Ideas for Business

We know that link building is one of the best ways to boost your business site`s SEO, and I`ve talked several times about it here on this blog. However, there are still many areas left unexplored that you can use to build up backlinks and traffic for your website.

For the most part, we think of link building as having to do with text links, so forums, blog comments, etc. are the foundation of most marketing attempts. But if you look at what people are looking at online, it`s not all text. In fact, the majority of web surfers these days are watching videos and searching for images. Are you making use of this?

Video Link Building

You can build up links by putting videos on sharing sites like YouTube, Revver, and other similar sites. Using your keywords, when appropriate, in the tags will help people find you on the search engines. Then, include a link back to your site in your profile, or if permitted, in the video description.

Image Link Building

If you have images, be they graphs, photos or sketches, they can be uploaded to image hosting sites such as Flickr where you can add keywords to the tags and descriptions and a link, as well. This is yet another useful form of effective link building. Also, making sure that your photos are linked to other pages on your site can help build deep links and is a technique that is not often used.

Link building is something every small business owner should be using. It`s a vital part of working with the internet and can be a huge boost to your business site`s SEO.

After spending the last couple years watching blogs and blogging myself, I’ve seen several trends in blog life cycles.

First, blogs usually start off strong. They’ll have a consistent posting frequency for weeks and maybe even months. The bloggers are motivated to create a great blog, so the first couple of posts are high quality. This phenomenon is similar to new year’s resolutions. When the new year comes around, many people will start new workout programs or diet plans. They’ll go to the gym on a regular basis or avoid certain foods for the first couple of days of the new year.

However, just like most people that make new year’s resolutions, most new bloggers stop meeting their goals. They’ll skip a post here and there. They’ll write shorter articles. They won’t do as much research or spend as much time writing like they used to. Basically, they won’t put as much effort as they used to. Usually, the lack of effort can be tied to a lack of traffic.

New bloggers often get discouraged because of low traffic. They check their stats and they see that no one is reading their blog. They have no comments to reply to. As you can imagine, if no one is reading your blog, it’s easy to quit or blog halfheartedly. And even if a new blogger does manage to get some traffic, he could still be discouraged if the traffic plateaus for an extended time period.

Marketing is the Key

In my experience, the bloggers that get a lot of traffic on a consistent basis have been blogging for a while (usually over 2 years). So, it’s good to be patient. But what if you don’t have time to be patient especially if you’re counting on your blog to drum up more sales for your business in the next couple of months. Fortunately, there are some bloggers that have reached success quickly. Here’s what we can learn from them.

Marketing is absolutely crucial in the early days of a blog. The bloggers I have seen do well in a short time have spent a lot of time marketing their blog in the early days. Here are a couple things they have done to promote their blog:

• Leaving comments on other blogs
• Writing guest posts for other blogs
• Emailing other bloggers asking them to link to your posts
• Promoting your posts on social media sites

However you choose to promote your blog, the important thing is actually doing it. In your early days, you should spend at least 30% of your blogging time on marketing. My recommendation is to try different methods and then see which ones work the best. Then, focus on those methods and scrap the rest.

You still want to produce good content, but don’t fall into the trap of just writing good content. If you don’t promote your content, how will internet users know it’s out there? There are too many websites on the internet vying for same audience as your blog. Fortunately, most webmasters either don’t do much marketing or they do it poorly. Therefore, you can gain a big advantage by marketing your blog in a consistent manner.

After six months of solid marketing and content production, you should have a solid reader base. And since the internet is more social and interactive, some of your readers will also be content producers. They’ll have blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts, or accounts on other social media sites like forums.

As you continue to produce great content, those readers will help you promote your site by spreading the posts they like on the social media sites they participate in. The bloggers will blog about your posts. Those with Twitter accounts will tweet about your posts. Your reputation will build as a result and you’ll be considered as an upcoming blogger in your industry. If your industry’s blogging community, or “blogosphere”, has a small amount of bloggers, you could even be considered a top blogger instead of just an upcoming one.

Your main goal as a new blogger is to reach that critical mass of readers who will regularly promote your content. If you look at any popular blog, you’ll see they get a lot of links without doing much promotion because of their reader base. Once you reach this point, your traffic should grow much more quickly. And then, you can probably lessen your marketing efforts and focus more on producing content that has a good chance of spreading since you have a reader base that wants to spread your ideas.

There are a lot of things that can be outsourced, but many people wonder about social media. After all, it`s a more personal venue, so is it something that can be turned over to a professional?

The answer is yes. However, you need to be very careful about how you do this. Because social media is more personal, you can`t just expect someone else to fill your shoes, so you will probably want to keep your finger on the pulse and keep doing some of your own social networking.

What I would suggest is setting up a business account at any and all social media sites that you want to belong to. This would include places like StumbleUpon, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. A business account isn`t quite as personal and you`ll be able to outsource most of it. A few examples of things someone else can do for you:

• Send out links to new blog posts.
• Connect with others on the social media site
• Reply to comments
• Comment on other profiles
• Release news updates
• Bookmark other people to catch their attention
• Update profile
• Add product photos or links to a page

Social networking and social media can end up taking up a lot of your valuable time, so it`s often worth it to see if you can outsource this type of task.

It`s not always necessary to wait for some big event to happen so you can get your networking quota in for the year. In fact, you`ll probably find that smaller, spread out events are better for building networking contacts more steadily. And, if there aren`t any coming up in your area, why not set up your own?

A few ideas:

• Blogger Meetup. If you follow the blogs of others who are in your area, why not arrange to meet at a centrally located restaurant or coffeehouse? This is becoming more popular these days and can be a great way to network with others in a similar mind-set.
• Twitter Meetup. Like blogging, Twitter often results in becoming familiar with others and the next step is to connect in real life.
• Business Lunch. There are probably quite a few other entrepreneurs and small business owners in your area, so you could arrange a lunch where everyone could come to meet and connect. This can be a very useful method of getting to know who is available in your hometown or even state.

Don`t be afraid to make things happen for you in the world of networking. There`s not much point in waiting around for someone else to set something up, you`ll miss a lot of great opportunities! A small meet up doesn`t have to be complicated, you can easily just hang out at a coffee shop and talk, so there`s no need for big event planning. Just get out there and start networking!

In my experience with business blogging, certain types of posts seem to attract links more than others. If you want to get more links, it makes sense to publish these types of posts. Here are 7 of them.

1. Lists

If you look at any popular social voting site (like Digg, BallHype, Mixx, or kirtsy), there’s a good chance you’ll find one or more list posts on the front page.

We humans just seem to have an affinity for lists. Maybe it’s because we’re social creatures. Lists are a great conversation piece. We all have our opinions so it’s fun to debate the top 10 movies, albums, sports players, etc. I bet even our ancient ancestors talked about lists. Maybe the top 10 cave paintings or 12 interesting ways to start a fire.

Also, lists have the ability to attract our attention quickly. Glance at the covers of a magazine rack and you’ll see article titles like these:

• Many Happy Returns: 14 Tax Preparation Packages to Guide You Through Taxing Times (PC Magazine)
• 100 Most Beatiful People in 2008 (People)
• How to Build Big Arms in 5 Easy Moves (Men’s Fitness)
• 16 New and Sexy Hairstyles (Cosmopolitan)

2. Glossaries

A glossary is list of definitions for the jargon in your niche. Glossaries attract links because they are a necessary resource in every industry. Every industry has newcomers that want to learn more about the industry. However, these newcomers often get stuck in the learning process because they don’t understand the common terminology.

Bloggers often get asked these type of questions, “What does [industry term] mean?” If you create a glossary, they can link to you and help their readers understand the jargon.

3. Images and Videos

Posts with images and video get a lot of links because they stand out from the crowd. Most bloggers only use text. This leaves a lot of traffic on the table because most people on the internet are visually oriented. Surveys show that most people don’t like to read. Instead, they would rather watch TV or a movie.

I wrote about images and video in the following posts, so check them out for more information.

• Drastically Improve Your Blog Posts By Adding Images
• 5 Reasons to Add Video to Your Business Blog

4. Tutorials

One SEO expert stated that her favorite method for getting traffic and links was to create an in-depth tutorial and then promote it in social media.

Relevant tutorials get lots of links because many internet users are looking for content that shows them how to do a certain task. They want the content to show them step by step how to accomplish their task.

5. Metaphors

When I say “metaphor”, I’m talking about posts that connect two seemingly unrelated topics. Here are a couple examples:

• The Kurt Cobain Guide to Startup Success
• It’s Like Finding Mr. Right: 7 Things I Learned in the Search for the Perfect Jeans
• The Ultimate “Lost” Field Guide to Writing a Better Blog

Metaphor posts are attractive because they jar our mind into making unique connections. We get curious and check out the post to find out how the blogger combined two seemingly unrelated things.

6. Humor

If you’ve got a great sense of humor, try showing it in your blog posts. Historically, humorous content has done a good job of attracting traffic and links. Glance at any social media site and you’re likely to find a lot of humorous pieces.

Also, humorous content often spreads virally because people like pass it around through IM, links, and email. For example, think about all those funny email messages that get forwarded multiple times.

7. Stories

The best-selling book Made to Stick gives six ways to communicate your ideas so that they will survive and spread. One of those ways is to use stories.

Everyone loves a good story. Since the beginning of time, we’ve told each other stories. Stories entertain, touch our emotions, help us understand and remember ideas and concepts, and connect us with each other.

Observe any group of people hanging out and you’ll find them telling stories. With the internet becoming more social, it’s a good idea to find out the compelling stories in your industry and then communicate them on your blog.

Over to You

Have you written any of these types of posts? If you have, feel free to leave a link of the post in the comment section.