by Keith Keller | Mar 9, 2016 | GUEST BLOG POSTS: Social Media & SEO
HOW TO BECOME A BETTER BLOGGER Five Great Ideas Here From Guest Blogger Rochelle Melander I love watching talent competition shows like American Idol. I notice that the best performers make singing look easy. Yet I know that many hours of practice support every single note. Because blogging is such an immediate experience, with posts responding to recent events, it appears easier than, say, writing a book. Yet hours of practice, study, writing, and revising makes the best bloggers stand out from the crowd. Here’s how to develop a winning blogging style: (1) Research The Medium Blogs are not periodicals or newspapers. They look different. The articles need to sound different and still offer great content. You need to learn the form instead of trying to squeeze your white paper writing style into a blog post. Know how the best blogs write: first person perspective, shorter posts, the best information at the beginning of the post, valuable content throughout the post, links to other information and blogs, and photos. (2) Sharpen Your Voice Read a few of your posts aloud. Does your unique personality come through in the writing? If not, keep writing and revising until your posts sound like you. Pro tip: people like you and want to read your work both because you have something valuable to say but also because of how you say it. Think about how your unique perspective, including your quirks and pet peeves, comes through in your writing. (3) Create Great Content Blogs need to provide valuable or fun information to the lives of others....
by Keith Keller | Feb 18, 2016 | GUEST BLOG POSTS: Social Media & SEO
GUEST BLOG YOUR WAY TO SUCCESS Social Media Rockstar Tip By Karen Repoli Sharing your knowledge on other peoples sites is actually a fantastic strategy to help your build your own brand. That means making sure that you create and maintain active (and mutually beneficial) relationships with influencers in your field of expertise and add value to their community. In return they will usually allow you to place links to your material at the bottom of your articles and they will share them with their “TRIBE” on Social Media. Classic “WIN/WIN” How Often Should You Post? Ideally, you should be writing something everyday or so, but if article writing is not a passion of yours, make that “as often as possible”. There are other ways to contribute as well of course (Podcasts - Videos - etc) but article writing is still a great strategy for building authority. Don’t underestimate the power of regularity here as an effective part of your guest blogging strategy. Simply do as much as you can as often as you can. It all helps!! Meet Karen Repoli Karen Repoli, is a successful entrepreneur who has realized her dream of owning a successful business and having the freedom to live the lifestyle she desires. A seasoned business professional with 30 years of experience in office management, internet marketing and bookkeeping, she holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of NC, Greensboro and is VACertified. Karen’s practical, proven systems help entrepreneurs accomplish their business goals. Karen is passionate about helping motivated entrepreneurs so they can manifest their brilliance to the world. She is the...
by Keith Keller | Jan 18, 2016 | GUEST BLOG POSTS: Social Media & SEO
BLOGGING FOR BUSINESS Five Ways To Attract Your Ideal Client With Blogging The Anatomy of a Blog Post Sharing your blog posts and links across social media is a stellar strategy to establish your social media rock star status. This doesn’t mean endlessly posting blog titles with links. It means creating and maintaining active social media business pages then and including your blog link and other social network URLs. Make sure your blog post lives up to your readers expectations and matches the “voice” and persona you’re presenting on the social platforms are on. How do you get your target audience to notice you? What will bring Jane Ideal Client to your social media profile and, ultimately, your website so she can see how valuable it would be to work with you or buy your product? One of the best ways to accomplish this is to start blogging. Don’t know the first thing about blogging? No worries, I’m here to help. Here are the basics of formatting a blog post: Remember to keep it simple, include plenty of white space. You may have to break up paragraphs in places that you don’t feel comfortable doing so, but it’s all about readability and not correct format like in a college or school paper. Include pictures that are relevant to the blog post, and always fill in the “alt” information for the picture. The best thing to enter in the “alt” field is the title of the post or your business/website name. For example, I include HIT Virtual in my pictures. Use plenty of bullet points, headlines, h1 and h2 headers....
by Keith Keller | Dec 18, 2015 | GUEST BLOG POSTS: Social Media & SEO
BUILD YOUR BRAND WITH GUEST BLOGGING Fantastic Guest Blog Here From Ann Smarty The concept of spending time and effort to write for someone else for free may seem weird: Many bloggers don’t like the idea of not being paid for such an effort. However we have seen so many people building up their startups and income thanks to writing for other sites that Guest writing is a crucial tool for any kind of professional online activity. Some of the ways it can be used are: Gaining traffic to your own website, whether a blog or a company site. Sharing content with a wider audience. Finding a new reader pool to dip into. Branding yourself as an expert in your field, by solidifying your authority. Publishing samples around the web to get you consulting or freelancing work later on. Possibly gaining attention from major media sources by piggy-backing on a more popular site. Building relationships with important industry contacts. Spreading your wings and showing your chops in a new niche. Trading posts with other bloggers/writers to diversify your own blog content for free. As you can see, the applications of this technique are pretty broad, and there are many benefits. How To Get Started The process can actually be broken down into steps. Step One - Isolate Your Niche You know those dozen things you know a lot about? Don’t go jumping into them all at once. You should be isolating the niche that you want to focus on, and become an authority there, first. So select a category that you most want to be known for. Then break...
by Keith Keller | Nov 5, 2015 | GUEST BLOG POSTS: Social Media & SEO
10 Compelling Reasons To Start Blogging Another Social Media Rock Star Tip From Karen Repoli One strategy that can be essential in setting you apart from other “interesting people” on social networks is creating and maintaining your own blog. You don’t have to, of course: You can channel and pour all your energy into working from within a particular social media platform – but maintaining your own blog does confer specific advantages. Maintaining your own blog helps you… 1. Cement your identity 2. Speak with authority 3. Build a following 4. Acquire subscribers 5. Constantly present your unique slant or focus 6. Become known for specific skills 7. Attract top guest authors 8. Get great guest spots yourself on other top influencers’ blogs 9. Let people hear your “voice” 10. Brand yourself with strong graphic elements or colours Your best bet is to purchase a domain in your own name but if your name is a more common one and therefore already “taken”, you can brand a blog name or add what you do to your name. Then start sharing your blog across your social platforms and get it out there!! Check out Karen’s “NUTS & BOLTS” book series www.HitVirtual.com/ebooks-reports Meet Karen Repoli Karen Repoli, is a successful entrepreneur who has realized her dream of owning a successful business and having the freedom to live the lifestyle she desires. A seasoned business professional with 30 years of experience in office management, internet marketing and bookkeeping, she holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of NC, Greensboro and is VACertified. Karen’s practical, proven systems help entrepreneurs accomplish their...
by Keith Keller | Oct 8, 2015 | GUEST BLOG POSTS: Social Media & SEO, MP3s
THE POWER OF GUEST BLOGGING Guest post creation for blogging means that a writer submits an article to someone else’s blog. So essentially you are a “guest” of the blog you are sending your article to. The key points to remember for guest blogging is to look for a blog that matches your article and your website’s topic. Getting Clear In Guest Blogging So for instance if you write about niche markets anything from finding them to monetizing them one you’ll have a variety of blogs to ask if they would like to post your article on their blog. By posting your blog on another person’s website you are now exposing your writing to a new audience. That is achieved because you will have at least one link back to your website in your signature. Those new readers have a choice to go over to your blog and check that out. Who knows you may even gain a few new readers in the process. Using another analogy; if you have a finance website then obviously you would look to send your article to another finance type blog. That would include blogs on saving money, blogs on investing money, blogs with advice geared to the Millennials etc. What if you have a topic for your blog that doesn’t seem to match any other blog? The best advice is to see how your article can best match the blog you are submitting to by using a different point of view or perspective. I think the best way to demonstrate this would be if you have an energy blog you can write an article about energy saving tips that help you save money on your bill. Thus allowing you to put such an article on a finance related blog. If you...
by Keith Keller | Sep 23, 2015 | GUEST BLOG POSTS: Social Media & SEO, MP3s
THE IMPORTANCE OF BLOGGING FOR SEO What does blogging have to do with SEO? Blogging is a wonderful tool to create new or fresh content for your website. Thus giving it an updated feel. After most websites are created especially if you are a service you don’t update very often because there is really nothing new to update. So faced with a challenge of keeping your service in front of customers you have to do other things. Enter the concept of blogging. Originally blogging was a web-log. Reminiscent of the Sci-Fi show “Star Trek”. Entries were created daily, many were technically journals. The blogger would talk about their product launch,opinions and sometimes challenges with coming up with content. Blogs were also used a method for customers to understand what a company was doing, and to virtually meet the key players within a company. Clearer Thinking On Blogging Then blogs evolved into a collection of articles. Again, that format is varied now because bloggers are taking on a more conversation type tone and their topics are just as exciting. To make a blog post effective, use the same steps to create a web page, make sure that the title of your blog post has all or some of your keywords. Just like on your web pages you want to make sure that your keyword is used at least 3 times throughout the post. You can also use variations of the keyword another 2 times as well. You can bold,italicize or underscore your keywords as well just for the extra emphasis that those are keywords. Since photos are the “rage” and...
by Keith Keller | Sep 17, 2015 | GUEST BLOG POSTS: Social Media & SEO
KEYWORDS FOR MAXIMISING YOUR SEO Keywords are the EXACT words being used by the searcher to find you and your services. By using these you can almost GUARANTEE yourself increased traffic. Let’s use the analogy of a “ROADTRIP” I remember the first time I decided to go on a road trip. In those days you went to your local AAA office, picked up some maps and even got a consultation with one of the trip specialists. As you planned out your trip you had 2 options: the fastest route or the scenic route. Since I was heading home for Passover, I wanted the fastest route to my home state of Ohio. The advice I was given at the time was to follow I-95 or I-80 (it’s been years since I’ve made this trip!) The letter “I” indicates what is called “Interstate” and presumably one very very long path can take me from one end of the US to the other. Since I had not driven on an Interstates, I was told to follow the signs that indicated when I needed to cross over to another highway. Looking at my map, I decided that I would use the names of the exits (the places you turn off the interstate and connect to another interstate or usually a highway) So as drove on the highway I saw my last exit before entering into an new state was called Youngstown. So basically all I needed to was drive all the way to Youngstown. As I began driving, I noticed signs that said 30 miles to Youngstown. As I drove about 5 miles...
by Keith Keller | Sep 17, 2015 | GUEST BLOG POSTS: Social Media & SEO
SEO BASICS EXPLAINED (The Podcast) SEO is the process of making your product or service come to the attention of your potential customers. Social Media is one of the various steps used in SEO to achieve this. Each action step gets you closer to a complete process. The best analogy for this is each step or rung of SEO takes us higher, to get to the top of the ladder or reach our goal. Social media is one of the rungs on the proverbial ladder. Social Media is an amazingly fun tool and when used correctly can be an effective tool as well. What do I mean? Every time you create a blog post, or update a page on your website you should be sharing your information or content with others. The sharing process is through social media. How Is My Content Shared On Social Media There are a variety of ways to share your blog post and pages on social media.You have bookmarking sites, as well as more traditional social media such as Facebook or Twitter. You can also “ping” your blog posts as well. WordPress built websites have this particular feature built right in. The easiest way of course is by clicking on your “share buttons” and sharing. The more places around the web that acknowledge your content lets the search engines know that there is some pretty dang good content on that page. The search engines will look over your website (including the human reviewers as well) and confirm that you have great content by putting you right in the face of the people searching for...
