
- From each 100,000 posts, 50% had 2 or less Facebook interactions and almost 75 has 0 backlinks.
- From 750,000 posts, 50% of them had 0 backlinks.
- Over 75% of articles from our random sample of 100,000 posts had zero external links and just 1 or less referring domain link
- The correlation of total shares and referring domain links across 750,000 articles was just 0.021.
- 85% of content published (excluding videos and quizzes) is less than 1,000 words long. However, long form content of over 1,000 words consistently receives more shares and links than shorter form content
“54 experts discuss which social media metrics really matter” by Josue Valles on Engagebit blog.
Within the above photo, you can see that 55 proven experts think engagement is what really matters in the social world. However, traffic and conversion is also very important. New followers and reach got 12 points. Brand awareness – 8 points; Growth & Sales and Revenue got 6 points; Customer Satisfaction – 3 and CTR -1 vote.
I’m not very surprised with these results. If you engage with your followers on social media channels; it means that you then get conversions, traffic, sales and revenue. Therefore, I would probably agree that engagement is the most important.
“Twitter Promotion: How to Encourage Others to Promote for You” by Michael Stelzner on Social Media Examiner blog. Very good post by this author. I will just list the main points from the article:
- #1: Include a Customized Tweet Button on Every Single Page of Your Product
- #2: Embed a Twitter Widget on Every Page That You Use to Promote
- #3: Create a Transactional Tweet
- #4: Create Shout-Out Tweets
- #5: Pre-craft Tweets
“How To Start A Successful Blog In 90 Days Step By Step: Social Media” by James Johnson on Matt Woodward’s blog. To begin with, James recommends identifying your niche. That is very important. After that, you should decide if you need a special design, your own writer, etc.
Don’t forget to set up your blog goal. If you are blogging about social media, be sure that your social media profiles look very trustworthy. Then you must understand your target audience and write for them.
In the next stage, identify your competitors and discover their benefits. Maybe you can even steal their posts. Try to be predictable in your blogging life.
5 methods of getting traffic:
- SEO
- Guest Blogging
- Distribution
- Podcasts and Interviews
- Social media
“SEO Checklist: 74 Step Process for Mammoth Rankings” by Sam Oh on Money Journal blog. It is not necessary for me to go into a lot of detail about this post as Sam provided a very nice infographic. Therefore, you can just go to the original article and read a whole checklist ranging from keyword research to promoting your content on social media.
“Why Are Video Ads The Best Advertising Choice Nowadays?” by Milli Blak on brid.tv blog. Some key points from this post by Milli include:
- By 2017, almost 75% of internet traffic will be video.
- 65% of the world’s population are visual learners.
- During the past year, for the first time, digital video advertising spend nearly matched to television spending.
- Video content shared on Facebook may serve you as a great call-to-action button when it comes to engaging, informing, and attracting your audience.
- “Images and videos drive three to four more clicks on Twitter.”
- Google is testing promoted video ads in search results.
“How I Generated $332,640 in 3 Months From Instagram” by Neil Patel on Quicksprout blog. Instagram is one of the most popular social networks among teenagers. That is why you do not need to ignore it. Actually, I know some brand websites that are doing quite well on Instagram. Neil has written a highly informative post about this social network.
Instagram ads are not very expensive but you must know how it works. For example, Neil has spent $75,000 on advertising but, in return, he got $332,000. Sounds good. He promoted his own webinar on Instagram. It is a 2.5 hour webinar and is not relevant to nearly all of the people who have seen it. Within the webinar, people are pitched on a training package that costs $5,940 a year, but it is charged to them at a monthly rate of $495.
There you have the best posts, in my opinion, for the month of September 2015! I hope you liked them, too! Please share your comments below or contact me via this form or via my Twitter account.