What’s more important than consuming all that information is to focus on just the good information – just the accurate information that is relevant to creating a great blog. And when we do that, we realize that actually, it is a lot easier than you probably think.

• The Mistake – Mistaken or misguided SEO is all about trying to hack Google. It’s all about trying to trick Google into thinking your site is a top authority, by building specific links and by posting keywords. It’s highly technical because it is based on algorithms and ‘systems’ thinking.
• And sometimes this works! But then Google gets wind of whatever new technique is all the rage, it plugs that loophole and the related site gets penalized.
• So instead focus on the same thing that Google is focused on: the user. Stop writing ‘for’ the search engines and write ‘for’ the readers. When you do this, you are doing what Google wants you to do. Google wants to provide useful and entertaining information for its users. And if you get this right, then eventually Google is going to reward you with future updates.

• The Most Important Trick – Write long, high-quality blog posts. If you do this, you will get people to your site naturally and they will link to your site because they want to share the excellent content they are seeing.
• At the same time, you also do need to build those links. The thing we do need to take from SEO strategies is that the best links are the ones that come from the most highly regarded websites. These sites are invariably the ones that Google trusts – and if you want to see which sites Google trusts you can just take a look at the sites it features in its news section. Other popular sites are those that have a .edu TLD or a .gov.
• Finally, big brands will also invariably be trusted by Google. If you can get links from those sites, they will boost the credibility of your site by a huge margin. If you can’t, you need to get links from sites that have links from those sites.

Put these tips into practice to see the best return on your blog posting and marketing efforts.

The post Bloggers: Good Search Engine Optimization is Key appeared first on Second Self Virtual Assistance.

Do you write your weekly blog posts and then wonder if anyone’s reading them? Do you even know how many viewers your posts get?   Sometimes growing your blog audience can be as simple as making a few changes.

Get started now by implementing these three tips.

Know Your Audience – To grow your blog audience, you must first know who your audience is, where they hang out, and what their needs and interests are.  This gives you a sense of which topics get the most readership.  Realtors® who work with seniors wouldn’t write about first-time home buying.  Likewise, an agent who works with first-time buyers would miss the mark if their posts were geared toward second homes.

What are your audience’s demographics?  Things like age, income, lifestyle, etc. are important things to consider when deciding on a post topic.  Demographics also play an important role in where you promote your posts.

Blog Promotion – Now that you know your audience, you will also want to know where to promote your posts.

Social Media – In March 2018, the Pew Research Center wrote an article about Social Media Use in 2018.   The article provided a graph showing the percentage of adults who use each of social media platforms.  Included are YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter, and WhatsApp.  Do your research to find the best platform for your demographic.

Email Marketing – Separate your contacts into groups.  That way you can choose which group would be most interested in your post.  Then create a short email and send to the appropriate group with some “teaser text” and a link back to your post.  This builds website traffic and exposure to other features and pages on your website.

RSS Feed Submission – To get maximum exposure for your blog posts, add your RSS feed to some of the most popular directories.  Feedly is a great place to start.  They took over where Google Reader left off.  There are many other free and paid subscription sites to add your blog feed.  Syndicating your RSS feed will allow your content to be promoted on other blogs, websites, and news outlets.

Guest Blogging – The two biggest advantages of guest blogging are building brand awareness and increasing your online exposure.  Every post shared exponentially extends your online reach to people who ordinarily would not know you.  Sharing your expertise and experience sets you apart as the “go to” person in your field.  Guest blogging also gives you an important part of real estate called the bio.  This allows your readers the opportunity to learn more about you, possibly leading to sales.

Be consistent!  Use these three tips to grow your blog audience, share your knowledge and experience, and to build your brand.

The post Growing Your Blog Audience: Hello! Is Anybody Out There? appeared first on Second Self Virtual Assistance.