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SEO Checklist: A Handy Guide for Any SEO Campaign – Part 1

When we’re talking about getting natural exposure online we are primarily talking about getting good rankings. The only way to get traffic that isn’t gained through Ads, be they AdWords or social media ads, is to ensure that your content ranks well for queries related to your field of expertise.

We do realize that this is quite a broad statement and that there is a whole lot of work involved in actually getting there. However, unlike other forms of advertising, the results of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are a bit more permanent.

We’ve created this SEO checklist to help you keep track of all the different factors involved in getting good rankings. Things can get quite hectic when managing an SEO campaign and any slip-ups may diminish the overall impact of your campaign. This is why it‘s a good idea to keep a checklist to help you remain on top of things.

Essential Tools for SEO

There is a ton of tools out there that can help you manage various aspects of your SEO campaign but we’re here to talk about the essentials. These tools are most broadly used and proven to be very reliable.

This is the basic tool for your SEO efforts. It comes directly from Google and offers the following features:

Keywords and Traffic – You can check to see how much traffic your individual keywords bring to your website.

Website Error Checker – Through this tool you can check the website for errors and having an error-free website is one of the more crucial aspects of SEO.

Sitemap Submission – If you want to ensure that your website gets ranked, you need to do all you can to help Google’s website crawlers find all the pages without any problems.

These are by no means the only features of the Google Search Console but they are the most prominent ones.

Another essential tool that comes from Google and focuses on giving you a better insight into your website’s performance. Google Analytics should be set up as soon as your website is up so you can get the most relevant data possible from the get-go. It can also be connected to your Google Search Console to improve the information you get within Google Analytics.

Some of the things that Google Analytics helps you track are website bounce rate, traffic numbers, the traffic you are getting from Google, pages which generate the most traffic, information about other sites and search engines that get you traffic – among other things.

  • Yoast SEO

For a long time, WordPress has been the dominant CMS (Content Management System) on the market and there are few signs that this is going to change. Yoast SEO is a plug-in for WordPress that helps you manage daily SEO tasks with ease and also helps with sitemaps and robot.txt.

Keyword Research

In the past, keywords have been the primary way to ensure a good ranking. This was due to the fact that back then you could abuse keywords in various ways to ensure your ranking. Naturally, when Google noticed this abuse, they cracked down hard on the abusers but keywords are still VERY relevant.

The rules are a bit different now and search engine algorithms are much more sophisticated when it comes to finding out what your website is about – if you use your keywords properly.

Still, the tricky thing is to find out what the best keywords are for your particular situation. There are a few techniques you can use to discover your keywords.

  • Google Suggestions

The easiest way to gain access to long-tail keywords that people are searching for is through Google suggestions. You simply open Google search and type in a basic keyword you would like to rank for and the search bar will show the most relevant long-tail searches people go for.

This tool is great if you want to give a bit more substance to your keyword choices. It offers a lot of details related to individual keywords like difficulty (of ranking), search volume (how often people search for it), CPC (Cost per click) and so on. This tool is here to help you find the most optimal keywords to focus on in terms of competition and traffic they bring once you rank.

This is another one of Google’s official tools but this one is primarily focused on finding keywords for use in AdWords campaigns. Still, the keyword data is very precise, being that Google stands behind it and it can be a great additional asset for your keyword research process.

There are a lot of other techniques you can use to find keywords. Doing competition analysis is one of them, searching for keywords on Reddit and Quora is another. Still, you need to make sure that there is some data baking up your choices, so make sure you use one of the above-mentioned tools to check their quality before you commit to any of them.

On-Page SEO

Before you go out and attempt to build up your website’s reputation, you’ll have to take care of the on-page optimization first.

While the on-page optimization isn’t terribly difficult, there are really a lot of things to think about and get in order. It’s also important that these best practices be applied to any future pages and content you might add to your website.

a) URLs

Google will use your URL to attempt and extract more information about the page it’s crawling through. This is why it’s a good idea to put your primary keyword into your page URL.

Another important thing to keep in mind when it comes to URLs is that those with fewer characters inside the URL seem to rank better than those with more. A recent study conducted by Backlinko, which included 1 million search results seems to indicate that less is more when it comes to URL length as a ranking factor.

b) Tags

In the past, tags used to be the bread and butter of keyword optimization and, well, keyword stuffing. This “golden age” as some would refer to it, is gone, and these days tags have a more modest role in SEO while some have become completely obsolete.

Still, this doesn’t mean that there are not important. Tags are a broad subject and we could devote a whole article to them, which we probably will at some point, but for now here is a short overview of the most important tags.

-Title Tags

These tags typically appear as clickable titles in SERPs as well as social media. They used to be very important for ranking (keyword stuffing and similar black hat approaches) but these days their role is to attract attention and improve the click rate, so craft them with care.

They should be unique and explain the content of the text well. The length of the title should be somewhere between 50 and 60 characters so that they display properly.

-Meta Description

The meta description takes up the biggest part of the snippet and is probably the biggest factor in your click-through rate and bounce rate. The character count stands between 150 and 160 characters.

The meta description is a piece of text that should describe what the reader can find in the article and assure them that they will find what they need within it. It’s a good idea to include a call to action and relevant keywords, just make sure that you do it in a way that isn’t spammy.

-Image Alt Tags

One of the things Google and other search engines are not particularly good at is deciphering what the contents of an image are. The purpose of an image alt tag is to help search engine crawlers get this information.

Also, this text displays when the image, for whatever reason, fails to load up. This allows the users to get a sense of what the image is and how it fits into the context of the article even when it isn’t displayed.

These are the basic tags you need to worry about but this is a much deeper subject, as tags are used for different purposes and specific situations.

c) Keyword Placement

A lot of people start thinking about keywords by focusing on keyword density (percentage of the text occupied by the focus keyword) which is an obsolete approach and makes the text look artificial to both crawlers and users. Here are the three basic things you should keep in mind.

-Keyword at the Start of the Title

The most important thing is to add your keyword to the title tag as close to its beginning as possible. The reason for this is the fact that search engines tend to view it as more important when it’s closer to the beginning of the title.

-Keywords in the First 100 Words of the Text

A big mistake people make is to start the article off with an elaborate intro which has little to do with the subject matter of the content. Due to this, their keyword tends to come up much later in the content.

Make sure you start your article with an intro that deals directly with the rest of its content and also that you insert your keyword naturally within this intro so the search engines can get a better idea about its subject matter.

-LSI Keywords

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) is a mathematical way to identify relationships within a text and is a technique used in Natural Language Processing (NLP). The LSI keywords, also known as semantic keywords, are keywords that are closely related to your primary subject matter (primary keyword).

They serve the purpose of confirming to the crawlers that the content handles the subject matter well. Furthermore, they are used to better identify related queries that are not formed in the same manner but are asking for the same thing. You can use semantic keywords by using one or a few of the tools from the keyword section of this article.

d) Content

One of the most important aspects of SEO is content. Everything we do related to SEO is ultimately tied to content. Our keyword research serves as a basis for our content. The content we create is material for search engine crawlers, a source of traffic, it’s the reason we get inbound links, it’s the reason people stick around our website.

Still, all this is true only if we do it properly. Even though the content is one of the most important aspects of SEO, creating content to satisfy search engine parameters is not a good idea. Content should be created with the goal of engaging your target audience.

Content creation is probably the most difficult aspect of SEO to grasp. Since we’ve been talking about technical aspects of SEO and suddenly we’ve switched to something that has more to do with creativity, entertainment, education, engagement – to many who haven’t dealt with SEO in the past, this might seem like we took a left turn somewhere along the way.

If we take a look at an average business website, disregarding its content (videos, infographics, blog posts, PR posts, news, etc.) we get a very stale online presence which contains only the rudimentary information about the company.

This is why we create content, to keep people coming back to our website and while many businesses don’t recognize it, finding a voice for their company that people will enjoy is crucial to the success of their online presence.

Content is a very complex issue and if developed properly it can even lead to becoming a separate source of income for a company. High traffic websites needn’t really sell anything and/or convert traffic to actual leads but this is a different subject.

You can expect the second part of this article to be within a couple of weeks – We’ll link it here when it’s live so stay tuned.

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Case Study: Jujimufu’s Lessons on Being Original In a Saturated Niche

How many times have you heard a blogger, young entrepreneur or marketer exclaim: “You have to follow the latest trends, it’s the only way to get ahead in such a crowded niche!”

Well, the issue I have with this is that following trends often makes for bland iterative content that looks like everything else on the web. The paint-by-numbers approach won’t get you far, and it’s actually one of the reasons why a niche becomes saturated with uninspired content.

Introducing the hero of our story

OK, so where do we turn to for a solution? It must be some SEO expert blog, an eccentric billionaire entrepreneur with hard-earned gems of wisdom or at least an economics professor with several published books?

Close, but no cigar. The hero of our story is the oddly named Jujimufu (John Cal), an Instagram and YouTube fitness personality, vlogger, and entertainer. Well, to call him a fitness YouTuber would be doing him a disservice, as the man has made a name for himself in a ridiculously cluttered niche, and regularly puts out fun and engaging content.

He has over 360k subscribers on YT and 1.1 million followers on Instagram. He’s YT videos easily reach over 100k views regularly and sometimes go into the millions, while his Instagram videos surpass 300-400k views and often go over 1 million.

What’s this guy’s secret?

How does he do it? What makes Jujimufu so alluring and interesting? What insights can be gleaned from his work and why should anyone follow his example? Well, let’s take a closer look at his magic recipe for providing fresh content and building a successful brand in a saturated niche market.

Don’t be one-dimensional

Some of you might remember Juji from his viral Instagram video from a while back, where he lowered himself into the splits on two chairs while holding a heavy barbell over his head. He became an instant online sensation, and the reason was clear – nobody had ever seen such a thing.

There were plenty of big bodybuilder types on social media trying to sell supplements and stuttering their way through videos on basic biomechanics, and there were plenty of skinny athletic people doing the splits and back-flips – but there was no one that combined size, strength, flexibility, and agility quite like Juji.

Mix and match topics and skills

There’s no lack of diversity on Juji’s channel, no topics that are done to death, and no one’s reinventing the wheel. Here you’ll find videos of Juji trying out new things like MMA, Strong Man training, bodyweight exercises, Parkour, Olympic Weightlifting, Scottish Highland Games events, and even Pole Dancing.

There is a core theme to the channel – Juji combines the main barbell movements with bodybuilding and acrobatics, and adds a dose of humor to it – but Juji is not afraid to stray from it and try out something new.

Try out bold new things and abolish clichés

When you see John, a 230+ pound behemoth of a man, trying to master the basic Pole Dancing moves or survive a few rounds of sparring with a much more agile and conditioned opponent, you can’t look away from the screen.

This drive to always look for a new challenge, even if he ends up looking a bit ridiculous, is what sets his channel apart from the mundane gym exercise crowd. He openly mocks cliches, and even when he does something as simple as the deadlift, he slaps on a horse mask and thinks of a creative new way to compete with his friends.

Hell, the man has an entire video dedicated to Zercher-style exercises – an obscure variant of the squat and deadlift where you hold the barbell in the crooks of your elbows. He applies this basic principle to several traditional exercises and creates something new and fun, even if it is impractical.

Find your “personality” and brand it

Instead of toning down his high-energy quirky persona to emulate what everyone else is doing, Juji embraces these traits and turns them up to 100%. It’s not for everyone, but that’s the beauty of it.

People are used to seeing the same two-dimensional buff bros with the charisma of a smelly old gym bag – someone that whips his hair over the camera to make a transition, cracks jokes, and jumps around like a hyped-up cartoon character leaves a strong impression.

Juji wasn’t afraid to look inward, find out who he really wanted to be, and project this personality to his audience. No fakeness and no pandering – this is what I’m about, you can take it or leave it.

Engage your audience and listen to your fans

One of the best ways to get in touch with your audience and get some feedback is to listen to their comments and answer their questions. While a lot of fitness channels use Q&A videos as a crutch to get some quick content out on slow days, Juji puts a spin on it.

He opens fan mail while hanging upside down and gets to examine all kinds of cool and strange things people send him. Apart from this, he browses the comments section regularly, creates polls, has people ask questions and make suggestions on his Facebook page, and so on.

Juji and his friend/business partner Tom take the time to answer comments and get to interact with their audience in real-time during their Twitch streams as well. It’s not just about looking at the analytics and trying to guess what people want – sometimes you have to ask them directly.

Diversify your marketing channels and master each one

Some people write blog posts and share their articles on Facebook and Twitter. Some specialize in short form videos and attractive images on Instagram, and some post regular YT videos. Maybe sending people to a website and getting them to subscribe to an email list is the end goal for some.

However, for John Call, it’s about being as diverse and creative in your marketing efforts as you are with your content creation process. Juji will get a cool idea for a short Instagram video where he smashes things with a huge Thor’s hammer and then film an entire YT vlog about preparing for that video and the subsequent training session.

He’ll stream a costumed cooking video and have a behind-the-scenes video ready for YouTube, all the while updating fans about the stream and sharing the video on multiple social media platforms. Juji also has a nice blog with tons of information about stretching, getting into acrobatics and strength training, and even lifestyle tips.

The point is, don’t get lazy – use every medium, tool, and content format you can to market yourself.

Create a good content calendar and post frequently

Now, the content form which Juji excels at, YouTube vlogs and short Instagram videos, just happens to lend itself very well to frequent posting. You could say that it’s easier for someone like Juji to upload a video every day than for a small business to come up with something useful every week.

However, there are tons of vlogs on YouTube, and every single fitness guru on the platform has tried to use the format to cover up holes in their content calendar. With Juji things never get stale because he plans out his content so well.

He plans several days in advance, sometimes even a week and or a month in advance for some collaborations. He also shoots several videos a day to make sure he has something to put up while he’s traveling or preparing for the next big collab.

It’s all about finding your ideal posting frequency and sticking to it.

Don’t take yourself too seriously

Unlike most other fitness bloggers, Juji lets his goofy side shine. He can be self-critical and isn’t afraid to show himself in a bad light.

If someone lighter than him outperforms him in a specific lift, it stays in the video. If he tries a flip and falls flat on his back, it stays in the video. If he fails a challenge, he’ll give his reasons and come clean, and all that stays in the video.

TAG A FRIEND! @yuri_marmerstein

A post shared by Jon Call (@jujimufu) on

Juji often pokes fun at bodybuilders and powerlifters, even though he’s done both styles in his training before. He’ll strike an occasional pose, but it’s usually next to a wall filled with goofy masks or pink garden flamingos.

You get to see his human side and the fact that he stays humble shows that he believes that he can still improve, grow stronger, and offer better content.

Share a bit of your personal life and draw lessons from it

Theoretical knowledge is all well and good, but people want examples that they can follow. You could say that a product or a strategy works well or that doing things a certain way guarantees results, but talk is cheap. Juji makes a more personal video every now then and eschews his usual quirky and fun style to get serious for a moment.

Even though he’s a fitness YouTuber and Instagram influencer at his core, he’ll often talk about the difficulties of running a business. He’ll cover topics like life goals, personal motivation, job satisfaction, creating a work-life balance, time management, and so on.

Juji pulls back the curtains and shows his audience how he, John Cal, got to where he is and talks about the changes and sacrifices he needed to make.

In doing so, he opens the doors to a new audience segment – he goes from making videos for young male fitness enthusiasts to talking to guys in their thirties, people who are rethinking their career choices or those thinking of becoming entrepreneurs.

In fact, once you start seeing your audience as human beings instead of numbers on a sheet, you’ll find that a lot of these segments overlap. Aspiring entrepreneurs, students, men just past the prime of their life – they all like to train, they all face some similar challenges in life, and they all appreciate a few honest words of wisdom.

Show your audience something they can relate to

Behind the scenes footage, fails, what actually goes into making the videos, the trials and tribulations – all this makes Juji more relatable. He has a whole video where he can’t train properly because a kitten that wandered in a few days back keeps walking up to his feet as he’s trying to lift weights.

HELP ME OUT OF THIS OR HELP ME CAPTION THIS!!! PLEASE!!! ?@dantabar #photography

A post shared by Jon Call (@jujimufu) on

Instead of scraping some footage, taking the kitty inside, and filming again, he takes the opportunity to talk about how things like this can affect your training and your plans in life. Juji often films himself doing something that’s out of his comfort zone and usually ends up looking silly.

People who’ve just started training often feel the same as he does in those videos – they’re a bit uncomfortable and nervous, they feel awkward and clumsy.

Mix the fun and excitement with valuable knowledge

One of the most fascinating things about Juji is that, amidst all the shenanigans and jokes, you still get some great workout tips. He’ll share some excellent tips to stay motivated or show you a few tasty and healthy recipes.

You’ll always get some great insight into different parts of fitness, some tips you didn’t even know you needed, and all that in a fun and entertaining package.

So, keep things interesting, develop a unique style, but use every opportunity to drop some knowledge bombs in your content, even on more mundane topics.

Critique the shady practices in the industry

Any industry that grows so big that it becomes saturated with similar brands and repetitive content will have its fair share of marketing nonsense, con artists, and shady characters of all kinds.

There’s nothing wrong with using flowery language to sell your products or services, but when people start overdoing it with the hyperbole it becomes tasteless. It’s OK to entice a customer, but to outright lie to them and try to scare or confuse them into forking out cash for a subpar product is just plain unethical.

Juji looks at the unethical behavior in the fitness industry – be it useless equipment, overpriced supplements that do nothing and promise extreme results or lies and bro-science myths that fitness trainers perpetuate – and exposes them for what they are.

He even takes the chance to make sarcastic videos mocking these shady or lazy practices in the industry. Using good satire to expose frauds and bust myths is a great way to help your audience learn more about the industry and how to avoid getting scammed. This builds a lot of trust and goodwill and helps spread brand awareness.

Collaborate with impressive influencers

The name of the game on YouTube is collaboration. The lower ad revenue, strict and arbitrary rules about demonetization, and an algorithm that seems to hate smaller content creators have all made this a necessity.


However, even before the “YouTube adpocalypse” began, collabs were quite popular, and Juji quickly became the master of this format. He would seek out everyone from bodybuilders, strongmen, and powerlifters to martial artists, Olympic weightlifters, and Ninja Warrior competitors.

But how did he get all these people to work with him? Well, if you were a fellow fitness personality the offer was quite enticing.

Juji would fly you out to his town on his own dime and let you live and eat at his house free of charge for the 2-4 days you’d be filming videos. He’d also let you pick the food that you normally eat, provide you with all the training gear you want, and work around the daily schedule you’re used to.

On top of all this, he’d come up with most if not all the video ideas himself. As soon as you stepped foot on his property, Juji already had 2-3 days of cool activities planned and an outline for several fun and unique videos.

So, if you want to collaborate with big names in the industry, make it worth their while. Sometimes just the offer to expose someone to a new audience for the same thing in return is enough, but don’t count on it. Make them an offer they can’t refuse, prepare a great content idea, and get your audience hooked.

Create different types of content

Juji has training footage, collabs, funny stuff, and motivational and career advice. He and Tom stream on Twitch, he produces short Instagram videos, he has YT vlogs, and there’s a bunch of instructional articles on his site.

The man is always looking for new ways to promote his content, but he also looks for new content types to produces and all the equipment and influencers to help him produce it. It’s not enough to just stay creative within your chosen platform and medium, you should always keep looking for new ways to impress your audience.

Set actionable goals and share them with the world

Juji has had several different goals over the years that he publicly stated on his channel. He is well into his train 365 days in a row challenge, where he trains every single day for the entire year.

At the end of this ordeal, he’s going to sum up his experiences and findings in a book that outlines the best practices for someone who wants to engage in such a strict training regime.

He’s set milestones in strength, body weight, and performance before and has delivered some eye-opening insights along the way. He currently goes to all kinds of public places and challenges regular folk to test out their grip strength. In doing such interesting challenges Juji is creating tons of useful or just fun case studies that no one else is doing.

Setting goals and getting people involved in challenges creates massive amounts of engagement and gives you access to tons of empirical data. Unlike other fitness personas, he doesn’t just parrot facts or make unsubstantiated claims – Juji actually puts things to the test and walks the walk.

Conclusion

If there are too many fish in the pond, it’s difficult to find enough room to flap your fins around freely and grab the onlookers attention. So, what’s a little fish to do?

Well, our friend John Cal seems to have figured out a winning strategy. It’s not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but all the hard work you put in will pay off in the long run.

Jujimufu grew his brand by consistently uploading content that mixed and matches different topics, content formats, training styles, genres, and branches of the fitness industry.

He wasn’t afraid to project a truly unique, if somewhat quirky, personality, critique shady industry practices, and show his personal side and failures to make himself more repeatable.

Most importantly, he diversified his marketing channels and reached out to other brands and content creators to collaborate on unique projects that combined fun and informative content.

By doing this and listening to his audience’s feedback, involving them in the creative process and content planning, Jujimufu has built an immensely popular brand. He still puts out tons of great content in a niche that is as saturated and stale is it gets, and so can you. It’s a lot of hard work and takes planning and adjustments, but it is possible and can even be incredibly lucrative.

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Are Links Still Important in 2018 and What Awaits Us in the Future?

Just as you think that some things will never change, SEO is here to surprise you. Not only have we become accustomed to constant changes and shifts in SEO practices over the years, whether those were small updates about meta description length, or others (not so distant) that brought fear to our hardened digital hearts, but we have come to expect and embrace them.

That is why SEO is really becoming about great content, and barely anything else. But links are still important? Right?

Links have become pure gold in the internet world, and every marketing manager alive knows that links to your page spell something good. But in this rush to gather as many links as possible, there is a catch – links are not universally helpful.

John Mueller, a Webmaster Trends Analysts at Google, said this in a recent Reddit AMA:

SEOs often focus on links too much, it doesn’t always helps [sic] their sites in the long run or is probably not the most efficient thing to do to promote a website.

Is he suggesting that we shouldn’t focus so much on links? It seems like it.

Naturally, this doesn’t mean that links are a thing of the past, quite the opposite. You will still need (and use) links, as that will influence the status of your page, but once again, the paradigm is shifting more from quantity to quality.

How will this change your current SEO efforts?

Well, simply put, links are still important – they just aren’t being counted the same way as they once were. There is an overarching theory that there is an authority metric, and that links coming from high-authority domains are better for you in the long run.

Google is adamantly denying that such a metric exists, but still, some links will help you more than others.

Another important thing to have in mind is that Google is a popularity contest. In the end, Google will show what it considers popular; and while popularity is commonly associated with links, this is not always so.

Take SERPs into account

Instant answers to a user query are the future Google is going for. And the answer that is the best will be ranked the highest, not the answer that is most popular. If you think that those two things should be the same, once again, this is not always so.

So, the time invested into getting the best, and most expensive links should be routed towards what the users need and want. This was always the end game; we just got lost inside it, and (reasonably) thought that the number of links is all that mattered.

So, what’s the future?

As the technology advances, and computers have more and more processing power dedicated not only to tracking all the links on the page, but also the content and context. Of course, Google always paid attention to the content itself on any page, but as time passes on, those algorithms are becoming much smarter.

Implied links are opposite to explicit links. For example, on this page, you can see quite a lot explicit links that will lead you to either a source of info, or a further reading page – those are direct and tell you what to do.

Implied links are the overall topic, and what I had textually, semantically mentioned in this article. You know that YouTube videos’ audio is analyzed to find suitable ads to display to you?

Well, this is similar.

It looks at the content of the page and guesses what you might have wanted to link, and it creates implied links, that only Google can see and uses that info to rank other pages, but also notices when someone wants to link to you – remember, those processing algorithms are very smart, and they can really understand what you’re talking about. They are not as easily fooled as they once were.

How will this work against the big competition?

Anytime we mention a fizzy drink, and you start googling fizzy drink soon after that, Google will immediately create a connection (and probably think we were talking about Coca-Cola). To create a different implied link, we’ll need to mention Pepsi directly, and after you google for Pepsi it will create a connection – and this is the future.

Implied links are not simple brand mentions, it works only if something mentioned in an article is googled soon after.

Are we 100% sure this is how it works? No. But that’s the deal with Google, you never know for sure how, and if, something works.

Is this ideal? Of course not, is some cases it might even be easier to trick than with a regular link. Should you have this in mind? Naturally.

The game of SEO is that of a cat and, quite a few, mice. You need to follow everything that Google is doing, and even mentioning, so that you can get a better hold of that precious cheese. Naturally, the cat and mice idiom can be reversed, where Google plays the cat, and all the techniques we use to optimize the system are just mice Google is waiting to get their paws on, so they can meet their untimely death.

What should I do?

Once again, focus on quality over quantity. Domain authority is a thing of the past, while the domain relevancy will be more important as time passes. Getting links from a part of your, or a connected industry is crucial if you want your links to succeed and stay important in the long run.

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Will Blockchain Really Shake Up the Content Marketing World?

The blockchain market is on the fast track to hitting the magic number of $20 billion somewhere around the year 2024. The technology is so popular, in fact, that around 69% of banks are already trying out permissioned blockchain networks.

While these numbers are impressive, the main thing we are concerned about is whether blockchain will have an impact on the content marketing world, and if so, to what extent.

How We Approach Changes in the Content Marketing Industry

We prefer to focus on what could be called holistic content marketing, where each piece of the marketing puzzle is made to fit with other pieces to create a comprehensive grand strategy.

This way it’s easier to focus on the big picture and see whether a new tool or way of doing things really offers big enough benefits to warrant major changes to the strategy.

How Does Blockchain Fit in With This Holistic Content Marketing Approach?

I won’t go into great detail explaining what blockchain is, as I assume that most of the people reading this understand the basics. Let’s just say that having any online transaction encoded within a number of blocks, which allows you to clearly track its history, does have some interesting implications when it comes to content.

Proof of Origin

Aside from the obvious fact that cryptocurrencies based on blockchain can be used to pay for creative content writing services, this technology offers a solid way for creators to protect their content from would-be thieves.

Well, inasmuch as it allows you to prove that you were the first one to come up with it, making it easier, at least on paper, for you to defend your intellectual property.

That being said, there will always be plagiarists, and any kind of legal measures you take against them will be a grueling and somewhat costly process. It’s not enough to just show you were the first one to write something, you still have to chase down copycats and get them to delete the stolen content.

A Tool for Accurate Market Research

Now here’s something truly promising – using blockchain to get highly precise feedback from your target audience. What if you could get the kind of precise audience feedback that micro-influencers get from comments on social media?

The Clear Poll platform promises such insights through blockchain-based polls. It’s a simple concept, but one that works flawlessly – as people vote, their decisions become part of the blockchain, so they are protected and can’t be tampered with.

This allows for incredibly precise feedback, making the job of anyone involved in creative content writing or marketing a lot easier. This is actually a great use of blockchain technology, and definitely some game-changing stuff.

Re-Kindling Consumer Trust

People are being bombarded with all kinds of content as soon as they go online, and they’ve become distrustful. Fake news and alternative facts were last year’s favorite buzzwords, and online viewers won’t give branded content the time of day unless it’s been vetted by someone they trust.

This is where micro-influencers come into play, giving marketers access to a laser-targeted audience that trusts their favorite online personality and expects transparency.

Blockchain can allow marketers and influencers to collaborate with no middleman in the way, making the whole process much more efficient and less expensive.

You also have platforms like Mavin, where you have a chance to develop custom-tailored reward systems for your social media influencers based on how often they share your content, mention your brand, like the things you put out on your pages and so on. This way you can give your content that much-needed initial boost with very little hassle.

All this can lead to more clicks and shares, especially if combined with the kind of precise market research mentioned in the previous paragraph.

A Potential Way to Track the Engagement of Your Content

Marketers who reach out to influencers for unique content don’t really have a bulletproof strategy for keeping track of audience engagement. It’s a bit of an abstract concept, where a number of factors come into play, most of which are hard to measure accurately.

Likes and clicks on YouTube videos and Instagram pics are all well and good, but how does that translate into leads and sales?

Well, using blockchain to secure the contract, i.e. with a platform like Maven, will give marketers a certain level of insight into the progress their chosen influencer has made at each step of the project. Now, it won’t provide the most precise results, but it still gives you something to show your boss and justify your marketing budget.

This is an interesting use for blockchain, but it seems to offer only marginal benefits. No one can really tell if the effect it will have on the content marketing world will be all that significant.

What’s the verdict?

To tell you the truth, I was a bit skeptical about the whole thing at first, as I’ve grown weary of clickbait titles like “5 Reasons Why Blockchain is the Future of Everything”, but there might just be something to it.

As you can see, blockchain offers multiple unique benefits, from improved influencer collaboration to more precise market research. This makes it appealing even for someone with a more holistic content marketing approach, someone looking at the big picture if you will.

However, the important thing to note is that the technologies mentioned in this article are all still in their infancy, and the benefits they offer won’t magically change the way we do content marketing overnight.

There are some merits to using blockchain within this industry, but the benefits are still far from earth-shattering. The final verdict is that you shouldn’t be seduced by all the hype, but you should definitely keep on eye out for new uses of blockchain technology.

There might be something truly useful down the line, but there’s no reason to get too excited or start panicking just yet.

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Why is Content Marketing Important?

In the online world there are countless ways a business can market itself, as marketers were quick to come up with new techniques and methods for digital marketing over the years. Although having a lot of options is generally a good thing, a problem arises for many inexperienced businesses and marketers – which option to choose?

The fact that people were able to achieve good results with different methods has created many disputes about which one is the best, but in reality there is no such thing. Depending on the type of business, its niche, resources, market and business model, different marketing techniques might be more or less suited.

However, one marketing method is always important and any type of business can benefit from it – content marketing. Despite being one of the oldest digital marketing methods, it’s still very cost effective and this is why 90% of companies use it.

Today we will discuss the reasons why content is still king and why every business needs to utilize it.

Content Boosts Your SEO

Content marketing is not an isolated set of techniques and methodologies that don’t have any effect on other important aspects of marketing. On the contrary, it is directly connected to search engine optimization. Given the fact that the essence of SEO optimization is code and text, content and especially articles have a great impact on how a certain website will be ranked.

If you want to constantly improve the organic visibility of your website, you will have to publish optimized content on it. Creating new content is one of the best and most commonly used SEO techniques and content marketing goes hand in hand with these practices.

Each page or blog content is an opportunity for improving SEO efforts. Apart from the fact that your content needs to offer valuable information and be relevant depending on its purpose, you also need to follow up on certain SEO practices and when Google indexes it, your site will rank higher.

Content Helps Solidify Your Brand

Branding has never been more important than today. Given the fact that there are more businesses than ever and that it’s never been easier to start something from scratch, the competition has become very fierce. A lot of markets are oversaturated, which means that the only way to grow your business is to fight with your competition.

In this kind of business landscape, building a strong brand identity is essential. A business will never be able to compete if it sinks in with the crowd. Your brand needs to be unique and recognizable and only then will customers get interested in what you have to offer. This is where content comes into play.

By creating and publishing good content, a business has the opportunity to express its values, tell a story about the brand, talk about policies, goals, and create a voice of its own.  With consistent content, you will be able to leave a good impression on your target audience, show them who you are and what your brand has to offer them.

Content Marketing Is the Catalyst of All Your Marketing Efforts

Quality content is a must for nearly all marketing efforts. Regardless of whether you want to reach people through email, your website or social media to engage people and get them to think and talk about your business, you need content. The alternative is to borrow someone else’s content and this doesn’t make a business memorable and interesting.

Here are some of the ways in which great content affects different online marketing efforts:

  • Email marketing:  need to contain content that will make them engaging and offer value to potential leads; if you use the type of content that people have already seen a thousand times, they might think that you are trying to scam them.
  • Social Media: Another highly important marketing channel is social media, where you need your own quality content to share on a regular basis. A business that has no unique content of its own to share share on social media can be perceived as inactive or slow.
  • SEO: If you are looking to attract more people to your website and boost SEO efforts, regular blog publishing can help you achieve this.

As you can see, original, high quality and well-written content is a flexible marketing material that can be distributed through multiple channels. Additionally, it can help promote your brand, your message, values, thoughts and goals.

Good Content Allows You to Create Ads

All businesses, no matter how big or small need paid ads at some point, and most of them utilize these kinds of marketing method. Some of the paid marketing methods are:

  • Social media ads
  • Pay per click campaigns
  • Website ads
  • Video ads
  • Email marketing

The fact that you create original content on a regular basis doesn’t guarantee that people will see your content. The Internet is a big place where there are a lot of similar businesses competing for their place. This is why organizations use paid advertising methods.

Not only does having lots of good content allow them to create paid ads and have something to make them more engaging, but paid advertisement also allows companies to share their blog content and make sure it’s seen by their target audience.

A potential goal could be to create original and engaging content which is visually appealing. Because of this, people will click on your ad, read or watch it, go to your blog, subscribe to your mailing list or perform some other action. Still, it’s very important to create and optimize both your content and the ads for the right target audience in order for your paid campaign to be successful.

Content Marketing Is Important to Consumers

In today’s world business prospects want relevant information about products and services. This makes it more difficult to sell them something. Customers study products, their features, compare prices, and try to learn as much as possible about certain products before they even go out shopping.

This is why they need relevant, valuable content that can give them answers and help them make the right choices. However, customers today are better educated and they don’t want to get content that is actually just a sales pitch. In other words, people today don’t like being sold things in an obvious way and this is an instant red flag to them.

People like to read articles and watch videos that are informative and help them learn something. By giving them this kind of content and passively linking to your blog, store or contact page, you will encourage them to contact your business without spamming them. If they like your content, they will trust your opinion and knowledge.

These are just some of  the most important aspects of content in our book, and there are probably hundreds of other ways people have used content to put their business on the map. Simply put, content will always be relevant and all businesses need some kind of content marketing strategy in place.

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The Difference Between Trolling, Harsh Criticism and Genuine Feedback

Opening yourself to the online public also means opening yourself to thousands of different opinions, personalities and temperaments. Everyone wants their voice heard and the veil of anonymity allows people to be much more forward and even more aggressive than they would normally be, which encourages trolling.

The main problem is that it takes a bit of skill to sift through needlessly harsh critiques, unsubstantiated opinions and troll comments, and find some constructive feedback. And this is an important distinction, as there are different approaches to dealing with the first two, and you need the last one if you want to keep improving.

This is why we are going to take a look at each of these things separately, explore the main differences between them and set some ground rules on how to deal with them.

The Attention-Hungry Troll

Trolls have been around for decades, and people have slowly started to realize that the best strategy is to ignore them, but it sometimes takes an experienced eye to identify a true troll. While the most basic button-pushing comments like “you suck” and “this is an utter joke, I can’t believe anyone takes this guy seriously” are easy to spot, some trolls are a bit more subtle.

Some use sarcasm as a powerful tool or pretend like they want to spark an open conversation only to lure you into an online screaming match. Their ultimate goal is always the same, however – to get you to lose your calm and start arguing.

If someone keeps trying to push you into a heated battle of words, to the point where they just assume the direct opposite view of anything you say and resort to ad hominem remarks, arrogance and outright insults, you’ve got a troll on your hands.

It’s best to just ignore these people, but if they trick you into starting a conversation and reveal their true inner troll a couple of comments down the line, just say goodbye and break off all communication right there and then.

The Self-Proclaimed Critic

Some people just see the bad in everything around them and feel that they need to show everyone else just how bad, wrong or inadequate they are. You’re not a psychiatrist, and even if you were, you couldn’t cure them of their delusions and compulsions over the comments section, so you need a better strategy to deal with them.

Here are just some of the most common types of online critics:

The backhanded compliment master – what starts out looking like praise quickly turns into a rant about all that you are doing wrong. Thank this commenter on their feedback, offer some hard-cold facts in return, wish them a nice day and leave it at that.

The unlikely expert – some comments are aimed at stroking the person’s ego and showing how much they know instead of offering actual feedback. Leave a concise retort, keep the tone neutral and wish them well.

The nitpicker – this person will get caught up on minor details and tiny mistakes and blow them out of proportion as a way to discredit you. Thank them for their observation, explain why such minor details don’t make a huge difference and that you are constantly improving, and leave it at that.

The doomsayer – for some reason this person feels that you are the worst thing since the plague, yet offers very little in way of facts to back up such claims. Simply ignore such comments or leave a short line with statistics that show how many people appreciate your effort and would argue otherwise.

The accuser – you see this a lot in the science community, where everyone with a different opinion is accused of being bought off by some corporation, but you’ll find it in most corners of the web. Again, some cold-hard facts and a polite tone will suffice, just avoid getting into a drawn out argument and keep your responses short.

As you can see, the trick is not to get triggered and leave emotionally charged responses – kill your harshest critics with kindness and rebuke their claims with logic and facts. It’s more about coming across as reasonable and professional than it’s about winning an argument or proving a point.

A Friendly Voice Offering Feedback

Now, don’t think that we are lumping everyone with something negative to say about you and your work into the “unreasonably harsh critic” group – even negative feedback can be constructive. Someone who enjoys your brand and your work, but wants to offer a suggestion on how you can improve, will be easy to spot.

Their overall tone will be much more neutral – they’ll offer facts, get to the point straight away, be polite and avoid any emotionally charged or provocative language. This is the type of commenter you actually want to start a conversation with. Exchange a few words, thank them for their input and tell them that your team will look into the issues they’ve brought up.

There’s a big difference between people who are just being negative to vent their frustrations or troll you in the comments and those who want to offer some genuine feedback and help you improve. Hopefully, this short overview has given you an idea on how to approach different types of commenter and weed out the bad seeds.

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Back to Basics – What Do People Really Look for in Online Content?

It all started with forum posts, hideously designed 90s web pages with blocks of poorly formatted text, but as the Internet evolved, so did the content delivery platforms and the content itself. It wasn’t long before businesses jumped on the bandwagon, and around 88% of B2B marketers say that they use content marketing.

However, it’s not just serious business execs from large corporations that want to focus on creative content writing – everyone from hard working carpenters to soccer mom solopreneurs and photographers needs to put out content. It’s the only way to really grab people’s attention and build trust.

OK, so you’re saying that I can just churn out articles and get more visitors?

Now, since there’s such a big demand for online content, you’d think that it’s all about finding the cheapest way to produce tons of content, fill it with some keywords, share it on social media and BAM! – you’ve got yourself a content marketing strategy.

Well, I’m sorry to say that things are not that easy. In fact, tons of low quality content, keyword stuffing and posts on content farm blogs where the links leading back to your site stick out like a sore thumb will actually have a negative effect on your ranking in searches.

This is not to say that you can’t have some more promotional content here and there, but it has to offer something meaningful to the readers.

So, I need to improve my creative content writing skills, but what does that actually involve?

There’s a bunch of criteria we can look at to determine what makes an article great, memorable and engaging, but it all boils down to a few simple basics. You may later expand on these ground rules, but the following 7 things should be your guiding light when creating online content.

Useful or Interesting Information found in Online Content

One of the basic rules of creative writing is to “write what you know”, and writing about your own niche shouldn’t be much of a problem. However, you should never offer general information and sound bites that anyone with no clue about your industry can learn after 30 seconds of searching and 5 minutes of reading.

  • Useful information is all about:
  • In-depth analysis of key industry/niche concepts
  • Guides that show step-by-step solutions
  • Dispelling common misconceptions
  • Creative ideas on using different products and services
  • Actionable tips on improving one’s self or their business

In other words, the readers should feel that they’ve learned something that they can apply in their own lives after reading your content.

Entertainment Value

Not all content needs to be laugh-out-loud entertaining, e.g. case studies and articles covering serious scientific research should have a more serious tone, but in most cases, you can make an article easier to read by spicing it up with a unique writing style.

Finding the right tone and vocabulary will depend on many things including your:

  • Niche
  • Target demographic
  • Unique brand voice
  • Topic and social context

Generally speaking, you can make things a whole lot entertaining by using creative examples, personal experiences, funny comparisons, hyperbole, a bit of sarcasm, etc. Find the style that fits your brand identity and your audience’s preferences and stick with it.

Opinions and Elucidation

Although most of the basic topics in any niche will have already been covered by the time you decide to start writing about them, you can still offer a unique spin on a worn old topic. It’s not just about sparking controversy, but about voicing your own opinion and showing people that there’s more than one way to go about things.

Some well-know points are often covered only superficially, even though you’ll find them in dozens of articles. In such cases, you can make a whole article on a subtopic that others only mention in passing, and provide plenty of in-depth information to help people get a better understanding of how things work and why certain elements are very important.

For example, while everyone writing about growing a small business might mention that it’s important to find the right employees and the right connections, you can create a 2000 word article on how to network, earn social capital and build strong partnerships with other aspiring entrepreneurs.

High Readability

While there are still people who look for information in thick books with walls of text crammed into every page, most of us who do an online search want something that’s easy to digest. Formatting plays a major role in how your content is received and whether it will be shared.

Here are some general guidelines:

  • Keep your paragraphs short (two or three sentences)
  • Break the content down into plenty of subheadings
  • Add bullet points
  • Insert charts and infographics
  • Avoid the passive voice
  • Keep things concise

Needless to say, your grammar should be spotless.

Memorable Visuals

Creating great visual content is high on the list of marketing priorities of most businesses, and for a good reason – visuals grab people’s attention and they are more likely to remember content with images than just plain text.

An eye-catching feature image can get you more likes and shares on social media, but having the right images, charts, tables and infographics in the text is just as important. It will help you get the information across more effectively and help keep the readers interested.

Shareability

This is a bit of a vague concept that includes all of the previously mentioned points, but there is one more thing you need to cover to really motivate people to share your articles – the curiosity gap. Now, what you definitely shouldn’t do is go and spit out 10 clickbait titles and call it a day.

Your content has to deliver on the promise made in your title and you shouldn’t be too bombastic, but there are things you can do to get people interested in what you have to say. Here are a few ideas to get you thinking in the right direction:

  • Use power words to frame the title in a more interesting way
  • Draw the readers in with a snappy introduction
  • Spend some time on finding the perfect feature image
  • Offer prominent social sharing buttons on your blog

Getting all these little things right will often take a huge amount of time, which may seem disproportionate to what you’ll be getting out of it, but trust us, going the extra mile here will do wonders for you in the long run.

Variety

You can’t keep pumping out 2000 word articles on a daily basis and retain any semblance of quality, nor would your readers be able to keep up even if, by some miracle, you could offer dozens of great long articles every month.

This is why you need to vary things up a bit – follow up large information-dense articles with a couple of smaller tips-and-tricks posts, throw in a roundup or list article here and there, put out a short Q&A video or podcast once a month, etc.

Switch up the types of content you use, its length and the topics you cover, and you’ll keep things fresh and interesting.

To give people what they want, you need to know what they want in the first place. Seems fairly straightforward, right? The importance of creative content writing for your blog or link building campaign can’t be stressed enough, so go over the tips we’ve covered here one more time and you’ll be able to dramatically improve your content.