At Affiliate Summit, we hard but we play harder. After a full day at the show, it was time to kick back, relax, have some drinks and beat each other at bowling! Check out the video to see all the action.
Blogging and building an online presence is about dominating your competition. I must admit one thing I learned over the years is that “content is king” because it’s a channel to provide people with value. However, I’m surprised at the amount of people who fail to understand the importance and get swept away by their competition. It’s doesn’t have to be this way because you have full control over your success, but you have to stay focused on your end goal.
These days because of the ease to start an online website it’s no surprise that every niche has competition. More content is popping up then ever before so you have to find creative ways to leverage what’s already available online. If you can outshine your competition then you won’t have any problem succeeding where others have failed.
I feel as though bloggers simply give up because they don’t know how to generate the right content ideas or use what’s already available online in their niche. Today, I’ll like to go in-depth into how to dominate your competition through compelling content and boost your rankings at the same time.
Let’s get started and your feedback will be appreciated in the comment box below.
Content is the life line of every blog and people flock to find value because it helps them with their bottom line. For example, through content you can provide relevant readers a glimpse into the trends within your niche. You can inform them of changes, developments and factors which will effect them going forward. In content marketing I was able to prepare myself for changes within the niche by simply following a handful of successful relevant blogs. Next,
Content allows you to successfully get your point across in your own words and establish an identity. Blogging is just as much a brand then it is a business and I believe they connect with each other right in the middle. Just by writing in your own words you can translate difficult topics into a language which others can understand. In the next example, you’ll learn the most important role of high value content.
One of the most successful ways to build a following is through tutorials. You have two options: Video and Content. Both have been proven to be amazing, but content is a much older format which people still appreciate. Writing lengthy tutorials in content format also give you more flexibility when it comes to SEO because you can incorporate more keywords into the body. However that’s not all…
Tutorials build credibility because you are showing people how to accomplish something. They are easily picked up by search engines and even easier to share on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Finally, content tutorials can easily be updated when they need to because all you need to do is click “edit” type what you need to and then hit “update”. It’s that simple!
Since the growth of “Content Marketing” you can now transform your content to generate even more profit then ever before. Through strategic content writing and marketing you can promote products, advertising opportunities and build links which add more value then before. The point is content marketing has allowed us to market what we know how to do best quickly and efficiently, but a lot of credit must be given to social media too.
So, how do you find the best content ideas then write compelling content? Here are the top “3” ways I’ve used to dominate my competitors and the search engines.
One of the best ways to dominate your competitors is to find out what’s trending before they do. Google has done a great job providing you with tools to find EXACTLY what you are looking for quickly and efficiently. For example, Google Trends is a website which allows you to type in a niche related keyword and find out the search pattern over a given time. Before I show some examples I want to tell you why this is important.
First, It allows you to shift your focus and generate some content ideas which will resonate with readers in the future. Technology changes quickly and readers are always attracted to updated news compared to that which is becoming obsolete. By doing a simple search in Google Trends you can find keywords which have increased in search volume over the years and start to incorporate them within your content.
Here’s a quick example using the keyword “content marketing”…
Head over to Google Trends and type in “content marketing” within the search field….
You can see from the example above that the following queries have been gaining traction. You can filter the trends by month or custom dates to take you back even further. However, the point is with this tool you can find what phrases people have been searching more over a given time period.
Recently, Private Blog Networks have been gaining traction so check out the popular of this type of content.
Over the years I have learned a lot from other niche relevant blogs and recently even my competitors. First, simply by looking at what content they’ve been publishing I’ve been able to generate my own content ideas. Secondly, my looking at the social activity on different content pieces which I know will resonate well with readers. Third, I have been able to find creative ways to write even better content so mine stands out dominating the rankings going forward. Here’s how each one works in more detail…
1. Research –
If you’ve been reading my previous content then you know everything starts with a solid research campaign. Head over to Google and search the best blogs within your niche. If you’ve been blogging for years then you’ll have a good idea of the major players within your niche. Write down a list of these blogs making sure you have anywhere between 5-6 to start with.
Skim through these blogs looking for the following:
How often blogs are updated
Number of comments per post
Number of shares per content
Some blogs will have a popular post section which is perfect to generate this list
2. Use Free Tools Available –
Did you know you have a handful of free tools available which can help you out. For example, the two which I’ve been using for years are: Topsy.com and Buzzsumo.com. These are very easy to use because all you have to do is type in your “target” keyword and click “Search”. These tools will generate a list of most popular content and TOTAL shares. Here’s an example using keyword “content marketing tips”
From the example above you can see the top “content marketing tips” content and how many social media shares they have. In the next step you’ll be visiting both the blogs and content to find ways to outperform each of them.
Here’s a quick search of CDL Practice Tests which has been a huge industry for trucking.
3. Write Something Better –
This step is the trickiest because you have to do in-depth research looking for ways to improve existing content. You have to write content in YOUR own words, but find what’s missing in your competitors at the same time. It’s time for you to visit each piece of content on your list and find what’s missing by doing the following:
You can even write lengthier content by explaining the key points in more detail. Here’s why this will work so well afterwards…
You know your competitors have relevant content which have been shared by readers online. The premise is that if you can write something more in-depth then you should be able to gain way more traction then your competitors. Google has over 200 rankings factors and most of them will be achieved simply by writing valuable content. Valuable content equals…
4. Outreach –
Posting the high quality revived on your blog should be good enough however there are some tricks to get the content in front of the right people. For example, how cool would it be to get your refreshed content in front of those people who shared your competitors? Here is the way you can do exactly this…
First, find the people who shared your competitors content by simply pasting the URL into Buzzsumo.com or Topsy.com. Remember to grab the URL of your competitors content.
Here’s an example using my expert post…
When you click on the social shares it will generate a list of the people who have shared this content. You can then visit their profiles to find their website information to contact them directly. Let them know they shared similar content and they might find what you have written interesting since it provides more depth into the topic.
Start by contacting 5-6 daily and keep track of who has responded or not so you can keep following up at a later time. Keep in mind you’ll have success with some and others won’t, but even if 4-5 major players in your niche share your content it’s good enough to create a buzz.
Authority Bloggers –
If you have been networking with other bloggers within your niche then you’ll be able to gain traction to your content more quickly. I have been writing for many bloggers throughout my career and these same people are more then happy to share my content once I’ve published it online. However, you have to keep in mind building relationships with these bloggers is a complete “strategy” in itself. Even if you don’t have relationships then you can use some creative marketing techniques to have them share your content either way.
First, the best way to build a network of authority bloggers for outreach is by guest blogging on their website regularly. You can email them to pitch some ideas and along the way build a solid relationship with them. Always be genuine in your approach and the content you write should be valuable and lengthy so they will appreciate the effort you put building more solidarity going forward. This is a strategy I’ve used on my own several times and has worked amazing.
Second, writing unique content for your blog can help build relationships with influential bloggers going forward. For example, about a year ago I put together an “expert post” where I asked bloggers a simple question then posted the results on my blog. In the end, I had 14 answers and bloggers I was able to reach out to so they’ll share my post with their following. The fact they were mentioned in the post added reason for them to “share” my content with their followers.
The “share” count on this post keeps growing and continues to build brand awareness and loyalty from people.
Third,
Whenever I reach out to other bloggers I ask myself this question: What’s in it for the other person? The answer to this question is very important because just like any other business “blogging” is about give and take. This means I have a better chance of building momentum to my content if I can offer the person whose sharing an incentive. This especially matters if I’m a newbie having no previous relationship with them before. So, how can I offer an incentive?
Commission –
If in my content I’m promoting a product then for sharing my content I can offer a percentage of the profits generated through them. I’ll have to use a tracker to analyze how many people clicked-through, but there are many tools available to help you accomplish this.
External Links –
Boosting your rankings and content exposure is about building links to your content. A great incentive to offer those who are sharing your content is 1 external link embedded within the body. Once the content is shared, readers will click-through and visit other content which offers a chance of higher social shares and content exposure.
High value links is something which you cannot put a price on so this incentive has worked well when I have done outreach throughout the months.
Product Reviews –
Very rarely do I review products, but this is a great way to get your foot in the door. I’ll contact influential bloggers asking them to share content where I’ve mentioned their personal product. Who doesn’t want free marketing and exposure where no monetary value is involved….right? These bloggers will share my content and achieve the following:
I would recommend to try different strategies because you don’t know which ones will work the best. Always keep track of your results and tweak along the way so you know which ones to carry on with going forward.
Great content is the lifeline of every blog so it’s important you know how to find, revive and optimize before publishing. Throughout this post I have discussed cool strategies you can implement going forward to dominate your competitors and stand out in the search results. As mentioned it all starts with research and finding what’s trending so you can write content which resonates well with your readers. If you don’t then your competitors will start to take your loyal readers because there is NO shortage of valuable content. You just have to be better and know what’s missing to tweak before you publish your content.
To summarize, here are the key points…
Always start with research and use the tools available to you. From my experience the best way to find valuable content ideas is to use: Google Trends, Topsy.com, Buzzsumo.com and Google search.
Create a list of the top content so you can refer to them when it’s time to analyze for social shares, comments, views, etc. Calculating total shares is a great way to find content already published that resonates well with readers.
Go through your list and visit each page looking for ways to improve content. For example, ask yourself these questions…
Topsy.com and Buzzsumo.com both provide a cool way to find those who have shared identical content. Email them with your content asking them to take a look and share if possible. If you provide more value the conversion rate will be very high.
The last part is to do some strategic outreach so you can get influential bloggers to further add momentum to your content. Keep in mind these bloggers have a huge following with over 20,000+ followers and a single tweet can generate enormous traffic to your content.
Staying on top of any emerging or growing social media trends is an absolute must for any successful Internet marketer. You need to know how to best utilize Instagram Stories to build your brand, for example, or how Facebook Live video can be immensely useful in reaching out to your audience on a much more authentic, genuine level.
Things don’t always work out, of course — does anyone still remember Ello? — but even if you don’t hurl yourself deep into these new channels, it pays to know about them in case they do take off… even if it’s just to squat on your preferred username or vanity URL. And it’s even more important when these new platforms are backed by some of the biggest names online.
A somewhat perplexing example of this is Amazon Spark. It was quietly announced to the world in summer 2017, but barely anyone has noticed. Everyone knows about Amazon Associates at this point, but not too many people know about the Amazon Influencer Program either. Maybe they’re still testing the waters before they want to gain more visibility. What this means, though, is that you can get in on the ground floor and get a head start on all the other influencers and Internet marketers out there.
Seemingly inspired by Instagram, Amazon Spark enables users to post stories, ideas and images to their feed. This can include informal polls too, and then users can “smile” the post (i.e., “like” it) and add comments. The key difference is that Spark is very much product-focused with direct product links for where people can go to buy the products mentioned. That seems like such a natural fit.
There’s a little bit of a Pinterest flair to this, because it is about product recommendations and it’s integrated with the Amazon review system, but the single column feed layout is more like the web-based Instagram. Amazon has been paying influencers to populate the platform with compelling content, but there does not appear to be any built-in monetization at this time.
That seems like a wasted opportunity, given how much more Amazon integration there is already, so why wouldn’t you link an influencer’s Spark profile with his/her Associates account for some product affiliate links? The hope is that this will be implemented at some point in the future.
Another big sticking point is that it’s actually quite difficult to find actual user profiles on Spark. Instead, the platform is much more product focused. You enter the product categories that interest you (kind of like following hashtags on Instagram) and your feed is then populated with relevant posts. You can’t actually search for specific users and, as far as I can tell, no vanity URLs have been issued. Instead, if you see someone that interests you show up in your feed, you can then click on their name to follow them. That again feels like a wasted opportunity.
Despite some negative initial experiences by people who have been using the platform, there is definitely a lot of upward potential here, especially if you’re already heavily invested in the Amazon ecosystem.
For starters, while the official page says that Spark can only be accessed through the Amazon mobile app on iOS and Android, it does seem to load in any web browser at amazon.com/spark too. That’s at least a step in the right direction.
And one of the potential drawbacks of Spark could also be one of its advantages. You need to be an Amazon Prime member to post anything on there and, in effect, to have a real Spark account. This limits your reach, to be sure, but it means that everyone on there has already self-identified as a frequent Amazon shopper (or at least frequent enough to warrant a Prime account). There are about 80 million people with Prime membership and that number continues to grow.
For now, it’s probably not worth your time to dedicate too much time, attention or resources to Amazon Spark. The platform is still in its infancy and there’s really no money to be made until they (hopefully) integrate it with the Associates program. However, you should definitely keep it on your radar, because with Amazon’s backing and solid infrastructure, Spark could prove to be the next big battleground for influencer marketing.
The 2018 Affiliate Summit East opened in New York with the Meet Market. This is the place for affiliate marketers to find produce to make money online with. Over 5000 people flew in from all over the world to be at this event. Check out the video to see all the action.
SEO is about a lot of things especially building the right type of links to your site. Before it was as easy as building links from irrelevant websites which had no value or relevance however the focus has changed due to updates in search algorithms. With that said, I often get the question why linking building hasn’t been producing the results your looking for. I have put together a few reasons why your link building isn’t producing results and what you can do going forward to ensure quality and relevance. Let’s get started.
Some websites have been around longer than others and have built a reputation for providing value. This also means over the years their domain authority has increased so getting a link from these sites will be more valuable than others. If your building links then it’s important to focus on these websites and build a relationship with them. I believe many people don’t see a difference in their rankings because they simply don’t focus on authority links especially those which are relevant. You’ll read about relevance later however it’s important to make sure your links come from authority blogs so the value trickles down to your blog.
If you head over to OpenSiteExplorer.org or Ahrefs.com you can type in a domain URL and find out the authority of the domain. Focus on domains above 20+ and nothing below.
If you have a website then I recommend setting up Google Webmaster Tools to find out how accessible your website is. I’m not talking about for traffic because you can easily go to your URL to make sure there are NO server issues. I’m referring to accessibility as it refers to indexing, etc. If Google bots cannot access your website then they won’t be able to index your pages, links, sitemap.xml, etc. The backend of GWT will also give you a list of other issues like sitemap.xml, crawl and robots.txt.
The funny thing about rankings is that you can have everything else in order, but if your website can’t be accessed then it’ll stop it dead in the tracks.
Above I discussed the importance of relevance and how they play a crucial role in rankings. Google over the years has made enormous tweaks to the way they evaluate a website. For example, relevance matters way more than it did in the early days of the search engine. This change was due to the way people search for products, information and services. People are more targeted and use long-tail keywords to find EXACTLY what they are looking for. Google understood this change and wanted to incorporate a system to improve user engagement.
First, they put more emphasis on long-tail and LSI (related) keywords within the title, description and body. Secondly, they have put enormous emphasis on the way people are building links these days. You have to build a mix of different links which include URL, long-tail, related and targeted. This shows a wide link profile and relates well to the search patterns of users.
Simple, it helps them rank websites which have domain authority and provide value. However, it helps them organize the website information to better fit the search pattern of users. Keep in mind the job for search engines is to organize information so people can find it easily. They will continue to make tweaks so they can provide this to their users and continue to grow as a search engine.
What you can do is start implementing these changes and tracking how they make a difference going forward. Testing and tweaking is the way to get things done no matter what your niche.
Have you ever wanted to learn how to create great looking online videos, membership sites, design professional looking e-books or PDF files, or even get into the world of branding and web design? If you’ve been active online with blogging or marketing, you’ve likely considered some of these methods for your own business or branding efforts, or maybe as a service, you can offer to others.
However, if you really want to be good at any of these, you are going to need to have a specialized skill set and training in these areas. As much as we would like to be a ‘Jack of All Trades‘, sometimes it isn’t worth it. The end result is usually wasted time and ending up with work that isn’t ask great or perfect, in comparison to if it was done by another professional.
To help better understand this process, while also considering your options for creating better content and simply looking better online, let’s look at some of the best outsourced and professional services you might want to start using today.
Something that many people wish they could accomplish or master the expertise of, is drawing. If you’ve ever watched a cartoon or read a comic book, and then tried to draw some art of your own, you’ve likely become disappointed with the end result.
Drawing in itself isn’t easy. Throw video production and animation into the mix, and this process can become even harder. Heck, I wouldn’t even know where to start if I wanted to draw a few sketches and bring my work to life — let alone use it for online video or to represent my brand.
However, just like everything else in the world, there are experts in this area that not only love what they do, but they also create some amazing work as well. From the team that created mysimpleshow, a platform that allows users to create whiteboard and explainer videos with their drag-and-drop platform comes simpleshow — a higher-level of work and video creation that comes with a completely ‘hands off’ approach.
In short, while other video creation tools and platforms allow a user to create a clipart and simplistic video of their own, simpleshow takes of custom work from clients around the world to create the best videos possible.
In addition to the traditional ‘whiteboard’ explainer videos that many of us are used to, simpleshow has expanded their professional work into a wider range of videos as well, which include hand-movement and clipart videos, kinetic videos with original drawings, and also premium videos that are built upon the needs of the end user or brand.
No matter what type of blog, business, or brand you currently have — video is now in demand more than ever before. If you want to make a great first impression with your audience, while also not spending countless hours on trying to learn how to create videos of your own, simpleshow is a great alternative.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you will likely have seen the massive increase in not just podcasting, but also audio content as well. With more sites relying on social media and curating their best content to send it out to as many platforms as possible, turning your best audio and podcasts into written text content and visuals is more important than ever.
However, if you think listing to your latest podcast or online video and trying to transcribe it word-for-word is going to save you money… you are wrong!
There are plenty of online solutions that not only make this process fast and painless but also very affordable as well. A perfect example of this can be seen at Rev.com. The cool thing about this solution, is that they offer not just audio to text transcription, but also captions and translations as well.
With it only taking a few minutes of audio to create hundreds of transcribed words of text, this is often a no-brainer for anyone who is short on time and looking to create or schedule out a lot of content. Also, when you factor in that transcription prices are around $1 per minute, this is well worth the financial investment, over actually spending your own time on this process.
You can also view a list of other transcription services as well, which will allow you to take your best content and convert it into different languages to reach new audiences around the world.
On the internet, content is everything. With more new sites going live daily, it’s no longer just about creating content, it’s also about knowing how to effectively promote it, rank in the search results and also to convert audiences into real revenue.
With all of this in mind, the content creation aspect in itself can take a lot of time, and kill your overall productivity. Content creation solutions like Textbroker, make the process of outsourcing content to reliable freelancers around the world a whole lot easier and cost effective. For businesses and brands that need a lot of content and don’t have the time to seek out the best writers and scheduling new content jobs, they also have a managed service as well.
No matter what option you decide to go with, know that ‘content creation’ in itself will only get you so far. To win the game of ranking high in the search results and getting real audiences to yourself, you need to understand and master the art of SEO and paid traffic. This often can’t be done if you are spending most of your time on simply creating content.
If you’ve already tried to outsource your content creation and failed to find a high-quality or reliable writer, you should definitely try a platform like Textbroker, which bases all of their work and qualified writers on a rating scale from the previous work. Also be sure to read up on the latest tips on how to find the best writers for your site content and what to look for when skimming through freelancer profiles.
Your Time is Worth More than Your Money
Everyone is always working and dreaming their whole life to try and get as much money as they can. However, the most valuable asset you have is time. It might not seem like it right now, but soon enough, we will all realize how true this is.
With this in mind, bloggers, brands, and entrepreneurs need to spend both their money and time wisely. Focus on where your time is best spent, and how you can use additional finances to get even further. If you know marketing and online advertising, it’s likely much more effective for you to focus on these areas than trying to learn how to create an online video or writing new content.
Be sure to run through each of the solutions mentioned above and see which might be a great compliment to your day to day operations and end goal.
It may surprise you to learn that the very first incarnation of my blog, if you want to call it that, didn’t even have a webpage. It had no monetization and zero graphics whatsoever. Oh, and it was distributed only via email. In fact, I didn’t even know of the word “blog” way back in 1999 and I referred to my humble online blurb as just an “email newsletter.”
Somewhere along the way, even though we continued to use email the entire time, the notion of maintaining a mailing list fell to the wayside, eventually favoring social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to better reach our audiences and distribute our content. However, you’ve likely noticed in recent years that email marketing has experienced a significant resurgence.
Maybe it’s because email, unlike today’s social networks, is not subject to same kind of heavy-handed algorithms that act as gatekeepers for what content is seen by what people. Make it through the spam filter and your message is generally shown in reverse chronological order, regardless of whether the end user receives that message in Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, or any number of email providers. And it doesn’t really matter what device they read it on either, whether that’s an Android phone, an iPad, a Windows laptop or even a Linux PC.
That appears to be changing.
Announced via the official Google blog by Gmail Product Manager Aakash Sahney, AMP for Email effectively translates or ports the same philosophy behind the AMP Project to the context of email. They say this is delivering the “power” of AMP to the email inbox.
As a quick refresher, AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. It’s a project and standard by which web developers can adapt their webpages so that they are fully optimized for viewing on mobile devices. The idea is that the load time is cut down tremendously, stripping away superfluous elements to provide a much simpler, cleaner user experience.
Google has obviously been prioritizing webpages that adhere to AMP standards in the search engine results pages, because AMP-optimized pages presumably provide the best user experience on mobile. Many top publications utilize this technology and you’ll find that many WordPress themes do too.
With AMP for Email, the focus is less on providing the fastest loading user experience possible, but rather on elevating the user experience to make for email “experiences” that are “more engaging, interactive, and actionable.” This distinction is very important. The goal is to keep you within the silo of email without having to visit an external website, just like how Facebook tends to favor content that keeps you on Facebook.
Say, for example, that you want to send out a customer survey. Right now, you’d essentially include a link to your survey inside of your email message. You might make the email look nicer with some HTML and graphics and such, but the call to action would be to click on a button (or link) and be taken to some webpage to complete the survey.
If you were to concoct a similar scenario but designed with AMP for Email, the recipient could conceivably complete the survey from right inside his or her email inbox. In effect, the email message is no longer static; instead, it acts much more like a live webpage and is fully interactive. Google also mentions examples like submitting an RSVP to an event or scheduling an appointment.
The content of the email could also be updated even after you’ve already sent the message. “Live” elements could reside within the message so that the recipient effectively receives the most up-to-date information possible. This could be useful for news stories, travel updates, shipping progress, and so forth. You know how many bloggers include their latest posts in their email newsletters? Now the “newest” post could quite literally be the “newest” post on the live site.
Another example they highlight is the ability to browse through Pinterest and pin content, all without leaving your Gmail account either. And you can manage your email subscription preferences from right within the message too, or see the latest travel deals instead of getting information that’s 12 or more hours old.
This could prove to be a monumental game changer for email marketing, because it can drastically impact how you leverage the power of email marketing for your business. The possibilities are limitless, even if some people might think that AMP for Email is a terrible idea. Other people might say that email is due for some major evolution and this could be it.
What do you think? What are some of the more creative or practical applications for AMP for Email that you could see being implemented in your own email marketing campaigns? The spec is available through Github if you want to start experimenting.
