You wouldn’t even be close—not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, every day, people send close to 200 billion—yes, that’s billion with a “b”—emails. That equals about half the day for the average working person—so well over two hours for someone with an eight hour work day. That might explain why we are on our computers and smart devices, it seems, all the time.

Of course, a lot of that email isn’t anything we need to worry about—it’s spam, silly cat memes that your friends have sent you. But a lot of it is essential to getting done what we need to do, which means it’s important to stay on top of email. And with so much of it flying around, that’s hard. That’s why learning really good email management habits is essential not just for peace of mind, but for productivity.

Related: Create the Perfect Email Signature With This Cheat Sheet

One of the first steps to creating a more mindful email habit is to start with your inbox.

If you’re like many people, your inbox is probably loads and loads of messages that you know you need to get to. So you should start your good habits by whittling it down to just about 20 emails at any one time. That means getting rid of the mess—the stuff you don’t need, won’t ever do, can’t attend to and don’t really care about. Once you do that, maintain that good email hygiene. Then, work on whittling down the things you can answer with some expediency, and file email messages only when necessary.

What else does it take to manage email? This graphic can help.

The post Super Useful Email Management Tips and Tools appeared first on The Blog Herald.

What is Cornerstone Content?

Cornerstone content is the foundation of your website. It’s the most important, well-written, and explanatory information that you have to offer in your niche. You’re building your entire website on the basic fundamentals of your niche. It might include things like introductory blog posts, frequently asked questions, or other important information like instructions or warnings. Anything a new visitor might need to understand the content of your website or content area can be a cornerstone.

Cornerstone content should help a person get familiar with both your website and the most important topics that you’re covering.

Another reason it’s called cornerstone content is because it should be the best content on your site. This is the content many people will see when they first navigate to your website. Plan to make a good first impression with strong and relevant pieces. One way to increase the number of returning visitors to your site is actually to have a series of helpful or introductory posts linked on the welcome page.

How Many Cornerstones Should I Have?

There is no hard and fast number for the amount of cornerstone content you need, but look to have a minimum of four or five pieces of content. They should be well-researched, clear, and informative. Depending on your topic area, you may need more cornerstone posts. Don’t be afraid to branch out and create additional pieces. Few undertakings are done overnight. Update your website with cornerstone content as you grow and you’ll eventually have a wider, more solid foundation.

How to Decide Which Posts are Cornerstone Content

To decide what is cornerstone content, load your website and pretend you’re a viewer interested in your niche but unfamiliar with your business. Imagine that you’re not an expert. Try to figure out which articles or pages you’d want to look at first. What information are you seeking? The posts that a new visitor would attempt to find are cornerstone content. It’s the most basic and important information your website has to offer.

If you’re creating cornerstone content for the first time, decide what issues will be most pressing for a person searching for content in your niche. If you’re selling doghouses, for example, an article about how to choose a doghouse or the different types of doghouses would be good choices. They’re helpful articles that will appeal to many people, and bring them to your site. Once a person associates you with knowledge, they may be more likely to trust you and use your products or services.

Why is Cornerstone Content Important?

Cornerstone content is important for several reasons. The first is that it’s the information someone needs to determine whether your website is useful. If you’ve ever been to a site that lacked a clear structure, you understand the need for cornerstones. They guide a new viewer into your site and help them come to trust in the product or service you’re providing.

Cornerstone content also acts as a hub for all the posts, articles, or content you have about one topic. It’s an introduction instead of a deep, nuanced discussion of one particular aspect of an issue. Think of it as an excellent overview of topics that matter most in your niche.

How Does Cornerstone Content Help Me?

To get a better idea of how cornerstone content can improve your website, look at how Brian Clark of Copyblogger expanded his audience.

When his site started in 2006, he only had two pieces of cornerstone content that were of interest to his target audience. They were pieces about fundamental concepts in copywriting and blogging. These drew people into his site and his regular blog updates helped keep visitors around and encouraged return visits. Derek Halpren says, “The cornerstone content gave Brian instant credibility.”

More than a decade later, Brian has more than a dozen cornerstones on his site that draw in new traffic and help a viewer become accustomed to the topic. Those original cornerstone resources are still helping Copyblogger rank for strong keywords and pull in new viewers today. For Brian and others who use cornerstone content successfully, it helps them rank for high-visibility keywords and positions them as topic authorities.

Cornerstone Content and SEO

“Sites don’t rank: pages rank. If you want to rank for a keyword, you’ll need to determine which page is going to be the page ranking for that keyword”

Joost de Valk, Yoast.com

So what SEO benefits are there and how do you get them from cornerstone content? One of the biggest positives is that writing cornerstones can help you rank for popular keywords. These can be difficult to have a strong position for otherwise. Since cornerstone content topics will come up in other blog posts, it’s important to make sure you’re presenting your pages the right way for Google to understand which pieces are cornerstone content and which are supplementary.

Cornerstone Content and Linking Structure

Think of your site content as a graph with the homepage at the top. All the less important articles appear near the bottom, filtered down from more important pieces. Your cornerstone content should be near the top of the graph, preferably linked on the homepage.

As you discuss the cornerstone topics in other posts and places, link back to the cornerstone articles. It will make Google’s crawlers interpret them as more important than the other pages, ideally. For example, if you’re writing a post about marketing as a cornerstone piece, link back to it from articles like “Marketing to Students” or “Tips for a Great Marketing Strategy”.

Cornerstone Content and External Links

If you’re able to get high-value links from an external source, consider having it link back to one of your cornerstone articles. Since cornerstone content is ideally competing for the most competitive keywords, it’s important to give it some priority.

High-value links from great sources can boost your SEO. Point them at your cornerstone pieces to help them rank for those more difficult keywords. Keep that in mind when you’re doing content outreach with other sites.

Cornerstone Content and Customer Engagement

Since cornerstone pieces are your strongest and most relevant content, they increase customer engagement. People who enter your page looking for answers should be able to find them easily and not have to search through your site. When a customer finds a site useful, they’re more likely to return and recommend the site to friends.

Presenting the cornerstone content up front also offers the benefit of keeping someone on the page. According to the Nielsen Norman Group, people leave webpages in less than 30 seconds in large numbers, but more slowly after the first 30 seconds. If you can keep a viewer on your page for 30 seconds, you have a better chance to retain them.

Since cornerstone content is interesting and relevant, it can hold customers past that crucial 30-second mark. Keeping someone on the page lets you get a chance to wow them with what you’re offering.

“You need to go out and learn something about your industry before you make something for it”

Rand Fishkin, Moz

Crafting Cornerstone Content

An important skill is creating great cornerstones that stand as guides to newcomers. The strength of these cornerstones is what drives traffic to your site and sets you apart as an authority. So it’s important that everything you present is well-researched. Make sure that you’re providing clear information for a reader who isn’t as familiar as you are with the topic.

Doing research in your niche before you start the process is essential. Knowing what’s out there gives you an idea of what ground there is to cover, what’s old news, and what will catch a viewer’s interest. It can also help you find good links to include in your content.

If you already have a lot of content, select the strongest pieces that best represent and elucidate your area of expertise. If you don’t have content yet, write a list of questions that most people searching for the keywords you’re targeting would have. Start writing your first cornerstone piece to answer the one that seems most important or compelling.

7 Tips for the Best Cornerstone Content

• Figure out what keywords to use. To do this, ask yourself what search someone would perform to find your page. Once you know what keywords you’re targeting, focus on making your page respond to a search for that keyword as best you can.
• Focus your metadata with your keywords. Remember that your title and meta description may appear on your Google result. Make sure it’s eye-catching and references the content of the page.
• Consider the competition. If your competition doesn’t have strong cornerstone pages, it improves your chance of gaining return visitors through great content. On the other hand, strong content from competitors means you must set yourself apart. Consider setting up a tutorial or cornerstone pages that link together. It could help you stand out.
• Draw your reader’s eye to your cornerstone content with an explanation of what you’re providing, an intriguing story, or some kind of offer. Getting attention can be difficult, so try to lead with something strong.
• Use bullet points and subheadings to break up your content and increase visual appeal.
• Include videos, images and other media to help illustrate your points and expand on them.
• Read over your content regularly and update it as needed. Google favors pages with content that’s updated over those where it isn’t.

Cornerstone Content and Marketing

One way to create effective cornerstones is to think of them as a product. They’re entries to your brand or answers to questions, for example. Everything you do to attract customers to your page is marketing. In that same way, effective cornerstones are marketing too. But don’t write cornerstone pieces the way you would an advertisement. Instead, think of them as teaching tools.

Consumers often block out marketing, but respond positively to educational pieces. Write your cornerstone pieces with the intention to teach the reader something. Since you’re providing positive and free resources, people will be drawn back to your site. If you do an exceptional job, you also improve your chances of social shares. These strategies should help you create stronger content that resonates better with visitors.

Presenting Your Cornerstone Content

A landing page is one of the best ways to present your cornerstones to a new website viewer. It creates a roadmap that showcases your best content and helps people find it immediately. One way to do this is by linking it to your landing page.

Make your cornerstone content visible and easily accessible. It shouldn’t be a struggle for a new visitor to find it and read it. If the cornerstone content links together, be sure to provide a way for a person to navigate from one piece to the next.

Cornerstone Content and a Call to Action

Since one of the reasons to have cornerstone content is to increase customer engagement, include an appropriate call to action on your pieces. This will help a person to know where to go to utilize your products or services. In the same way cornerstone content should be easy to find, so should the content you want to point people at.

Cornerstone content provides viewers an entry point to your website and can help retain a first-time visitor. It showcases the knowledge that you have; it helps you gain the trust of a potential customer. Craft strong cornerstone pieces and present them properly for the best result.

You don’t have to start from scratch, since you can fix up old posts or content and make them good enough to be cornerstones. Don’t be intimidated. Cornerstone pieces are an essential part of your website and will help you retain customers and improve your SEO. The time you spend creating great content will pay off in the end as cornerstone content draws new visitors to your site.

Do you have any cornerstone content on your website or blog? Feel free to show us in the comments!

The post What is Cornerstone Content And Why It’s Important appeared first on The Blog Herald.

It’s a huge step to start your own freelancing business, but it’s worth the leap for many people. If you’re ready to enjoy the advantages of self-employment and launch a freelance business, take a look at these 4 things you should consider before quitting your day job.

Freelance business funding tips

Know your actual startup costs.

When you freelance, particularly in creative fields like writing or graphic design, you don’t need a lot of upfront capital. In addition to setting up your basic home office essentials, such as hardware and software capabilities, remember that you will want to market your business as well.  Analyze the cost of website and domain set up, business cards, and channels for advertising or reaching your potential clients.

A practical exercise before you dive into your freelance startup business is to create a checklist of expenses by category. Here’s a sample checklist to get you started:

• List equipment, furniture, and supplies needed.
• Document costs for tools, software licenses, operating capital, legal fees, and insurance.
• Calculate monthly expenses such as rent, utilities, salary, and taxes.

Once you have fully estimated your expenses, compare your findings to the available capital you are able to dedicate to your business.  Businesses often fail when they are hit with unexpected expenses. Therefore, it is critical to develop a business plan outlining your business processes, and scrutinize your ability to fund this endeavor.

Depending on your needs, you may need to find loan options to fund your small business, even if it’s a relatively small amount.

Obtaining a Business Loan Can Be Challenging.

Traditional loans most likely won’t be an option as you start your freelance business.  Freelancers pose unique risks in the eyes of banks and lending institutions.  The tax structure for a sole proprietor deters banks from awarding loans to businesses that they deem a liability for repayment.

Consider online lending platforms that match your funding needs with loan offers that you can compare for the best fit for your business.  Small Business Administration (SBA) loans can also be a great option as an alternative that offers monetary amounts to cover business equipment and financial needs.

Depending on your type of business you may be eligible for a grant.  If you are a woman, veteran, or minority freelancer, research government or private business grant opportunities.

Defining your market is essential.

The old saying “it takes money to make money,” isn’t necessarily applicable to freelance business if there are low start up costs, but if you want to sustain successful business growth and longevity, you must build your client base and portfolio.  This starts with researching your audience and target market. As a business owner, you need to know who your demographic is – their gender, industry, age and location, to start.

Once you know whom you want to target, you need to figure out where they live online.  This is how you find your audience and connect with them.  Take a look at forums.  While they may seem old school, forums are the perfect place to go to stay on top of current events, to find potential issues your customers may have and to provide value to your online community.

Social media is of course a driving force when it comes to customer engagement.  Capitalize on tools like Hootsuite to perform social listening and find current conversations where your potential customers are engaged. Other tools like Buzzsumo are great to identify blog post topics that get the most social engagement as well as influencers who have audiences that are interested in your services. Engage in conversations across social channels to provide content resources, tips and solutions that position you as a thought leader in your space. These techniques will help you to discover the needs of your audience and resonate with them to increase engagement and loyalty.

Some investments are well worth the money.

As a freelancer, your website is your best asset.  Take the time and money to develop a site that reflects the work you will be providing.  Research effective domain names and platforms that will make your portfolio shine. WordPress is the number one website platform because of its ease of use and endless blog themes a freelancer can choose from like this list of the top 20 freelance themes. You many need to invest in some capital in a developer’s time to make any needed customizations to your website in which case there are many outsourcing platforms like Upwork. Search for “Wordpress Developers” and make sure to read their reviews before hiring.

Once your blog or website is live, it’s essential to know how those online properties are turning visitors into customers.  You must have a good understanding of what is working, what isn’t working, and what trends will make visiting your website a “must” for visitors. One of the biggest revenue generators for any business marketing online if an email list. Current customers and prospects alike subscribe to email lists to receive valuable content and special offers. Use free plugins like HelloBar to incentive visitors to your website to sign up.

Building an email list is only the first step. Engaging with that list by giving away your best content for free is how you build trust and credibility that ultimately leads to more sales. Use email marketing software list MailChimp to create automated email sequences the lead subscribers down a conversion funnel. Before you ever ask an email subscribe to buy you must have given them all the information needed to do it themselves. It’s the subscribers that would rather have you do it or don’t have the time that will hire you to do the work for them.

There are many things to consider when launching your freelance business.  The perks of packing up your day job and setting yourself up as a freelancer are attractive.  Like any small business venture, it’s good to be aware of the risks and uncertainties.  Make sure you take time to gain knowledge about running your own freelance business so you can enjoy the variety, opportunities, freedom, and flexibility that freelancing offers.

This post was written by Megan Totka, Chief Editor of ChamberofCommerce.com.

The post 4 Things You Need to Know When Funding Your Freelance Business appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Wherever you look – Facebook, blogs, and even Instagram – videos are all the rage. Whether they are short clips less than a minute long or longer TVC-like videos, these materials catch people’s attention when properly created.

But how do you ensure that people actually get to see your wonderful video? There is, of course, social promotion and outreach, but search engines still rule. You’ve got to make videos search engines love. You’ve got to make sure you optimize your videos – titles and descriptions, for example – so they get ranked higher and therefore have better visibility.

There is more that you can do, however. And that’s what the graphic below is going to show you. Don’t just create videos. Make sure you go beyond the script and visuals. Optimize your video to get maximum results.

Source

Related: Creating Killer Videos with Amy Schmittauer

The post How to Make Videos Search Engines Love appeared first on The Blog Herald.

The general consensus is that LinkedIn is the professional’s social network, something which anyone can surmise with a perfunctory look at the platform.

It is thus a pity when new bloggers – or some experienced ones – fail to take advantage of LinkedIn. Sure, they have an account. They fill out their profile. And then they leave it at that. Perhaps they check in once a month or so – when they get a connection request or when someone endorses them.

If this is you, then you are missing out on the benefits that LinkedIn can bring you and your blog.

Not sure how about these benefits? Here are several which should be enough to convince you.

• LinkedIn Publishing: you publish posts on the platform which become part of your profile. These posts get eyeballs from those that matter – people in your niche. Yyou build your authority on your chosen subject, attract traffic to your blog, and get the attention of potential clients.
• Google SERPs: search for your name. Your LinkedIn profile will likely be on the front page. Mine is actually the number one result. No need to imagine the exposure for your brand.
• Learning: many knowledgeable individuals publish excellent posts on LinkedIn. You’ll be doing yourself a favor by reading them and adding to your knowledge base.
• Networking: it’s not called a social network for nothing. The important thing is that the connections you make can further your career.

Now, the critical facet of LinkedIn is your profile. Just like on any platform, your LinkedIn profile is your face. It’s what people see and use to decide whether you’re worth their time or not. As such, it is essential that you create a profile that will grab someone’s attention, keep them reading, and impress them enough to take positive action (i.e., connect with you, visit your blog, hire you, etc.).

Have you checked your profile lately? There’s no better time than now to do so and make changes for the better. To make it easier for you and make the most of the platform, here is an infographic which serves as the ultimate LinkedIn cheat sheet. A one-glance reference material as you give your profile.

Make sure you use the right images, URL, and provide the essential information about yourself and present it in the most effective way – let this infographic guide you in doing that.

Source

Related: The Ultimate Social Media Cheat Sheet 2016 Edition

The post The Ultimate LinkedIn Cheat Sheet appeared first on The Blog Herald.

He published a post yesterday with a title that certainly resulted in the post’s stats exploding: “You can pry this Galaxy Note7 from my cold, possibly scorched hands.”

Ridiculous. Irresponsible.

(But we don’t really want that to happen to his hands…)

In any case, Dickey states that people like – no, love – thinking that we are in imminent danger. So he turns to math to argue his statement: out of the 2.5 million phones sold slightly less than 100 phones caught fire. Okay, those numbers have been reported by other outlets. He then cites a 1 in 12,778 probability that you will be killed in a traffic accident, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Next, he uses part of the script of Fight Club, where Edward Norton rattles off an equation that auto manufacturers use to determine whether a recall is worth it or not. Here’s the snippet of the script as Dickey showed in his article.

Applying all that to the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 situation, he comes up with 3 cents as the cost of keeping your phone, considering the chances of it blowing up. Stated differently, you “pay” 3 cents to avoid having to go through the recall process – going to the carrier or retailer.

Surely 3 cents is a small price to pay, Dickey says.

Okay, so let’s say all the numbers line up. Let’s say the chances that your Samsung Galaxy Note 7 will blow up in your face are low. You save gas money, time, and all the hassle of exchanging “the planet’s best smartphone”.

Then you turn out to be part of that small group of people who gets a defective phone. What good will statistics do you then?

Dickey’s got the right to his opinion, of course, and the decision to keep his phone is his alone. However, even his publication thinks otherwise, for we see this at the beginning of the article.

Editor’s note: Mashable does not condone keeping your Galaxy Note7, and in fact has recommended strongly against it. This viewpoint is the author’s alone, and his judgment is obviously questionable.

Hopefully, readers think more rationally and not allow themselves to be influenced by this – as the editor said – questionable piece.

At the end of the day, the point is that bloggers ought to be more responsible for what they write – even if it’s an opinion piece – especially if it’s about a dangerous issue such as this.

Oh, and by the way, the iPhone 7 crushes the Galaxy Note 7. See this and this.

The post Mashable Blogger: Owning a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is Safer Than Getting in Your Car appeared first on The Blog Herald.

These days, it seems that that’s not enough – especially if you’re blogging for business purposes, like startups and small businesses. It doesn’t matter if you’re a startup founder or a small business owner – having a blog is a crucial part of your strategy.

Related: 5 Promising Tools to Help Boost Your Online Startup

That being said, simply setting up a blog for your startup and not considering it as an integral part of your business is a waste of your time. You might as well not create a blog in the first place.

Just like any other blog, your own should be designed and handled to, at the end of the day:

• improve your search engine rankings
• funnel customers for leads and conversions.

To achieve these things, you need to capitalize on the value of your blog by:

• getting customer feedback (so you can adjust your product/service)
• establishing your startup as an expert in your niche
• boosting social media marketing and gaining visibility, which can lead to…
• finding investors.

This post focuses on one of the hottest topics in the world of startups and small business today – social media marketing.

The idea is as simple as simple can be: gaining visibility via promotion on various social media platforms. But how do you do this to make your efforts worthwhile and make optimal use of the probably meager resources your startup has?

Take a look at the infographic below, which gives tips on creating  and executing a startup social media marketing strategy.

Additionally, if you’re not 100% convinced that you should have one, you’ll find some figures that might just change your mind.

Here, take a look.

Startup social media marketing strategy infographic

Source

The post A Guide to Creating a Killer Social Media Marketing Strategy for Startups appeared first on The Blog Herald.

He appealed against his jail sentence, but the court dismissed it, resulting in Yee serving time.

Recently, he has spoken out once more but this time, to admit pleading guilty to additional charges. He shared this on his Facebook page.

Initially, Amos Yee admitted to two charges of not showing up at a police station. The latest news is that he admitted to three more charges:

1. One Facebook post wounding Muslim feelings
2. One blog post wounding Muslim feelings
3. One online video wounding Christian feelings

For each of these charges, the maximum penalty is three years in jail as well as a fine.

On top of these five charges, Yee still faces three more charges, which he does not admit to.

Yee continues to have support from some netizens, while others question his methods.

#FreeMilo and #FreeAmosYee. I don’t like the way both posture about religion etc., but I stand up for their right to #FreeSpeech

— Tom Clements (@tclementsuk) July 22, 2016

#FreeAmosYee Singapore is locking a kid up for offending hypothetical people. https://t.co/bzbms9UShW

— Anarchyball (@Anarchyball) September 15, 2016

I know it’s unlikely @amosyee will win because the courts are likely crooked, I 100% support him and the right of free speech #freeAmosYee

— James Clegg (@DatNerdyKid101) August 19, 2016

You can follow the hashtag #FreeAmosYee to see more.

Photos via Facebook

The post Singaporean Blogger Amos Yee Pleads Guilty to More Charges; Going to Jail Again appeared first on The Blog Herald.

It hasn’t been all fun and games for the app’s makers and players, though. We’ve heard about complaints of server crashes (oh, what a problem), and worse, stories about petty crime. And, even worse, accidents that led to injuries and even death.

In spite of all this, it doesn’t seem that Pokémon is going anywhere anytime soon. Unfortunately, some of the controversy that has been associated with the game is not disappearing as well.

Just the other day, Pokémon Go “found itself” in an Indian court – even if the game hasn’t been officially released in the country yet! So, why is it being “sued”? The BBC reports:

Augmented reality game Pokemon Go has landed up in an Indian court over allegations it is hurting the religious sentiments of millions of vegetarians.

The high court in Gujarat state was asked to ban the game because its images of eggs in places of worship were “blasphemous” to Hindus and Jains.

But that’s not it. Over the weekend, an individual has actually been charged AND detained because of the game. Russian blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky played Pokémon Go in church at Yekaterinburg and posted a video on YouTube of his activities during prayer time in a cathedral. This happened in August, after Russia had already stated that people playing the game in churches or at the country’s borders may face arrest and jail time.

In response to the blogger’s detainment, the online community has created the hashtag #FreeSokolovsky.

The post Russian Blogger Arrested for “Inciting Hatred” by Playing Pokemon Go in Church appeared first on The Blog Herald.

The chances are that you’d say “too much”. Too much, meaning you can use some of that time planning and writing posts.

If you’re a community manager and/or content marketer at the same time, you’ll be spending even more time on social media. Trust me, it is no small matter. If you think you’ve got it hard managing one – or two – account, imagine having to take care of at least five accounts.

Thank goodness for scheduling apps like Buffer. Else, I’d go nuts.

But, Buffer isn’t enough. It schedules and gives you the data to analyze, but you still need to go on the platforms to do certain things like reply, comment, favorite, like, and all that social media-y stuff.

Depending on your workload (read: number of social media accounts, number of updates and followers, et.c), you will still have to allot a good chunk of your time to being social.

That being said, there are ways to cut down on time by speeding up your social media tasks.

Enter the Social Media Keyboard Shortcuts Cheatsheet.

I don’t know about you, but keyboard shortcuts make life a whole lot easier – and faster. As much as mice are necessary, there’s nothing like fingers flying all over the keyboard. Makes one feel like you’re getting lots done, doesn’ t it?

On a serious note, keyboard shortcuts really shave off minutes here and there, which add up. If you aren’t using keyboard shortcuts for your social media accounts, you might want to try them and see if they do save time. There will be a learning curve, of course, but once you get it, you’re golden.

Source

You may also want to read “How To Successfully Fine-tune Your Overall Social Media Strategy“

The post Social Media Cheatsheet of Keyboard Shortcuts 2016 Edition appeared first on The Blog Herald.

In this post, we’ll discuss some tools and resources that can help you put together a content calendar, as well as populating it with content that helps you connect with your audience in the right place, at the right time.

What and why?

If you’re already a bit of a content calendar connoisseur then you can skip this bit but for all of you who have yet to create one, you might like to know a bit about why you should have one in the first place.

Most of us know what content is and why it’s important to help build a brand and drive traffic to a website. In fact, we’re probably all generating content on a daily basis, whether it’s writing for our company blog, posting a job ad on LinkedIn or sharing our status on Facebook. And if your business relies heavily on a web presence (and let’s face it what business doesn’t these days?), then generating large amounts of content is essential.

But with large amounts of content comes numerous authors, ad-hoc themes and stressful deadlines that all run alongside the time needed to react to news and keep your content on trend. Having a content calendar helps you plan and prepare with clear objectives, topics and resource in mind.

Let’s start at the very beginning

When thinking about what to include in your content calendar, there are four categories you need to consider:

• Holidays and observance dates
• Important company dates
• Relevant dates for your industry
• Relevant dates for your customers

By planning content around these, your authors will have time to prepare content well ahead of time and hopefully stop those last minute content dashes. To save time, you can download a free content calendar template to help you get started. This will give you the basic structure and contains key holidays, national and noteworthy dates and well-known industry events.

You can then add in additional content relevant to your business and customers. Your calendar will help you to keep up-to-date with everything that’s going on, and will drive traffic to your site as people use you as the go-to for all industry information.

We’re all going on a summer holiday

Your first step is to block out major international and national holidays, including important religious dates. You can probably remember most of the big ones, but there are a number of sites such as www.timeanddate.com that have in-depth lists – just go through these and pick out the ones relevant for your business. You should also include non-holidays, such as valentines day, bonfire night etc. that might lend themselves to timely, creative content.

It’s a date!

Next step is to populate your calendar with dates and events that are of interest to your customers and that will spark interest to anyone visiting your website or social media channels. To help you find those unusual ‘national days’ you can find a full list on www.daysoftheyear.com. The UN also has an excellent website for more serious observances such as World Day of Social Justice.

Once you’ve got those dates in place, move on to thinking about specific dates and events, relevant to your demographic. Your customers are more likely to share things that are relevant to their lives so by acknowledging these, you’re creating content that your customers will want to see and engage with.

The list is endless, but consider some of these below when thinking about your audience’s lives and what interests them:

• Awards ceremonies
• Film releases
• Sporting events
• Celebrity marriages or births (for example, the Queen’s 90^th birthday)
• Festivals and concerts

If you’re unsure what content is going to be read and shared by your audience then why not ask them? You could send out a simple survey or sit down with a few of them.

You also want to share important dates and events that are relevant to your business. This is an opportunity to focus on your company, your product, your strategy. Take a look at your business strategy for the year and use that to help you plan your content.

• Do you have a new product launching?
• Is there any collaboration planned?
• Do you have a new store or office opening?
• Any significant new recruits?

Some of it might not be appropriate to share and you may not use everything, but it’s important to include it as it will help everyone know what’s going on and help you to plan resource, especially during those busy periods.

Get creative

Once you’ve got your calendar in place, you need to start actually creating the content. Make sure you’ve assigned the right jobs to the right people. If you’re trying to force people to write who don’t enjoy it, you’ll have a constant battle trying to pin down their work. Sometimes the best route is to extract the information from the best source, then pass it to a writer to work their magic on.

Here’s to a well-planned year ahead!

You might also want to read “4 Ways to Become a More Organized Blogger“.

This post was written by Caroline, a Senior Account Manager at Stratton Craig, based in London and Bristol. She works with a range of clients to combine project management with digital marketing and copywriting activity. In her spare time, she loves a game of lacrosse and hanging out with her friends and family. 

The post Tools and Resources to Help Create Your Next Content Calendar appeared first on The Blog Herald.

That being said, there’s no argument that, however over-the-top the show may be at times, there are some things that can be translated into real life. And, since we’re all about blogging and content marketing AND Game of Thrones fans, it’s but logical to find the point where the two meet.

Thanks to YourEscapeFrom9to5, we found just that!

Even better, they put together content marketing lessons from Game of Thrones into one easy-to-read infographic. I’ve seen a lot of infographics featuring “lessons” about practically every topic. You’ve probably seen more than you want to as well. This, however, is one of the best in my book.

Not only does it capture the look and feel of Game of Thrones, but it gives you cold hard facts that you can use in your content marketing efforts. Forget fluff!

So what are the content marketing lessons from Game of Thrones?

1. Have a captivating storyline = content creation
2. Form alliances = social media, outreach
3. Don’t underestimate your competition = study your competition, learn from them
4. Don’t doubt yourself
5. Learn to play the game

That’s just a peek, and no doubt, you can already see the association between the elements of content marketing and Game of Thrones references.

Now, a word of warning. Obviously, there will be spoilers below. If you’re going to be upset about that, don’t say you weren’t warned. ;)

Source

You may also want to read “3 Highly Effective Tools to Supercharge Your Content Marketing Strategy“.

The post What Content Marketers Can Learn from Game of Thrones appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Perhaps it’s because of the association I made with moving around from country to country while working. Much like the million-dollar blogger (now, if only I could emulate his success…).

So, what’s this expat-preneur all about?

Based on the context, you’ve probably gotten the idea that it’s a person living in another country other than his own and making a living as an entrepreneur. Coined by author Dr. Yvonne McNulty, the term expat-preneur indeed refers to an individual who’s got the guts (or the crazies) to uproot himself and spot (or make) business opportunities in other parts of the world.

But why would anyone do that when it’s difficult enough to be a successful entrepreneur at home?

You might be surprised…

A huge reason is that many expat-preneurs choose countries which have a lower cost of living than their home country. Obviously, in this setting, they can find more comfortable lifestyles, and their currency will have higher purchasing power. Additionally, setting themselves up in emerging markets presents massive business opportunities.

As an online professional, you have an edge over 9 to 5-ers. The chances are that it’ll be easier for you to pack up and uproot yourself to discover whether you are cut out to be an expat-preneur. Even if you fail, you can try again – there is no lack of emerging markets, and your experience online – your blogging business, etc. – will help greatly in bringing something to the table.

Want to learn a bit more about this potential opportunity? Here’s a graphic to look at.

Source

Here is another good read: The Rise of the ‘Expat-preneur’

You might also want to read: 12 Best Apps for Your Blogging Business

The post Feel Like a Change? Why Not Try the Life of an Expat-preneur? appeared first on The Blog Herald.

The problem arises when copyright isn’t respected, whether knowingly or unwittingly.

Sad to say, while the concept of copyright is known to everyone (or at least should be known), there are still numerous cases of infringements. This may stem from lack of knowledge of copyright laws, do it’s important to go back to the basics and look at blog copyright infringement and how you can avoid it.

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. How much information do you get from other people’s articles?
2. Do you use chunks of text from them? If so, do you ask for permission and do you quote your sources?
3. Where do you get images for your posts?
4. Do you check if they are free to use without attribution, free to use with attribution, if you have to ask for permission, or if you have to buy them?
5. Do you check if you are allowed to edit/create something else using the original material?

These are the main things you need to understand in order to make sure you don’t get in trouble because of copyright infringement. But there is more to copyright law than the above.

Related: The 3 Most Common Copyright Mistakes Bloggers Make

If you want to avoid the hassle – and legal and financial consequences – of infringing on someone else’s copyright, then you ought to understand, at the very least, the basics of copyright law.

The infographic below will help you with that, but to make things easier and clearer for you, here are the main tips you need to know to avoid copyright infringement.

1. Your safest best is to use Creative Commons images as much as you can.
2. When you’re not sure about the license of the material you want to use, first as for permission. Don’t shoot first and apologize later.

Source

How much do you know about copyright? How important is it when you write and publish a blog post? Have you had trouble with copyright before? Let us know in the comments, and share your tips as well.

The post Back to Basics: Blogging and Copyright Infringement appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

Often, some of your best work goes completely unnoticed. For these articles, paid promotion can be just the nudge your article needs to get the attention it deserves.

However, if you don’t do it right, paid promotion can be a complete waste of money.

Regardless of how you get traffic to your blog, if you’re blogging to make money, you can’t afford to send the wrong kind of traffic to your website.

You need people to come to your blog, read your content and then do what you want them to do (sign up for your newsletter, click on an ad, buy a product, hit you up for freelance work, etc).

In other words, you need them to convert.

Related: 4 Free WordPress Plugins for Improving Your Blog’s Conversion Rate

Unfortunately, a lot of people come to your website and leave without converting. It’s frustrating. After a while, most of us assume there must be something wrong with our posts that keep our readers from converting.

And so, like a love-starved teenage girl, we start changing things. Shoes…hair…content…call to action…but we never stop to ask the most important question:

Is this even the right guy…er, traffic?

The problem is, even a perfect post won’t convert very well if you’re sending it the wrong traffic.

Are You in Front of the Right Audience?

Often, you think you’re targeting one audience when you are actually targeting a very different audience.

Organic Traffic

For example, I run a digital marketing agency. Blogging is a big part of how we drive business to our website and in October 2013, we put out a blog post titled “6 Killer PPC Branding Tactics Even Freddy Krueger Loves!”

We published the article and—almost overnight—our blog traffic skyrocketed!

In fact, for more than a year, that blog post drove more organic traffic to our site than any other page on our site (including our homepage).

For a while, it was high-fives all around…until we started looking at our conversion data.

Despite getting hundreds of clicks per day, this post didn’t produce a single conversion.

Not.

One.

Single.

Conversion.

In fact, the post has now been live for 2.5 years and we have yet to see a person click on this post and convert.

Why not?

The post is clearly about PPC advertising. It was in the coveted #1 position on Google. It should have been driving traffic that would be interested in our PPC management services, read the article and convert.

What was the problem?

As it turned out, the post was showing up as the first result on Google…but not when people searched for “ppc”, “ppc branding” or even “ppc branding tactics.”

It was showing up when people typed in “freddy krueger”.

Now, I don’t know why someone would type in “freddy krueger” and click on a link to a post about PPC advertising, but I’m not surprised that they didn’t convert.

Because we were showing up for the wrong keyword, our audience was wrong (and possibly homicidal…).

Paid Traffic

You often run into the same problem with paid traffic, too.

For example, a few months back, I promoted a blog post on Facebook entitled “How to Spice Up Your Love Life With Google AdWords”.

It was a very witty, tongue-in-cheek exploration of the parallels between marketing and romancing—one that I expected to do very well with my target audience.

Since I wanted the post to get a lot of eyeballs, I decided to promote it on Facebook.

Having promoted a variety of posts on Facebook, I had identified what I thought was the right audience. The audience clicked and converted at a fairly reliable rate and I thought this article would really grab their interest.

It did.

I got a ton of clicks, but my conversion rate dropped. Hard.

At first, I was confused. Clearly, my audience was connecting with the blog post, because they were clicking in droves. So why weren’t they converting in droves?

To try and figure out what was going on, I started looking at the demographics of who was clicking on my post.

As it turned out, most of my extra clicks were coming from 55+ year old women.

As a digital marketing agency, we don’t usually get a lot of traffic (let alone conversions) from the 55+ crowd. Since most Baby Boomers aren’t really interested in online advertising services, they hadn’t been clicking on my previous ads.

However, the whole “Spice Up Your Love Life” angle seemed to be striking a chord with the postmenopausal members of my audience.

The problem was, they were interested in spicing up their love life—not in working with a marketing agency.

Once I discovered this problem, I excluded the 55+ age group from my targeting. As a result, my clickthrough rate dropped, but my conversion rate went back to normal.

More importantly, I was no longer paying for the wrong traffic.

Targeting the Right Traffic

Whether you are paying for traffic or not, it’s important to make sure you blogging efforts are driving traffic that will convert.

The question is, how do you ensure that your posts are targeting the right traffic? Here are 3 things to think through before publishing your next blog post:

1. Which posts lead to conversions? If you understand which content attracts the right audience, you can focus your blogging efforts on generating more of that kind of content.
2. Where does your high-converting traffic come from? If most of your conversions come from a certain set of organic keywords, write more posts on those sorts of topics. If paid promotion drives most of your conversions, figure out which demographics convert the best and target your posts to that segment of your audience.
3. Which demographics convert the best? To see this, you need to get into your analytics data. If a certain demographic converts better, they may be an ideal group to target with further posts or paid promotion efforts.

If you want your blogging efforts to pay off, your posts need to appeal to an audience that will do more than just read what you write. With a little extra research and forethought, you can create content that will get both clicks and conversions.

Conclusion

Regardless of what their blogging objectives are, successful bloggers know how to write for the right traffic. If your traffic isn’t converting, you’re probably targeting the wrong audience.

You’ve heard my two cents, now it’s your turn.

How have you seen the wrong traffic undermine your blogging efforts? Have you ever had a blog post that drove a lot of the wrong traffic?

This post was written by Jacob, a passionate entrepreneur on a mission to help businesses achieve online marketing success. As the Founder & CEO of Disruptive Advertising, Jacob has created an award-winning, world-class organization that has helped over 2,000 businesses grow using pay-per-click advertising and website optimization.

The post Are You Paying for the Wrong Traffic? appeared first on The Blog Herald.

While there are some SEO experts who believe that Moz’s DA is flawed and cannot guarantee the quality of a website in Google’s view, with the “death” of Google’s PageRank, DA is perhaps the best metric we can rely on today.

There are other, however, ways to determine the quality of a website, like using other tools to check the quality and quantity of backlinks, and keyword rankings. You can then put together the results of your research to identify the quality of your own site.

Related: 5 Site Metrics to Use for Comparing Blog Performance

Still, DA is a convenient and quick metric that provides an overall view. It does help you rank better, so it is worth your while to take actions to increase website domain authority.

Before you do that, you need to understand what is taken into consideration in calculating DA.

1. Domain age
2. Number of backlinks
3. Authority of linking domains (and then some)

How can you increase website domain authority?

1. On-site elements (speed, internal links, etc.)
2. Linkable (high-quality) content
3. Content marketing
4. Linkbuilding

These are some concrete steps that will help you increase your site’s DA.

For more details and more elements that will push your DA score up, take a look at the infographic below. Just remember, it is a good idea to not rely solely on DA.

Source

The post How Do You Increase Website Domain Authority? appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Allow us to help you this week, thanks to Themely, a new kid on the WordPress theme block. They’ve just released their first premium theme, Integral, and they want to spread the love to bloggers who use WordPress.

So, we’re giving away a bunch – a big bunch – of codes to download the premium version of Integral.

Aside from being a premium theme (which we know has a lot of benefits over free versions), why would you want to use Integral?

The target audience for the theme are freelancers (yes, you!) and startups (that could be you, too!). It’s a one-page parallax theme and includes lifetime support and upgrades.

Here are other features:

• Image, Content & Video Slider (Popular Master Slider Plugin)
• Fully Responsive (Tablet & mobile friendly)
• Smooth parallax effect
• Advanced theme options panel
• Re-order sections (drag & drop)
• Enable/disable sections
• Translation ready (WPML)
• One-page Layout
• Sticky Navigation
• Built with HTML5 & CSS3
• Clean Code
• WordPress 4+ Ready
• Cross-browser Compatibility
• SEO Ready
• Contact Form 7 simple integration
• 600+ Icons Included with FontAwesome
• Built with Bootstrap 3
• Flexslider for Images
• jQuery Lightbox Popup
• Woocommerce Compatible
• Tested with most popular plugins
• Portfolio slider
• Portfolio grid with lightbox popup
• Testimonials slider
• Mailchimp & ConstantContact Newsletter Forms Supported
• Well documented
• 500+ Google Fonts Ready
• Unlimited colors
• Easy to customize (no coding required)
• Well commented code
• W3C validated HTML5/CSS3

Check out the demo here.

Here are some important details to remember:

1. The giveaway starts today, April 18 and ends on April 24.
2. The winners will be announced on April 25.
3. The giveaway is open worldwide.
4. You can tweet once a day, every day to earn more entries.
5. Leave a comment to get huge bonus points!

To join the giveaway, simply follow the widget below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The post Win the “Integral” WordPress Theme from Themely appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Content marketing is not limited to companies wanting to expand their customer base anymore. Individuals who make a living – or want to make a living – out of their blog(s) also lean on content marketing to reach their goals. Sometimes they outsource, often they learn the ins and outs themselves.

Related: Blogging and Content Marketing: What is the Relationship?

As with any job, content marketing can be learned. You can learn skills and hone them to become more effective at what you do.

Whether you’re a budding content marketer or you’re a blogger wanting to do your own marketing efforts, here is a checklist that will teach you good habits of content marketers.

From making sure you know where to find people to follow in your niche to building an email list to joining specific communities to keyword research, this infographic gives you bite-size pieces advice, which you can easily refer to as you go about your content marketing efforts.

Source

Your turn

What has been your experience with content marketing? Has it been effective for your blog’s growth, or do you think it’s not necessary? Share your thoughts with us.

Featured image source

The post The A to Z of Content Marketing: Habits Every Content Marketer Should Develop appeared first on The Blog Herald.

The themes from TemplateMonster are fast, SEO friendly, and built with the latest coding standards in mind. They are fully responsive and look great on any screen resolution, be it a smartphone or a tablet. The themes have a great design as well.

Here are a few examples of their WordPress themes for bloggers.

Gadget News

View Details

Kustrix WordPress Theme

View Details

KingNews WordPress Theme

View Details

These are but a handful of themes that you can choose from if you win the giveaway, so let’s get on with it.

The giveaway

We’re giving away THREE codes, which the winners can use to download a template of their choice.

How do join?

1. Go to TemplateMonster, and pick any WordPress theme you like from their collection. Leave a comment with the link/ID of the theme of your choice.
2. Tweet the message shown in the Rafflecopter widget. You can tweet once a day, every day.
3. Choose additional options in the Rafflecopter widget to gain more entries.

The giveaway starts today, April 4 and ends on Sunday, April 10. The winners will be announced on Monday, Aprill 11.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!

Related: How to Pick Out the Perfect WordPress Theme

The post Win a Premium WordPress Theme For Your Blog appeared first on The Blog Herald.

But how many people actually do it on a regular basis? How many actually back up their data at least once a month? How often do you back up your data?

Okay, I’m not going to hide it. I am one of the hard headed ones who know how important it is to back data up and yet don’t do it as often as possible.

Today is World Backup Day, however, so I thought it would be the perfect time to share this graphic taking a look at – you guessed it – backing up.

I’m working under the assumption that you know which files you need to back up, although priorities will surely differ.

The bottom line is that you have another copy of your computer data that you can access in case your computer crashes (if you use Windows…). Same thing for mobile phones. This is one of the reasons I love iCloud, by the way.

The History of Data Storage: Infographic

So, the infographic below presents some numbers about data:

• 64% of people worldwide would be more upset about losing their data as opposed to their device (uh, yeah…)
• 37% of small businesses have had to restore lost data from a backup at some point (blogging as a business? You know what to do.)

Also, did you know about the 3-2-1 backup rule?

• 3 copies of anything you care about
• 2 different formats
• 1 offsite backup

I am going to be in such deep sh#t…

Anyhow, there is more to know about backing up data, so here is the infographic.

“Don’t be an April fool.” Back up your data today!

World Backup Day 2016 Infographic

Source

The post “Celebrating” World Backup Day 2016 appeared first on The Blog Herald.

just setting up my twttr

— Jack (@jack) March 21, 2006

Who would have thought that 10 years later, Twitter would be a dominant force in our lives – both personal and professional? 

Well, some did.

Back then, according to TIME’s Lev Grossman, Twitter was considered as the “cocaine of blogging or e-mail, but refined into crack”. Here’s a snippet of the fascinating piece he wrote about Twitter.

One early front runner for the title of the “YouTube of 2007” is a service called Twitter. Twitter enables you to broadcast to the world at large, via the Web or phone or instant message, tiny snippets of personal information: what you’re doing, what you’re about to do, what you just did, what your cat just did and so on. Twitter does the Internet equivalent of splitting the atom. It creates a unit of content even smaller and more trivial than the individual blog entry. Expect the response to be suitably explosive.

There’s something delightfully self-deprecating about that name, Twitter—we’re all just a bunch of happy birdies, tweeting away in our trees!—but it also makes me nervous. It’s like the cocaine of blogging or e-mail but refined into crack. Internet addiction is an old story, but we’re on the tipping point of a new kind of problem that might more broadly be called an addiction to data, in all its many and splendiferous forms.

Was he right, or was he right?

So, when did you first start using Twitter? How has it impacted your life?

I’ll end with this. You all received the same thank you email from Twitter as I did, so let me ask you this: Did you expect more from the thank you message, or is it reflective of what Twitter stands for?

Proof that Twitter has gone a looong way: How to Get More Twitter Followers

The post Twitter at 10: Looking Back at the “Cocaine of Blogging” appeared first on The Blog Herald.

If you want to stay competitive and push your business toward ultimate success, then you should adapt to these 5 trends in the ecommerce industry that can maximize your sales.

eCommerce Trends 2016

Focus on Mobile

Source

Everyone anticipated the continued rise of mobile and the slow decline of desktop in terms of bringing online traffic to ecommerce stores. Up to 2/3 of traffic in Shopify stores are now coming from mobile users (smartphones and tablets). Although the conversion rate from mobile users is still behind the desktop, online marketers are expecting the mobile’s conversion rate to catch up soon.

By year 2017, experts predict that 50% of the revenue of ecommerce stores will be coming from mobile users. You can already observe ecommerce brands trying to adapt with implementing responsive design and other features that will improve the experience for mobile users. Even Google is now requiring websites to have responsive design. So as a marketer, the first step is to contact your web developer and ensure that your pages are optimized for mobile users. The same goes for your copy and ads.

The Rise of “Contextual Shopping”

Offering a personalized shopping experience for your target audience has always been a dependable marketing tactic. This 2016, it is seen to be replaced by what’s known as “contextual shopping”. This means you should no longer rely on the data you receive from registered users and instead focus on your customers’ problems and predicting their needs.

10 Ways to Take Your Ecommerce Blog to the Next Level

If you have a context-based site (focusing on a specific niche/consumer problem), then you should already know the information that’s relevant to your target audience. You can then maximize user engagement by making this information available right off the bat. As a result, you will also eliminate the need for signing up or logging in, which improves the customers’ shopping experience.

More Images, Less Text

Source

In online marketing, the concept of the perfect content is ever-evolving. This 2016, it’s all about having more images and less text. It all boils down to the users’ preference of getting information as fast as possible.

When it comes to content, nothing can deliver information faster than a well-chosen image to quickly capture attention and promote a product. So in addition to using high quality images for your product pages, also focus on making much of your content visual. You may also utilize infographics to present detailed information in a more organized and visually-captivating way, but it’s more suitable for lead generation than sales.

Use of Pop-Ups

When used the wrong way, using pop-ups can be very annoying to your audience, especially if you keep on showing pop-ups that they do not care about. But when used correctly, you can leverage them to maximize conversions.

Due to their reputation, a lot of online marketers underestimate the effectiveness of pop-ups in their websites. But remember that a single pop-up can make the difference between a visitor and a lead, or a lead and a paying customer. Some ideas to use pop-ups effectively include offering discounts and newsletter subscriptions.

More Effort Toward Brand Management

Brand management is invaluable especially in highly competitive niches. Since your potential customers are likely to have 2 or more alternatives for your products, you should focus more on what you can offer as a brand and invest on building trust and loyalty.

There are several ways to promote your brand, one of which is to establish social proof, which has a large impact on consumer behaviour. Some of the simplest ways to obtain social proof is through user reviews and case studies conducted by experts. Promoting your brand and building your reputation through influencer marketing is also a feasible option for small to medium ecommerce brands.

BONUS: Small Commerce will drive more sales to your business

One of the biggest trends that could affect the western eCommerce world is “small commerce”, or the practice of commerce through small apps, particularly messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. This has been an on-going trend in China with the use of WeChat for online commerce.

Communicating directly with your potential customers is proven to be beneficial for building trust, improving the shopping experience, and increasing sales for online merchants. In their F8 conference, Facebook discussed the current developments in their Facebook Messenger app for supporting conversational commerce. This is due to the rising number of online shoppers who uses the Messenger to contact or make purchases from an online retailer. As an online marketer, opening up your social media channels for direct conversations with your audience is a step in the right direction.

The post 5 Ecommerce Trends in 2016 that Will Help Boost Your Sales appeared first on The Blog Herald.

If you’re a blogger for a company, or you treat your blog as a business (which you should, actually), then one of your priorities is to get people to know about your blog. You need to find your way up the search engine rankings in order to get the eyeballs you need.

Amongst the thousands of SEO tips and tricks offered online, local SEO is sometimes overlooked, especially by bloggers whose main focus is online, online, and online.

By ignoring local SEO, you might be missing out on a huge thing. For one moment, forget about target “general” keywords and shift your focus to your physical surroundings. Target your local market by launching an SEO campaign to reach it.

On-Page Optimization Tips to Complement Your Great Content

You may be unsure how to go about it, but here’s a quick, easy-to-follow, and effective guide to local SEO. If you want to hog the local traffic and dominate your niche in your area, then you need to know how to:

• Optimize on-page SEO elements to correspond with local details (phone numbers, addresses, etc.).
• Create original content that your local audience can strongly relate to.
• Use and optimize images that will cater to your specific market.
• Be proactive in getting reviews.
• Get links from other local entities.

Discover all these and more from the infographic below.

Local SEO Guide 2016

Source

The post Your Guide to Local SEO 2016 appeared first on The Blog Herald.

A couple of years ago, Shane McMahon, son of WWE owner Vince McMahon went his own way, naturally causing a ruckus. So when the announcement that the wayward son is coming back made the rounds, fans quickly picked up on the scoop.

But that’s not the best part.

Shane McMahon is coming back with a bang. A huge one.

He is going to face The Undertaker at Wrestlemania 32.

It’s OFFICIAL! #ShaneMcMahon vs. #Undertaker inside #HellInACell at @WrestleMania! #RAW pic.twitter.com/Fwkem3I86S

— WWE WrestleMania (@WrestleMania) February 23, 2016

And, the tweets flood in. A Shane McMahon WWE reunion. Will this break Twitter? Maybe not, but the fans are making themselves heard.

My baby #ShaneMcMahon #ShaneOMack is back !!! Hell Yeah!!! https://t.co/u3uoF1RQwb

— MsDimples… (@MsNadaNee504) February 23, 2016

Just watched @WWE #RAWDetroit and loved the return of Shane McMahon. Art imitating real life resonates. #BusinessPickedUp.

— Jim Ross (@JRsBBQ) February 23, 2016

#RAW PHOTOS: Shane McMahon returns to @WWE by interrupting @VinceMcMahon and @StephMcMahon!https://t.co/Iplq0gOiUL

— Joey Styles (@JoeyStyles) February 23, 2016

RT if you still Can’t Believe Shane McMahon is BACK. #WWE pic.twitter.com/2X2oFaSj1k

— Riz. (@johncenaAm) February 23, 2016

only Shane McMahon can make a business suit and Nike sneakers work #RAW pic.twitter.com/ljBKjK7liN

— Eric Stone (@eric__stone) February 23, 2016

Oh, the drama. But that’s WWE for you, and that’s why we love it!

Here’s a teaser to think about…

Cena posted a pic of Undertaker on Instagram last week. Wonder if Cena fights in place of Shane McMahon “last minute” at WrestleMania?

— Michael Fabiano (@Michael_Fabiano) February 23, 2016

Let’s end with this, and give you the chance to speak up.

Does Shane McMahon stand a chance against The Undertaker at #WrestleMania?

— WWE (@WWEIndia) February 23, 2016

The post Twitter Erupts at News of Shane McMahon’s Return at WrestleMania 32 appeared first on The Blog Herald.

There is so much importance placed on online marketing that it is easy to understand why some bloggers have difficulty navigating these waters. Not to mention the fact that there is a plethora of bloggers.

How do you actually get a chance to get that one “tiny” break that might propel your blog to the front of the pack? (Or at least somewhere in that area.)

One technique that is definitely worth doing: influencer marketing.

What is influencer marketing?

“Influencer marketing is the process of identifying, targeting, and connecting with individuals that have influence over your target audience rather than trying to reach that audience all on your own,” says Anna Hoffman of The Traffic Generation Cafe.

This means that your marketing efforts are targeted, and that you will reach relevant people instead of wasting your time on an audience that may not be interested in your niche in the first place.

How to do influencer marketing

In theory, it’s simple. Get the attention of an influential individual in your niche, and have him endorse you one way or the other, and you’re golden.

But we know just how large the gap between theory and reality is…

If you’ve been trying to do influencer marketing and not getting any results, or you are on the verge of engaging in it, here is a quick guide on how to do influencer marketing. It is by no means the only guide you can use, but it does have a bunch of practical tips you can apply that will increase your chances of success.

Source

Have you tried influencer marketing? How did it go for you? Share your story with us!

Also read: 40 Influencer Marketing Tips From the Pros

Featured image source

The post How to Do Influencer Marketing appeared first on The Blog Herald.