11 Creative Trends to Get Excited About in 2018

Staying in the know of the latest trends is always helpful, especially when the information comes from a highly credible source such as Shutterstock.

Every year, Shutterstock comes up with trends to watch out for the new year based on the popular trends that dominated the previous year, as well as emerging ones that are bound to burst into the design scene in no time.

If you’re looking to update your design game, whether it’s for your website, social media content, promotional materials, or what have you, then you’ll find it most beneficial to take a look at these 11 creative trends to watch and get excited about this 2018.

Fantasy

Thanks to the increasing appeal of this beloved genre, fantasy is making a comeback in the form of magical landscapes, mythical beasts, and so on. In fact, Shutterstock reports that searches for unicorns and mermaids rose up to 297% and 145% respectively. And with the continued patronage of pop culture to fantastical themes, we can expect to see more of these enchanting narratives through images and design in the months–or even years–to come.

New Minimalism

The minimalist movement in design has been evolving ever since it hit big in the mainstream. This time around, minimalism isn’t just black and white. Instead, it’s comprised of vibrant colors and fluid styles that add a little bit more texture and boldness to this design genre with searches for ‘continuous line’ and ‘neon circle’ seeing a substantial increase of as high as around 400%.

Space

Perhaps we can thank the fascination for sci-fi within pop culture for the rise in search queries for space-related themes, including solar, astro, and synthwave. Movies like Star Wars and Star Trek, as well as some Marvel blockbusters that explore the universe, definitely feed into the imagination of the public and increasing interest in the beauty and mystery of the galaxy beyond our planet.

Natural Luxury

If you’ve been spending some time on Pinterest, it’s likely that you’ve encountered several inspiration pegs that included marble. This, in fact, is considered as part of the increasing interest in natural forms of luxury that also includes ripples of agate in addition to those mesmerising marble swirl designs. Oftentimes, these can be found used in housewares and paper goods.

Punchy Pastels

Pastels have reached a whole new level of cool as these subtle hues are now mixed together to create a dynamic and somewhat rebellious color schemes that just pop out on the screen. There’s definitely nothing subtle about these pastel shades as the demand for juicier sets of pastel colors such as ‘blue candy’ are topping search queries.

A Global March

2018 is definitely the year that the world becomes “woke,” as they say. As the battle for equality continues with International Women’s Day, as well as other relevant causes involving the society and the government, the trend of being involved with these marches and protests have reverberated through various forms of arts and design as well.

Cactus

In line with natural luxury, another leading candidate in terms of natural trends is the cactus. There’s just a certain lackadaisical yet edgy and cool vibe that’s associated with this desert plant that draws in new age connoisseurs. Whether it’s used for rendering, backdrops for photography, design themes or inspirations, there’s no stopping this design tend from hitting it big in the mainstream.

Digital Crafts

Think your elementary or high school arts and crafts, but digitised–as it turns out, it really looks very hip and modern. Digitised embroidery and paper art are dominating design trends as these beloved patterns are reinvented to fit today’s interest for the whimsical and the need for more texture depth. Not to mention, the vintage and homey feel that these crafts offer provide a contrast to the more rigid, tech-inspired designs.

Ancient Geometric

It’s next to impossible to not have something from the past included in these kinds of trend lineups. Lo and behold, the ancient-inspired geometric patterns and designs are raking it in search queries with key searches such as arabesque (with a whopping 8,536% increase in searches!), guilloche, and mandalas. Even if these designs have such diverse cultural, spiritual, and even mathematical origins, you can bet that it’s loved and adored universally.

Cryptocurrency

Digital economy? Yes, please. Cryptocurrency has reached an all-time high in 2017 and it’s safe to assume that it’ll continue to rise in popularity among the masses this 2018. Not only are people envisioning a world with a prevalent digital economy, but they’re also big fans of cryptocurrency-inspired images and design across several platforms.

Holographic Foil

Another blast from the past that’s making waves this year is the holographic trend, which is reminiscent of the glitz and glamour of the 80s with a hint of sci-fi vibes. The great thing about this trend is how versatile it can be and how it can look playful or serious, modern or retro, funky or sophisticated, all at the same time.

 

So which among these creative trends is, or are, your favorite/s?

One way or another, we’ll certainly be seeing more of these gorgeous thematic design trends as we dive deeper into more of what this new year has in store for us, so feel free to have fun, experiment, and play around with these design trends to look out for.

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6 Ways to Boost Your Email Marketing Campaign This 2018

Email marketing still proves to be a viable marketing strategy up to this day but pulling off a successful campaign is another story.

As with other forms of marketing such as web design and content marketing, the goal is to create the best user experience to win customers over. And as it follows, brands and businesses that cater to delivering the most engaging and beneficial inbox experience to their target audience wins.

Get the lowdown on how to win your customers over with email marketing with these six ways to boost your email campaign for 2018.

1. Avoid Getting Marked as Spam

Sometimes, all it takes is one look at the title for your customers to mark an email as spam. On top of that, do make sure to go by ethical practices in sending email such as getting permission to send, setting clear expectations, providing an opt-out option, and providing substantial content, just to name a few.

2. Focus On Acquiring Quality Subscribers

A list with fewer subscribers that consist of your core audience is far better than having a massive yet generic list. Prioritise building on a list with the “right” subscribers to which your brand could truly offer something of value to. Of course, you have to actually deliver on that promise in order to increase your conversion rates.

3. Add a Human Touch to Your Marketing

Don’t just bombard your audience with charts, graphs, and technical information ‘cause those don’t impress them much and would even turn them off–or hit the “unsubscribe” button. Humanize your message by presenting substantial data that appeal to their behavior in order to deliver a more authentic approach.

4. Think What Would Benefit Your Customers

In line with humanizing your campaign, also try your best to put yourself in your audience’s shoes. This way, you’ll be able to grasp what information and message you should be sending them on a regular basis. What would keep them engaged? What would make them interested? What is it that they’d want to know more about? Be generous about it and you’ll be surprised at how well they’d return the favor.

5. Personalise With Purpose

Personalisation is a big part of delivering an authentic message, as opposed to simply pushing and promoting your business endlessly to your subscribers. Make the effort to personalise your message, as though you’re having a one-to-one correspondence. Personalise your emails seamlessly and strategically–but without sounding creepy or overkill.

6. Don’t Forget to Automate and Scale

As you automate and measure your other marketing initiatives, don’t forget to do the same for your email marketing campaign. Tracking your audience’s behavior can lead you to a perfectly timed automated message that would be received well by a potential customer.

Conclusion

Remember that the end-all be-all of your campaign is in understanding the behavior, wants, and interests of your target audience and not simply by building a generic list of subscribers.

Email marketing may just be your key to improving your conversion leads and experience a significant increase in sales opportunities, so it’s important to pay attention on how to make it as effective as can be with regards to appealing to your target audience.

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Top 5 Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid With Content Marketing

Content marketing proves to be a valuable area on which businesses can bank on to not only to improve their rankings, but also contribute to increasing their foot traffic and conversion rates. Combine quality content marketing with an effective SEO strategy and you can expect your website to gain authority within your niche.

However, some content marketers still fail to hit the jackpot with the content they’re producing. What’s worse is that they fail to recognize their errors or oversights, which cause them to not get their expected SEO results.

If you can relate to this sentiment, you may want to take a closer look at these five common SEO mistakes that content marketers make and should highly avoid.

Mistake #1: Overly optimising content with keywords

Thanks to the rise of keyword usage, marketers have honed in on using these words and phrases as much as they could with every piece of content they produce. From landing pages to blog posts, keywords became the priority, instead of focusing on producing high quality content.

Let’s establish that keywords do indeed help in optimising content, but it’s not the be all and end all of content optimisation. In fact, pieces that don’t have widely used keywords can still make it big with high quality content. This means prioritizing how your content is structured, the substantial information it contains, and just how much relevance it can truly offer to your audience.

Mistake #2: Failing to boost old, yet still relevant, posts

Every piece of content you publish matters. This includes even those old, yet still highly relevant, pieces that would prove to be beneficial to your audience today as it was in the past. And this is why it’s important to find ways to promote old content to drive traffic and establish your authority.

One way of doing so is including some references and links to newer pieces of content. You can also re-promote them through social media platforms or include them in your regular e-newsletter blasts. It’s a great way to double your optimisation efforts, as well as in building your site’s credibility.

Mistake #3: Focusing too much on length of content

Long form or short form? Marketers, copywriters, editors, and content creators have long debated which length of content would prove to be most effective in engaging readers. The answer? Both has its merits–and both has its downsides.

Again, there is too much focus on the length–as with keywords–and not so much on the quality and substance of the content itself. Forcing a writer to stretch out their ideas into a multitude of words, when in fact it could be done with a shorter version would feel contrived and unnecessary to a reader. The same goes for compressing relevant information into a shorter piece, when it would be best suited having a longer explanation. The key is to be flexible enough with the length and strategic enough to know that quality trumps all–including keyword usage and word count.

Mistake #4: Overlooking the importance of internal linking

Prioritising getting external links over internal ones are much too common an oversight among bloggers and marketers. Although external linking is really proven to be highly beneficial in gaining authority, internal linking shouldn’t be overlooked as well.

Once you’ve managed to gain traction with external linking, you can then build on internal linking, which could even solely help your site rank higher. This is because internal links alert search engines on which pages are deemed important. One effective way do implement internal linking is by linking to old posts, as what’s previously been mentioned.

Mistake #5: Not producing content frequently

Regardless if you’re writing a well researched long-form content with all the right keywords, it would prove to be ineffective for your site if you post very rarely. Surely, there are special cases in which infrequent posting can still garner links and traffic but studies point to those that post more frequently earn higher foot traffic and engagement.

Find the number that’s optimal and most beneficial for your brand to engage your customers without overwhelming them with a barrage of content here and there. Not only is this advantageous in making sure that your audience stays connected with your brand, but it also bodes well in optimising your site for search engines.

Conclusion

There are many ways to succeed in content marketing and SEO but part of that success is ensuring that you also avoid committing these common mistakes, among many others errors that content marketers often overlook.

If you’re finding it hard to get the results you’re aiming for, SEO-wise, then it may be best to go back to the drawing board and reassess at your strategy, at what you’re doing correctly, and what you’re doing wrong–or not doing at all. Only through this can you be fully aware of even the slightest hint of oversight that may be costing your whole SEO and content efforts.

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Top 7 Typography Trends to Use This 2018

It’s 2018 and ‘tis the time to be done with the old and in with the new–new fonts and typography, that is.

Updating any form of graphic design, whether it’s for your branding, website, content, or what have you, is always exciting, especially when you’re incorporating new typography styles. So without further ado, here are 7 typography trends that you just can’t miss this new year!

1. Serifs for Sure

The Serifs are back in action. Expect it to be used with Sans Serif in a wide range of uses, which includes web pages, headings, body of text, and many more. Experts say that the Serif font reads faster than Helvetica, which is why we’re pretty sure to see more of Serifs dominating this year and probably even the next.

2. The Bigger, the Better

Prepare to stand out with bigger and bolder typography. Minimalism still remains somewhat prevalent but maximalism is well on its way to dominate. And what better way to join in the fun than by pushing the boundaries of design with big and bold typography that would allow your brand to really stand out from the crowd, right?

3. Calligraphy Makes the Cut

Calligraphy, particularly modern handwritten style, also gets its fair share of the spotlight this year. This kind of typography is more prevalent in logo design, which explains why even some of the biggest companies has been using this typography for quite some time now–case in point, Instagram.

4. Retro Returns

Let’s hear it for the return of vintage design as retro-inspired typography makes a huge comeback this year. Groovy fonts and typography that bring back that sense of funky and eclectic nostalgia are becoming more widely used, whether it’s for logo design or other forms of visual content across various platforms.

5. Colorful Craze

In line with maximalist design, we’re also bound to see more colors injected into various uses of typography. This allows brands to experiment more and let loose, giving them a chance to show more of their fun side, which would also make them a wee bit more relatable and accessible to their audience.

6. Customised Creations

Brands that really want to step their game up go for customised typography, especially when it comes to their logos and signature branding aesthetic. This is a great move for those who want to really set their brand apart from the rest of the competition and make a more unique impression to customers.

7. Great With Gradients

Gradient design is also making splashes this year with its mesmerising display of multi-colored or monochromatic hues that seamlessly blend into one another. Going beyond typography, gradient hues are also widely used in other design formats such as web design, social media content, and so on.

Which among these fun and funky typography trends are you most excited to use? We highly recommend mixing it up by combining two or more of these trends to create maximum impact for your branding materials!

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Best Methods In Optimising Content for Voice Search

The concept of voice search optimisation has been gaining more traction recently, especially after Google’s very own John Mueller provided suggestions on what works for Voice Search during a Webmaster Central Hangout.

While it’s not exactly what we’d call the future of SEO, voice search has become even more prominent due to the increased use of mobile devices and voice assistants like the Amazon Echo and Google Home. And since queries done through voice search is vastly different from simply typing it in on a search engine, it’s important to know how to get your site on top of the results whenever a user asks something from Alexa, Siri, or what have you.

To prepare for the rise of voice search, better take note of the following methods that are best used in optimising your site and content.

Use Structured Data

Even without the goal of optimising for voice search, you should’ve already implemented having a schema markup, also known as a structured data, to optimise your site for search engine rankings.

A structured data, which is metadata implemented on your site’s source code, provides data about the information found on your site. This would be extremely helpful if you’re focused on creating content that’s specially targeted towards your primary audience, since it helps Google–and other search engines–direct them towards your site.

So how can it help voice search? Voice queries have a lot to do with users wanting to find local businesses. Through implementing structured data, you can ensure that search engines would be able to identify the important information regarding your business such as operation hours, contact information, address, and so on.

Optimise Your Business Listing

In line with having structured data, there are other ways to optimise your business listing to make it easier for your customers to find you.

Improving your business listing includes claiming your Google My Business listing that’s complete with accurate name, address, contact number information, as well as other pertinent data such as industry categories and writing a packed introduction on the field provided for. It’ll also boost your ranking to have positive reviews in order for Google to recognize your business as something that would best deliver what the users want.

Pay attention even to the small details such as ensuring that your business info is accurate across several platforms, choosing the right categories, using high-res photos, and so on.

Go With a Question & Answer Format

One important characteristic that differentiates voice search keywords from your conventional search engine keywords is having that conversational tone and longer sentence structure–often times, in the form of a question.

This is why it may do well for your site’s content to strategically place a question, and naturally follow with the right answer. One way to start is to think of how you would ask for the products and services that your business offers. Getting into this mindset will help you reformat your keywords in such a way that reflects how your customers would structure their voice queries.

For example, you offer nutritional products. You may want to use a question such as “What is Intermittent Fasting?” as your title or headline and then proceed to offer a short yet substantial information right on the first paragraph before you dive into breaking down its components.

Improve Your Mobile Site’s Responsiveness

You simply can’t run away from needing to optimise your mobile site. The benefits of having a mobile responsive site is so vast, it even includes voice search optimisation as well.

This is really no surprise since most voice searches are done using mobile devices. Just one question could instantly direct a potential customer to your site and you’ll want your site to offer them with a seamless user experience, so they won’t look anywhere else.

Part of optimising your mobile site is ensuring that the pages load fast. People have very short attention spans, especially those using their phones, and you’ll want to give them what they want when they want it in order to increase foot traffic and conversion rates.

Conclusion

We may not know just how much bigger voice search could get in the near future, but it wouldn’t hurt to act on it now, while its popularity is still on a steady rise among users.

Considering that SEO involves continuous updates and changes, all you need to do is to go back to your strategy and incorporate voice search optimisation techniques. It may prove to be an added challenge on your quest to get high rankings, but the benefit would surely outweigh the cost of your effort, especially in the long run.

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5 Ways on Keeping Your Site Relevant This 2018

We may be two months already in the new year but it’s never too late to start updating your site to keep it relevant this 2018.

Updating your site becomes even more important, especially if you haven’t done any major changes and improvements during the past year–or years.

Not only has web design evolved, but so has optimisation, user experience, and content creation, all of which play a big role in building a website that your target audience would want to go to and stay in.

So what does it take to transform your site and keep it all the more relevant this 2018? We’ve listed 5 key factors for you to work on starting today.

Mobile and Beyond

When we recommend that you improve your mobile site, we don’t just mean making it mobile-friendly or responsive. At this point, your site has to be mobile optimised as well, especially in preparation for Google’s Mobile-First Index that’s bound to come out this year.  

This time around, it’s not just about adjusting how your desktop site appears on mobile devices or being content in simply having a mobile version of your site. To keep your site relevant–and ranking–this year is by optimising your site to carve out a seamless user experience for your customers.

It’s making sure that the way customers navigate through your site would be so much easier and accessible, that it’d only take a few clicks for them to go from one page to another or even browse through products, hit add to cart, and then proceed to checkout. Not only that, but it’s in never losing sight of what your goals are, which is to engage your site visitors and keep them locked in through the design, format, navigation, and so on.

Video Content

It’s been predicted that by the end of this year, more than 80% of traffic will be directed towards videos–and it’s not hard to see why.

Videos are an elevated form of content that proves to be more effective in conveying a particular message in comparison to just using words. Brands that utilise video within their web content, whether it’s in blog posts, landing pages, product demos, or even client testimonials, tend to garner higher click throughs, engagements, and conversion rates.

Best way to go about it is to know how to diversify your content and what type would best suit different messages that you want to deliver to your audience. Of course, don’t drown them out with a barrage of videos. Choose which information would engage your target audience more if it is done through video and go for that.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is a term that gets thrown a lot these days, especially in the realm of startups and tech. It’s quite daunting to even think about integrating AI into your website if you don’t know anything about it. But before you panic, what AI mostly means for your website–at this point–is having chatbots and live chat for better customer experience.

It’s a common practice for more modernised sites these days to have that small pop-up, usually on the lower right, that comes with a friendly message asking if you need help. Having customer service automated right on your site makes your products/services all the more accessible to those who step foot on any of your landing pages.

Just be careful in implementing a chatbot on your site. At some point, it may get too annoying for your customers, which would then make them just want to leave your site, proving your efforts to be more counterproductive than beneficial.  

Data Security

It’s been reported by Marketing Profs that 2018 is the year where data security would be a primary concern among site visitors. This is even more relevant for sites that require visitors to provide their personal or financial information.

There were quite a lot of security breaches that were made public last year, even involving companies from the big leagues. This makes visitors wary of just how much they can trust various sites with their privacy, which then directly affects the chance that they’ll turn into paying customers.

There are many ways to work on securing information on your site and you can start with using HTTPS to keep online transactions safe, as well as information forms. You’ll also need to have trusted certificates and compliance put on display on your site such as the Payment Card Industry Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), basic SSL-Level security, as well as other pertinent certifications to keep your site secure and maintain your customers’ trust.

Voice Search Optimisation

Another factor that experts predict to become more prevalent this year is voice search and the need for voice search optimisation. This arises from the increasing dependence of users on mobile devices or voice assistants (e.g. Amazon Echo, Google Home), as well as the call for a much more convenient user experience.

Compared to traditional SEO keywords and phrases used for text optimisation, voice optimisation requires a more coherent structure of words and phrases. This pertains to questions that their target audience might ask or certain inquiries that they may need in relation to the products and services that your business is offering.

Before you worry about having to deal with even more optimisation for your site, all you need to do is conduct a general search for common queries and assess how they would be structured when done through voice search. Do take note that voice queries tend to be more conversational in tone and have a longer format than your usual keywords and phrases.

Conclusion

These five factors are just the tip of the iceberg in enhancing your site to keep it relevant this 2018. The most important thing is to always stay in the know of all updates and changes happening this new year in order to not get left behind the optimisation game.

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How to Be a Successful Content Hacker

If you’ve been keeping in the know within the world of startups and digital marketing, then you’re most likely familiar with the term growth hacking/hacker. But have you heard of the new type of hacking, which is content hacking?

In this day and age where content remains king of everything, a content creator has to continuously evolve in order to keep up with the ever-changing times. A content marketer can’t be stuck with old, tried and tested ways to craft content and instead, they’d have to continuously search for ways to hit publish on pieces and posts that get better and better every single time.

This is why simply being a content creator or marketer isn’t enough to sustain a business nowadays. What your business needs to thrive and succeed is to have a content hacker on board. But what is content hacking in the first place? Let’s go find out!

What Is Content Hacking?

To understand what content hacking is and what it takes to be a content hacker, we first have to go back to its roots, which is growth hacking.

It was Sean Ellis who first coined the term growth hacker, in which he describes it as “a person whose true north is growth. Everything they do is scrutinized by its potential impact on scalable growth.”

He continued saying that, “An effective growth hacker also needs to be disciplined to follow a growth hacking process of prioritizing ideas (their own and others in the company), testing the ideas, and being analytical enough to know which tested growth drivers to keep and which ones to cut. The faster this process can be repeated, the more likely they’ll find scalable, repeatable ways to grow the business.”

That description may be too much of a mouthful but simply put, a growth hacker is someone who utilises creativity and analytical thinking to find new and disruptive ways to promote and sell products/services, while making use of social metrics to measure their efforts as well.

So how does growth hacking contribute to what content hacking is all about? Simple. Content hacking is the result when you combine content marketing and growth hacking. And it is through being a skilled content hacker that businesses and brands can thrive in today’s competitive game of content creation.

What Does it Take to be a Content Hacker?

It’s true that it is in utilising the skills of a content creator and having the mindset of a growth hacker that makes a successful content hacker. But what other characteristics are needed to be a content hacker?

We’re breaking down the key elements of how to be a successful content hacker and why you’ll come to realise that it’s more of a mindset, rather than a toolset.

Growth-minded all the way

When you say that someone is “growth-minded,” it means having the vision, drive, and creativity that it takes to increase traffic, leads, and conversion rates.

A content hacker doesn’t just create content for the sake of creating. They create content with purpose and measurable goals in mind. The content they craft has to amount to something–perhaps increased foot traffic, virality, more likes/follows, or what have you–that would spell growth for the brand or company they represent.

Takes advantage of every opportunity

Content hackers see every step they take as an opportunity for growth. Suffice it to say, they are very much opportunistic, in the sense that, they take advantage of contacts, networks, meetings, and leads and turn it into solid connections that they can benefit from in the future.

Of course, this is done by offering something in return as well. For example, turning a contact into a connection can be done by offering to do a guest post on another business’ blog and in return, you can have inbound links for your site.

SEO minded and data driven

SEO should be far ingrained within a content hacker’s arsenal. Even as a content marketer, SEO is an important element that should always be involved in creating content. And as a content hacker crafts and works on producing content, they should be able to properly assess the best optimisation techniques needed to give their business that extra boost.

On top of this, a true content hacker doesn’t just stop once they’ve hit publish on their content. They continue the work by measuring the reach and effectiveness of what they’ve created, identifying which aspects to replicate and which ones to improve on. Scalability is of utmost importance for content hackers and it’s a continuous cycle they embark on in order to come up with the very best content to produce.

Makes sustainability the goal

In line with having a growth mindset, a content hacker also makes sustainability their goal. This means that in creating their content strategy, a content hacker is rightfully focused on planning not just for the near future and immediate results, but also for long-term success of the brand through content creation.

Having sustainable content means that they’ve managed to identify content that’s tailor-fit to their target audience, which in turn allows for continuous engagement from readers and customers.

True north is sharable content

So what is the bottomline mission for a content hacker? It is in having sharable content.

Having sharable content entails different factors that play into creating a really engaging piece of content. This includes, but is not limited to, having supporting graphics and images, creating customised or localised content, putting in videos, having a higher word rank of up to 2,000 plus words, headlines that start with numbers, and so on and so forth.

All of these are part of continuous building on the benefits of their content, even long after they’ve published it.

Conclusion

Think of a content hacker as a content creator on steroids. And those steroids are comprised of growth, metrics, and sustainability.

More than relying on tools, being a content hacker is all about having a focused mindset. A mindset that’s eating, breathing, and living growth day in and day out as they plan, craft, create, and publish content targeted to engage their audience.

Therefore, in saying this, being a content hacker is not so much paying for software programs or increasing knowledge. Those are just a part of it. What it truly takes to be a successful content hacker is in changing and upgrading to having a growth mindset and apply that to every step of the content creation process.

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Quick and Easy Guide to Writing In-Depth Content

While content remains king in the world of SEO, Google has become much smarter in measuring its relevance.

This makes content creation an even bigger challenge, especially since it’s not just about infiltrating what you wrote with keywords from the title to the H1 tag and so on. In order to make it the very best there is, you’ll have to come up with a more in-depth content.

So what exactly does an in-depth content have? Compared to your normal blog posts that focus on a simple topic, an in-depth content comprises of pretty much all the necessary information they need clearly explained in one cohesive, albeit lengthy, post.

It may seem daunting to even begin crafting this type of content but don’t worry ‘cause we’ve got some quick and easy tips to get you started!

Tip #1: Craft your content with context in mind

As what’s been mentioned, Google now looks into more of how connected and elaborate your post is as opposed to stuffing it with keywords as much as you can.

With that in mind, your goal now shouldn’t be just about writing up a post for the sake of having fresh content. Your goal should be aimed towards delivering on extensive information that would make Google think that your post should be at the very top because it has the most substantial information in relation to a certain question.

Google wants to give users the very best results and being the best doesn’t mean it only has the right keywords. It has to have the most relevant, extensive, and informative content to satisfy a user’s query.

Tip #2: Make your content longer–like, at least 2000 words long

So what does it mean to have an “extensive” in-depth content? Well, it takes about at least 2,000 words.

Don’t be surprised because long-form content has been gaining momentum for some time and readers are actually partial to it, especially if it’s well crafted and has all the information that they need.

However, this doesn’t mean that you have to stretch out a post for the sake of reaching the two thousand-word mark if it’s good enough to only have 500 words. What this simply means is you’ll have to come up with topics that are multi-faceted enough for you to segment into several sub-topics.

Just an added tip to make your lengthy content more readable, is to chop the paragraphs into shorter chunks. This way, your readers would have find it easier to digest the information and scan through the whole article without their eyes giving out. Shorter paragraphs also look better when viewed on mobile devices as well.

Tip #3: Insert LSI keywords to your content

In crafting your in-depth content, don’t forget to include LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords into it.

LSI keywords are supporting words and phrases that are semantically related to your main keyword. Take note that these aren’t just synonyms or other terms for your primary keyword. These keywords should be strongly associated to your main topic, which would help in signalling the relevance and depth of your content to Google.

For example, if you’re talking about the trendy Ketogenic Diet, your LSI keywords should include the words nutrition, high fat, weight loss, meal plans, low carb, ketosis, and so on. Once Google crawls your content, it’ll verify the strength and context and think, “Great! This post clearly cover what the Ketogenic Diet is about.” Then off your page goes to the first page of search engine results.

If you’re wondering on how to get the LSI keywords for your primary keyword, you can start with using the LSI Graph, which is a free tool that provides several keywords you can add to your content. You can also use good old Google Keyword Planner or even just the Google results and go straight to the bottom where you’ll find “Searches related to..” words and phrases that you can use as LSI keywords.

Choose your LSI keywords wisely and use them appropriately within your content. Again, don’t just stuff keywords for the sake of doing so. Make sure that it makes complete sense and that it supports your main topic with the right information.

Conclusion

SEO is a constant game of stepping it up and taking it to the next level. You know what they say, it’s either you innovate or die. And this time around, it’s about upping your content game in a way that would bring some serious value to readers and customers.

While it’s true that you’ll need more time and effort to come up with in-depth content, the return proves to be well worth it, especially in terms of ranking higher and getting more backlinks–not to mention, a very probable higher conversion rate compared to shorter posts.

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How to Prepare Your Site For Google’s Mobile-First Index

Gone are the days when desktop traffic is viewed as the priority. Mobile browsing has long surpassed desktop browsing years ago and Google is on the move to making adjustments in how sites are ranked.

Lo and behold, 2018 is the year that Google is making it official by launching a mobile-first index algorithm, ultimately making mobile sites and pages as the main basis for indexing and ranking.

So what does this all mean? Simply put, the mobile version of your site should be your main priority because it’s what Google will use to assess your ranking in search engines. Sounds scary? A bit. But is it a surprising move on Google’s part? Not at the very least.

This has long been an expected update from Google. The tables have finally turned and mobile sites aren’t just an afterthought anymore; it’s become the priority.  

With all that said, it’s pretty easy to determine your proper course of action, which is to focus on improving (or creating, if you don’t have one yet!) the mobile version of your site. We’re listing down important steps in preparing your site for Google’s Mobile-First Index. The first step? Don’t panic and just read on.

Step #1: Ensure that your site is truly optimised for mobile browsing

More than being mobile-friendly, your site has to be mobile-optimised.

There’s actually a difference between the two. Saying that your site is mobile-friendly means that you have a working mobile version of the site, meaning you can simply view your site using a mobile device. However, saying that it is optimised for mobile means that it offers a seamless user experience and has a truly responsive mobile design.

Having a mobile-optimised site doesn’t just mean that you have a shrunken or slightly rearranged version of your site. It means that your users would be able to navigate your site with the same ease (or more!) as they do with the desktop version.

Good news is a lot of website platforms provide an automatic mobile version of the site. However, it would still be best to make sure that it’s the best possible design for mobile and not just a slightly adjusted version. This is why a lot of developers opt to build it from scratch to ensure that they hit the mark in mobile-responsiveness.

To check if your mobile site is up to par, you can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test as a starting point. They’ll either say that your site is mobile-friendly or come up with a report that would highlight the main points for improvement and repair.

Step #2: Adjust content for mobile viewing

It’s not enough to simply adjust the design. You may also have to look at how you craft your content and see if it works as effectively for mobile viewing as well.

Content remains king and one way of how marketers deal with this is by coming up with at least a thousand, or even three, words and complete with supporting images and graphics. The thing is, these highly informative and wordy content may seem fine to look at on a desktop screen but doesn’t translate as smoothly to a mobile screen. One remedy to this issue is to slightly adjust how you write. It doesn’t mean that you have to shorten your posts. Perhaps you can cut them up into shorter paragraphs and sentences, as opposed to piling it all up in lengthy chunks.

Google’s mobile-first index shouldn’t push you into a corner and restrict you from coming up with quality content. Remember that quality content remains a strong ranking factor above everything else.

What this algorithm update should do is to push you into paying more attention on how your desktop site and pages translate to mobile. This applies not just to text content, but also to images, graphics, videos, and other content formats.

Step #3: Consider other mobile-first index factors

Achieving a seamless user experience with your mobile site comprises of several factors that come into play. It’s not simply about the display or adjusted layout. There are other mobile-first index factors that you strongly pay attention to. These include the following:

• Site speed: Did you know that Google has stated that 53% of mobile users would leave a site if it takes more than three seconds to load? This makes site speed an even more important factor for mobile browsing. To check on how your mobile site is faring, you can go ahead and do so using Google’s PageSpeed Insights. It’ll give you a clear idea if your site is on the safe zone or if it requires major speed improvement.
• Intrusive interstitials: Interstitials are what you call those pesky pop-ups that come up when you visit a site. It’s described as “a page that is inserted in the normal flow of editorial content structure on a website for the purpose of advertising or promotion.” Google has cited that there’s an existing intrusive interstitial penalty–and trust us when we say that’s something you don’t want to receive. You may want to reconsider adding interstitials or perhaps adjusting its size or frequency.
• Sources of mobile site traffic: Remember that with the launch of the mobile-first index, where your mobile site traffic comes from would matter even more since it would also affect your desktop site ranking. Apart from using social media to drive click-throughs and traffic to your mobile site, you can also consider using guest posts, videos, podcasts, email newsletters, influencer marketing, PPC, Quora, and so on.
• Link building: Backlinks still matter. And it also matters if these are quality or spammy backlinks. Apart from consistently checking to see who links back to your site, it would also help to monitor who links back to your competitors and use that information to create your own linking strategy as well. Of course, also make sure to get rid of bad links to avoid getting penalized by Google.
• Schema markup: Having a schema markup is your way of helping Google understand what the content of your site/page means. A schema markup is described as a “code [semantic vocabulary] that you put on your website to help search engines return more informative results for users.” This is something that should be added to the backend of your site to ensure that Google recognizes what your data means, not just what it says.

Conclusion

As we’ve already said, there’s no reason to panic because you still have time. But that time is getting shorter with each day and if you still haven’t gotten around to at least having a mobile-friendly version of your site, then it’s high time that you make the move.

Should you have a mobile-friendly version, then kudos to you! But the job’s not done yet. Your goal is to truly optimise it for mobile browsing by paying attention to several factors that affect user experience.

Make the most out of the time we’re all waiting for Google to finally launch the Mobile-First Index to focus on making several adjustments and improvements on your mobile site.

Simply put, prioritize your mobile site starting now and by the time Google announces its launch, your site is up and ready to rule the search engine rankings on both mobile and desktop.

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Small Business’ Guide on Doing SEO on a Budget

Starting a business can be quite daunting for a lot of reasons. One being the proper allocation of capital and where to invest your limited resources into.

In today’s digital landscape, SEO has become an integral part of growing one’s business online. You simply cannot do without it if you want your business to be known to your target market.

Good news is, you don’t have to go all out in paying for your site’s optimisation.

There are several ways to go about successfully implementing various SEO tactics while keeping in line with your budget. We’re giving you three solid tips to start with, so take out your pens and prepare to take some notes!

Tip #1: Assess which tasks you can do in-house–and do it well!

SEO is comprised of a wide range of tasks and techniques and a lot of it can be done by in-house employees even without having an extensive mastery of SEO–and do it well.    

All it takes is a bit of research, practice, and dedication to growing the business. In fact, some of these tasks should be rightfully done by in-house employees given their first-hand insight into the business.

So what exactly are these tasks we speak of? It includes content creation and keyword research. You can even count technical SEO if you dare.

When it comes to crafting content, there’s really no better person for the job than the one who knows the inside-out of the business. The more niche the business, the riskier it is to outsource content creation to an agency that most likely doesn’t have the same level of extensive knowledge as an industry insider.

In connection with content creation, keyword research can likewise be done within the company. There are so many tools–both free and paid–that can be used to come up with proper keyword strategy. A person from within the business would be able to effectively conduct competitor research, as well as identify terms that would be most useful to optimisation.

Tackling the “technical” aspect of SEO may seem a task for experts, but there are parts of it that can be done by in-house employees. Some of which include working with developers to perfect the mobile responsiveness of your site, as well as doing page indexing, site crawlability, audit of internal links, and so on.

With the resources and information about SEO that’s made available and accessible online, in-house employees can arm themselves with the basic techniques to pull these tasks off with ease. These tasks can also be collaborated on by several employees, making it even more effective and sustainable long-term.

Tip #2: Automate simple tasks that take up your time

Once you’ve figured out the tasks that you can do in-house, it’s now time to analyse and see which among these can be automated to save on time and manpower.

Rather than having to do it manually, you can check to see if there are online tools you can make use of to take care of tedious and time-consuming tasks.

Most of these tasks have to do with analytics and reports. These information are integral in assessing how your site is faring in comparison to competitors. It will provide you pertinent trends and highlight any issues that you may have to improve on to get better foot traffic and ranking.

For example, you can use Seomator or DeepCrawl to have scheduled monthly audits of your site. Getting this bird’s eye view of areas to improve on gives you a better insight of what you need to focus on in terms of your SEO efforts on a monthly basis.

Tip #3: Admit when you need help and outsource specific projects

Sometimes, even your best efforts aren’t enough to fully implement a successful SEO strategy. And when this time comes, you have to be humble enough to admit defeat and ask for help–also known as outsourcing.

There are several agencies that focus on helping small businesses with SEO efforts at an affordable and budget-friendly cost. Good thing about hiring an external partner is only having to pay on a project basis as well. For some tasks, it proves to be more costly to hire a full-time in-house employee than paying off an agency on a monthly or case-to-case basis.

Examples of these tasks that may be better off outsourced to an external agency include link building and advanced SEO strategies.

You may think that link building should be easy enough to do in-house. However, there are aspects of it that would be better handled by experienced pros. Just consider the fact that they normally have more streamlined and tried-and-tested practices to get you more links in less time–and do it in an ethical manner. It can also be a pain to continuously monitor your links, so it’s better to just have it effectively managed by an SEO agency instead.  

Another reason to pay for SEO services is to put advanced strategies into effect. From having a robust one-off analysis of your site to an extensive optimisation strategy plan, a team of experts may be able to handle it much better than putting the burden on yourself or on your team.

Conclusion

Maximising your budget doesn’t have to mean that you have to scrimp on the majority of your SEO efforts. Sometimes, it may even cost you more if you opt out of paying for professional SEO services.

What you need to focus on is properly assessing which aspects of optimisation efforts would benefit your business if it’s done in-house, by use of automating tools, or by outsourcing such tasks to professional agencies. Through this, you’ll be able to fully make use of your allotted budget wisely and you can likewise expect a profitable return on your investment as well.

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Top 3 Key Ways to Build Your Brand Through Content

Starting a business can be quite daunting. Growing it is even more overwhelming and requires grit, drive, and a dash of creativity.

One effective way of building your brand is by creating content that will inform, entertain, and engage your target audience. Remember that in this day and age, content remains king. And knowing how to harness its influence can work wonders in growing your brand furthermore.

So how do you do it? Here are three key ways that you can start with to build your business through content creation.

Identify Your Audience

Who do you intend to reach? What demographic are you trying to appeal to?

These are some questions you need to ask–and answer–before you even begin crafting content. Defining your audience aids in knowing what types of content you need to develop. This can be done in doing market research, developing buyer personas, and so on.

The point behind identifying your target audience is simple: if you know who you’re talking to (or should talk to), you’ll know all the right things to say.

Also note that your audiences may vary depending on the products and services you offer. Should this be the case, you’ll need to tap into proper segmentation to appeal to varying interests of your market.

Set Your Brand Apart From Competitors

After identifying your target audience, it’s now time to define what differentiates your business from your competitors.

Through this strategy, you’ll be able to come up with branded content aimed towards highlighting that certain edge that you have, which allows your business to be known amongst competitors. Knowing this information can help improve your conversions and search engine rankings. In short, a lot relies on this tactic.

You may think that given the oversaturation of today’s market, it would be hard to identify what sets your business apart from all others. The thing is, it doesn’t have to be big. It can even be your business’ key locations, or perhaps crafting content that would highlight all services or products that you offer.

Of course, don’t just push out branded content whenever you can. A good mix of brand and non-branded content released consistently would help improve your online standing, as well as in getting paying customers out of readers.

Repeat and Diversify Your Message

Most of the content that you’ll create will pretty much say the same thing. But in doing this, make sure to diversify your message and make it fresh.

This is even more so the case for niche businesses, in which you’re basically stuck with the same topics and themes. Good news is, a little creativity and resourcefulness can go a long way in crafting new content that would continuously engage your customers and make them trust you.

Do note that it’s not just the way you craft and write your content, but it’s also in the way you present them to your audience. We’re talking about using different formats. If you’re talking about SEO techniques, you can come up with a written blog post, an infographic showing key steps and statistics, colorful visuals to highlight important steps, or even videos that narrate everything about your message.

Suffice it to say, your goal is to tell your audience what you do and how you can help them over and over again, but a little differently every single time. Not only does this guarantee that you’ll reach a wider scope, but it’ll also help in building your brand’s credibility and trustworthiness.

Conclusion

Content creation is an integral part of growing and promoting our business. Expect to encounter a couple of hits and misses before you finally nail what content will be well received by your customers.

What you need to do is to use these three solid tips to start creating the foundation for your brand’s content and from there, analyze, adjust, and refine all the way through.

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5 SEO Tasks to Cross Off Your Checklist for 2018

With every new year comes a new set of trends and tasks that you have to check off your list to make sure that your site stays on top this 2018.

Good news is, we’re not talking about trends you’ve never even heard of. A lot of what’s likely to get big in 2018 is also derived from the changes and updates that happened in 2017.

Suffice it to say, this new year combines tried and tested SEO tactics that you have to reinforce, alongside new trends that are sure to come up this year. And to help you reflect on what to prepare for, we’ve compiled 5 of the most actionable SEO tasks to cross off your checklist for 2018.

1. Optimisation for Mobile Devices

The rise of mobile search has steadily been on the rise over the years, and 2018 is the year that we will officially see Google implementing a mobile-first indexing. So what does this mean?

According to Google, they “will create and rank its search listings based on the mobile version of content, even for listings that are shown to desktop users.” This just means that as a developer and site owner, you now have to pay so much more attention to how the mobile version of your site is crafted.

It’s not enough to sit back and relax, thinking that you have a working mobile version of the site. It has to provide a seamless user experience. Best way to go about it is to have a website audit done on your mobile site to know points for improvement in terms of speed, layout, design, user experience, and so on.

2. Local Search Rankings

Both on-site and off-site optimisation for local searches have become more relevant than ever. In order to ensure that your site doesn’t fall out of the game, you have to constantly work on improving your local search optimisation.

Not only should you monitor your site’s activities and analytics, but tracking that of your competitors should also be on your checklist. Knowing how customers are finding your site or the site of your competitors would work wonders in winning the local rankings game.

3. Voice Search Optimisation

Did you know that about 55% of teens and 40% of adults use voice search daily? Those numbers are straight from Google’s reports and it could only mean that voice search may as well be the future of SEO.

But while this may be the prediction of many experts, it’s not something that you should be wary of. Take note that what sets voice search apart from your regular search engine optimisation is the format of keywords used.

Those who use voice search use normal and conversational questions, as opposed to oddly structured phrases that’s the norm for SEO keywords. Start looking for most commonly asked questions or sentences in relation to your main keywords and go from there.

4. Keyword Grouping

Nowadays it’s not enough to simply rely on a set of main keywords. What’s become more effective is the intelligent use of primary, secondary, and other related keywords–also known as keyword clusters or groups.

Having these related keywords present in your text content helps prove to Google that your content is actually relevant to searchers’ queries. There are keyword grouping tools that you can use, or you can do it manually, as tedious as that may sound.

You’ll be surprised at how well it pays off in the end, especially in proving your site’s relevance in search engine results.

5. Improve Site Speed

Are you even surprised that site speed has become even more necessary this year? Your site’s speed is not just an important ranking signal, it’s also a major UX factor, which of course impacts rankings as well.

To give you an idea of what your standards of site speed should be, Google expects your pages to load in under 3 seconds. Just three seconds.

If you’re not up to par with that, first thing you should do is to know your site’s speed using Google’s page speed test. You can check on individual pages there and identify problem areas that you should fix as soon as possible.

Conclusion

The new year is a chance for you to revisit your SEO strategies to see what’s been working, what’s lacking, and what you can improve on. At the same time, you have to be aware of the updates that are coming your way, so you can prepare for it ahead of your competitors.

If you feel overwhelmed, you can start with these 5 SEO tasks we’ve provided and go on from there.

Awareness is half the battle and since you’re already in the know, consider it as a small victory! Of course, just make sure to follow through in executing these tasks and strategies to win over the SEO game this 2018.

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5 Tips on Improving Your Skyscraper Content

Skyscraper content has earned a reputation of being an effective medium in increasing click throughs and site traffic. In short, it’s known to be a reliable SEO tactic.

However, this resulted to a lot of sites coming out with guide posts with over 10k words, promising to give you everything “you need to know about” this and that. And while some truly offer substantial content, most of these just comprise of a whole lot of nonsense fillers and cringeworthy copies.

At the end of the day, this makes a skyscraper content ineffective, especially if it doesn’t really convert readers into buyers. So how do you create a skyscraper content that truly engages and well, one that doesn’t suck?

Here are 5 tips to improve your skyscraper content that you can work on right now:

1. Make Headlines Out of Subheads

Apply what you know about crafting engaging headlines into how you write your paragraph subheads. It should say more with less, but it should also give a clear picture of what’s about to go down in the paragraph following the subhead.

Headlines are supposed to intrigue and catch the attention of the reader right off the bat. If your subhead is vague and unsubstantial, you can pretty much bet that the reader would just skip right through probably until the very end of your skyscraper piece. So instead of simply saying, “Grow Your Audience With Quality Content,” perhaps you can try a little more headline-worthy subhead like, “Rouse Your Audience’s Interest with Content that Clicks.” It may not be perfect but it’s something that would make your readers pause and have a read.

2. Say More By Writing Less

It’s a given that a skyscraper piece requires a very high word count–one that’s much higher than your regular average blog post. And given this word count requirement, a lot of copywriters tend to just fill in as much fillers as they can, which bores readers to no end.

Using fillers can be appropriate sometimes, but not most of the time. If you can be more succinct and tell them straight with just a few words, then do it.

If it reads, “As you may already know, writing a skyscraper content can help your site increase page views and overall foot traffic.” Maybe you can reconsider and dial it down a bit by saying, “Writing a skyscraper content can help increase your site’s foot traffic.” More succinct, more readable, more engaging.

3. Don’t Make It About You

Readers only care about themselves and what you have to offer them. This is why there’s no point in making your skyscraper content about you and what you think.

Sure, you may be an expert giving legit advice through your skyscraper content. But you have to still make it about the readers. So how exactly do you do it? By taking yourself out of it and not drawing any attention towards you. You can do this by not using “I or we.” Use “you” as much as you can–pretty much how this post you’re reading right now goes.

4. Transform Boring Topics With a Little Wit

You can do better than sounding like a Wikipedia page. Most topics that uses skyscraper structure are not that exciting and mostly technical. But even if that’s the case, don’t resort to sounding like an encyclopedia and try to inject a little wit and creativity to make it more fun to read.

For example, you can easily find several skyscraper pieces on SEO strategies. A lot of these would include technical terms, which are just all too boring to read. Case in point, a sentence might read: “Putting these SEO strategies into effect can contribute in improving your site’s ranking and lead conversions.” Did you just yawn reading that? So did we.

Maybe you can turn it into something like this: “Using these SEO strategies play a big role in higher rankings and increased sales!” What it all boils down to is how you re-craft your message and making it more exciting for your readers.

5. Pay Attention to Sentence Length, Sequence, and Pacing

Just like with how songs have a certain pace and build-up that rouses emotions to its listeners, your skyscraper piece also needs to have the right sentence length, sequence, and pacing.

The best way to do this is to start short.

And then slowly build it up with relevant information to support your message.

Once you’ve gotten hold of their attention, you can move on to writing complex structures that include technical information, comprising the very meat of your skyscraper piece. (See what happened there?)

Conclusion

Skyscrapers are really effective if you know how to do it right–and not just for the sake of wanting more clicks.

A lot of planning and preparation goes into it before you hit publish. But the best way to truly make it as effective as it can be is to pay attention to the writing.

It’s about the information you present and how you present it to your readers. It’s both the content and the structure–the information and how you craft it and deliver to your audience.

Pay attention to these details and you’ll see your site get indexed and ranked. Not to mention, it’s what makes customers who actually buy out of mere readers.

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5 Effective Ways to Get Backlinks From Social Profiles

Getting backlinks is an effective SEO strategy for your site to gain more foot traffic. Of course, it can be very tricky and tedious and you have to maintain your integrity by sticking to White Hat practices only.

Getting backlinks is an effective SEO strategy for your site to gain more foot traffic. Of course, it can be very tricky and tedious and you have to maintain your integrity by sticking to White Hat practices only.

One of the ways to get more links is by making use of your social profiles. But the thing is, social profile linking has garnered a bad rep for being somewhat spammy and shady. This is due to using random profiles, some of which may not even be real. But even if this is the case, it doesn’t mean you can’t do it in an authentic and legitimate manner.

Here are 5 effective and very doable ways in which you can garner more links using different social profiles.

1. Forum Profiles

Community forums such as Reddit and Quora make for a great opportunity not just to increase your backlinks, but to also connect with highly technical and authoritative people online.

If you’re heavily involved in a certain niche industry, forums may be the way to go to establish connections with relevant people. You can comment and answer tons of questions and even start discussions with those who are also within your niche. Of course, just make sure that you provide substantial information.

You can start with answering some minor questions, completing your profile, and keeping active before proceeding to share your own valuable content.

2. LinkedIn Profile

Sharing valuable information on LinkedIn can also prove to be beneficial for getting more links. Compared to Facebook and other social media platforms, you have a higher chance of reaching out to the right people through LinkedIn, especially if you belong to a technical or niche field.

Make sure to have your LinkedIn profile complete and looking professional so as to increase your credibility in sharing content. You can also connect with other professionals outside of your work or industry, who may find the information you’re sharing to be of value to them.

If you’re handling your company’s LinkedIn profile, you can setup a posting schedule for various content pieces. You may even ask your superior or the executive in your office if you can publish the posts through their profiles to increase chances of click-throughs given the credibility their profiles have.

3. Profile of an Executive

Speaking of executives, there’s so much you can do once you’ve gained access to an executive’s profile in terms of networking and getting links. Simply put, a profile of an executive holds more credibility and earns more trust than that of a general company profile.

An exec’s profile (e.g. CEO, CMO, Manager, etc) puts a more humane approach in networking and anyone who would connect with them would feel more privileged, therefore trust is built more easily. Any outreach message or shared content done using an executive’s profile would stand out in a sea of various messages and posts on social networking sites.

It goes without saying that this should be done with the executive still involved in the process. Of course, it wouldn’t bode well for the exec or for the company should there be a direct dialogue with the exec without him/her knowing about what was shared through his profile.

4. Facebook Profile & Ads

Even with a small amount, you can readily boost your post and target it towards the right audience in Facebook.

The key in getting the most out of this technique is to have a more narrowed down and concise targeting. Even with less ad spend, you’ll have higher chances of garnering more interest with the quality of your targeted audience.

As with any other form of content, make sure that the post you boost and promote provides substantial and useful information. You’ll be surprised with how far its reach can be, since the audience themselves may even share and repost it to their own networks.

5. Connect With Social Media Profiles of Authorities

Be it Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or even Snapchat, you can easily build rapport and genuine connection with authorities in different fields through social media profiles.

It’s as simple as following or following back and making sure that you send out a genuine message to kick things off. You can show genuine admiration for the work they do or perhaps provide some insightful comment or opinion on a certain topic they featured or talked about.

As you continue to build the relationship, you can even ask them to also promote the link to your site or post given that there is mutual trust established along the way. This method may take more time and effort but the results would be extremely beneficial, especially if you’ve managed to help one another in your respective ventures.

Conclusion

Surely, getting more links through social profiles isn’t the quickest way to increase your backlinks but it’s definitely one of the most rewarding given the authentic connection you’re bound to build along the way.

You’re not just building connections but you’re also establishing trust within the online community, which in return would also be beneficial in increasing your reach as they share your content to their own networks. Do remember that these connections are a two-way street, so also make sure to return the favor or take the initiative to also share and promote the work of others as well.

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