Creating the perfect website CAN be a do-it-yourself job. If you are a marketer, business owner or blogger that is trying to market your business or yourself through content, this is a must read!
40 Ways to Increase Web Traffic According to the Experts
By now, just about every marketer has figured out that one of the most effective ways to leverage the power of digital is to create high-quality content that will generate inbound leads. So, once you have your content developed and have a quality website to house it, you now have to figure out how to get that content in front of people. There are hundreds of millions of websites out there competing for a limited number of eyes and really, what good is content if nobody is going to see it?
Here is a handy infographic that aggregates 40 tips on how to increase web traffic from some of the top experts in the industry.
How To: Drive Traffic to Your Website (Infographic)
With almost a billion websites in existence and endless more popping up everyday, trying to get a little traffic heading in your direction can be a pretty big challenge. Trust me, I know. It is a daily struggle to build a following and then maintain it and relying on just one source like search or social is a very risky move. There are a bunch of ways to (legitimately) drive traffic to your website.
What Every Marketer Needs to Know About Content Marketing
Small/mid-sized businesses are in a tough situation with regard to content marketing. They stand to benefit from it greatly in the form of brand awareness, positioning and lead generation, but professional marketing advice comes with a pretty significant price tag. This is why I have begun creating the DMR Content Marketing Toolkit series of eBooks.
This series of eBooks is perfect for small/mid-sized businesses and pretty much anyone looking to learn the ins and outs of content marketing. Each helpful guide will tackle a different aspect of content marketing starting with establishing the right web platform for content distribution and working through content development, distribution and measurement. For a small fraction of what you would pay an agency for, you get solid guidance for doing content marketing the right way and generating critical inbound sales leads.
How To: Increase Your Website Speed and Increase Page Views
With the recent mobile explosion, the need for a fast-loading website has never been greater. Your average website visitor is only going to wait so long for a page to load before they give up and move on to another site. In fact, according to Kissmetrics, nearly half of web users expect a website to load in 2 seconds or less[1]. This behavior is magnified when talking about mobile visitors. Your average person searching for something on their phone generally has less time to do it in and less patience.
Need more evidence that page speed matters? There have been rumors that Google has been testing a slow website tag in search results. This may or may not come to fruition as Google is constantly testing new search features almost daily and only a few of them stick, but it still illustrates that the issue is critical enough for Google to be concerned about page speed as a user experience issue for their searchers.
These days, page speed is almost as much of a moving target and inexact science as SEO is. You just can’t strip down your site of all images and functionality to make it lightening quick. There are features you need on your content marketing site to be successful and images are a must for any content site these days. What is important is to be able to measure the load speed of your site’s pages (note: load time can vary greatly form page to page on the same site, depending on what kind of content the page contains), identify which elements of your site are the time sucks and figure out if you really need them and if you do, how to optimize them.
The Top 5 Benefits to Employee Content Sharing (Infographic)
With content marketing all the rage and social media noise at an alarming rate, businesses, especially small businesses, need to utilize any and all content sharing possibilities available to them. Employees can offer a great opportunity to amplify the reach of the valuable content your company is developing to a receptive and relatively targeted audience.
The Ultimate Digital Marketing Cheat Sheet for 2015 Predictions and Trends (INFOGRAPHIC)
In the digital marketing industry, there is a lot of noise. A lot. Because there are so many facets to digital marketing in 2015 and so many pundits telling you how to use each channel and making predictions of future uses, it is very challenging to keep up with what is out there. Everyone takes a different angle and approach to consumer outreach and there is much to be considered each time you develop a campaign strategy. Even the most organized marketer is bound to have a head-spinning experience at some point while trying to take in and consider all that digital marketing now encompasses.
Evaluating the Current Trends of Social Media Marketing in 2014
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past half a decade, you probably already understand how important social media marketing is to your business – it can play a vital role in both generating new leads and building a relationship with your current prospects and customers.
Still, in order to be able to maintain a strong social media presence, you have to stay in touch with the current trends that are developing in the social media world, and in the online world everything does change very quickly.
So for those who want to stay on top of their game and are looking for something new to build their social media campaigns around, here are some of the main trends that are currently seen in the world of social media:
5 Tips for Creating the Best About Us Page
In today’s multi-device, micro-content frenzy, there aren’t many opportunities for your audience to become thoroughly acquainted with your brand; an opportunity to really explain where you came from, and what you’re about, so when one comes along you take it with both hands.
Your About Us page is this opportunity. Maybe it’s a personal habit but whenever I come across a new website, a new potential provider for whichever service or product I’m after, I gravitate towards the About Us page. Nothing irritates me more than a site without one. It’s like finally securing a meeting with a potential client but failing to introduce yourself upon their arrival. Not only does it clarify precisely what your business offers, but for many visitors their first impression of your brand will be formed upon reading this page. Make yours count following these five points.
Reddit 101: What is It and How Do You Use It???
With 114 million monthly visitors, Reddit is a digital platform that few in the marketing world can ignore. There is a little something for everyone at Reddit, and if you have content to market (good content), you will find it to be a very helpful social channel. When content is posted correctly, Reddit can be a pretty solid source of web traffic.
Since Reddit doesn’t fall into the typical social (Facebook) mold of news feed, friends, statuses, etc, it can be challenging for newcomers to wrap their arms around at first. If you are finding yourself scratching your head a bit about Reddit, you are in luck
Building Bridges: Why Cross-Platform Optimization is Essential for Brand Success
Understanding how consumers interact with their chosen brands across the many platforms available to them today is fundamental to effective marketing and customer service. Cross-platform optimization essentially refers to harnessing this behavioural information to provide a unified brand experience over all digital channels, whether that’s web, mobile or social media.
In recent years, consumer technology has undergone some drastic advances. Whilst an initial technical revolution took place around the emergence of the internet itself, a second has been triggered by the recent progression in mobile technology. Christopher North, managing director of Amazon UK, commented, “I have never seen anything happen as fast as mobile.”
And as the devices we use change all the time to become more varied and sophisticated, so too does the way that we choose to interact with them.
Here is How You Write a Killer Blog Post
This is definitely worth perusing and is probably something you’ll want to bookmark and reference again in the future for blogging best practice reminders.
How To: Generate Sales Leads on LinkedIn
In these days of globalization and the daily evolution of technology, small businesses have never had a better opportunity to compete against larger firms in their industry that they previously had no shot against. Digital marketing has played a significant role in leveling the playing field for small business and no tool more so than LinkedIn. Smart and creative usage of LinkedIn has been a key component of a number of aggressive growth plans over the past few years and it costs relatively little to do so.
How To: Repurpose Content for Link Building in 2014
Repurposing content has various advantages. Creating fresh content every time, and in huge quantities, is extremely time-consuming and involves a good deal of hard work. Repurposing steps in here and helps overhaul your content into something new and enhanced which gives a fresh spin to your work. This Infographic shows best resource for content marketing and more methods for repurposing content.
How and When to Use LinkedIn Long-Form Posts in Content Marketing Campaigns
Earlier this year, LinkedIn announced they’d be opening up their publishing platform feature to their 300 million+ users. Essentially, this feature allows you to write a blog post directly on LinkedIn and reach a larger audience than your typical posts would. These long-form posts are seen by your connections like normal posts, and are also suggested to other targeted professionals on LinkedIn based on an algorithmic formula.
7 Tips for Producing Highly Effective Corporate Videos
Corporate videos can be turned into productive marketing tools. The task at hand is by no means an easy one. You will have to consider several factors before you can turn your video into an aggressive marketing campaign. Therefore, the following tips will come in handy if you are vying for something impressive and result-oriented.
5 Good Reasons Why You Need to Back Your Website Up (Infographic)
Backing up your website regularly should be a no-brainer, but for many publishers, it is often put off in favor of more content generation or adding site functionality. It is very similar to backing up your computer files; we all know we need to do it, we just don’t put a high priority on it and often don’t until something catastrophic happens.
Online Immortality: 5 Ways to Creating Evergreen Content
Online content, whatever type of media it may be in, should be born out of effort. It must strive to provide thought-provoking question and answers or show solutions, all from deep-seated industry issues and down to mundane situations. Since the Internet is full of different kinds of content – articles, images, infographics, and videos…
Social Media, Multimedia and the Understanding of Content
During my time in the realm of social media – I first joined Facebook back in May of ’09 – I’ve slowly but surely understood what it meant to be engaged. Something kept me on Facebook for close to five years but it didn’t take me until just now to realize what it was. Simply put, the content put forth was interesting.
Five Reasons You Should Write Less and Promote More
Instead of crafting another article, you need to get out there and get your content in front of the eyes of people who matter. Still not convinced? Here are five reasons to spend more time on promotion and outreach.
3 Reasons Self-Hosted Video Is Better Than YouTube
Self-hosting your videos rather than using a third party (YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion) brings many benefits that can help any small business, SME, blog or e-commerce website make a return from their investment in video. Here we have listed the main three reasons businesses and blogs are turning to self hosted video….
Guest Post: 9 Tips for Content Marketing Success in 2014
The premise that everyone already engages in content marketing and that there is more and more content out there (2 million blog posts a day) is the most determining factor in 2014. So what can you do to stand out?
Every Major Google Search Update From 2013 in One Infographic
Here is a handy infographic that runs through all of Google’s search changes in 2013 chronologically. This should get you up to speed quite nicely.
An Infographic that Explains Infographics Using LEGO!
Since most of us have to spend at least a portion of our day educating others about our digital world, it is always good to have a few visual aides to help make our job a bit easier.
How To: Speed Up Your WordPress Site (Infographic)
Digital marketers love blogging platforms like WordPress because of their simplicity and easy-to-add functionality. Of course, many of us, at times, fall into the trap of focusing more on functionality and aesthetics and less on the basics like pagespeed.
What the Heck Do Social Media Marketers Do All Day? (Infographic)
Yes, the life of a social media marketer is controlled chaos.
1,000,000!!!
I am excited to announce that DMR just crossed 1 million pageviews in 2013…and no, I didn’t hit refresh 999,999 times.
What Should Be the Center of All Activity For a Successful B2B Marketing Campaign?
Your B2B marketing campaigns require a platform that can house your content and enable interaction with your audience that you own and control. Not one that can make wholesale changes overnight just to get a few more bucks out of advertisers and leave you scrambling to adapt.
Guest Post: What to Look For in Selecting the Right SEO Company
The power of the digital revolution just cannot be undermined. The success of both search based engines and social networking sites is synonymous with the power of being able to get instant information. But with digital data being generated at a rapid pace, are you truly able to influence your digital audience in the way you desire? Are you able to keep up with the many emerging trends in online marketing? Rework your digital strategy and gear up to hire an SEO company that can make a difference.
Guest Post: Does Your SEO Company Offer You Integrated Marketing?
The rules of the business have changed drastically. Search engine result pages are displayed differently, thereby transforming the role of your SEO Company.
How To: Embed a Facebook Post in a Blog Post
Today, Facebook announced the launch of embedded posts. This new feature allows bloggers to add a public post directly to their site and includes some Facebook engagement functionality such as liking and sharing.
The State of B2B Content Marketing (Infographic)
Here is an interesting infographic I recently stumbled on that gives us a pretty good snapshot of where B2B content marketing stands in terms of marketer opinions, spending and tactics.
Guest Post: 25 Ways a Video Producer Brings Value to Your Web Video Production?
This post shares some insight into what a video producer does and what kind of value one can bring to your next video production project.
Everything You Need To Know About Content Marketing (Infographic)
Just getting started with content marketing and looking for a quick primer? Here is a great infographic that explores what content marketing is, what it does and debunks a few myths about it. I hope you find it helpful as you set out on your quest to create and distribute great content.
LinkedIn Adds Infographic Support to Slideshare
Content marketing got a little bit of a boost today when LinkedIn announced that Slideshare will now support infographics.
Guest Post: How to Build a Community for Your Blog
A few helpful tips on building a blogging community from an industry pro.
Guest Post: 7 Tips to Get the RIGHT Traffic to Your eCommerce Store
You have got to play the following 7 smart moves to attract business to yourself amid all your e-competitors.
Everything You Need to Know About Content Marketing (Infographic)
Here is an interesting infographic that looks at the state of content marketing, why it is important and what to think about in setting up a content marketing plan.
How To: Add a Follow on Feedly Button to Your Blog (and Why You Should)
OK kids, the day we have all been dreading for month is almost upon us. Next Monday, July 1st is the day that Google Reader is no longer. There are a number of potential Google Reader replacements that will be coming out over the next few weeks. AOL, Digg and even Facebook (maybe) are all […]
LEGO Gets Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader Together for Father’s Day
In the latest short video featuring their Star Wars products, LEGO has gotten one of history’s most dysfunctional father/son duos to bury the hatchet and celebrate Father’s Day together.
Guest Post: Top 4 Digital Marketing Trends for 2013 (Infographic)
This infographic provides a comprehensive analysis of tools and technologies that will define the digital marketing landscape this year.
A Key (Overlooked) Component to Content Marketing Success: Quick Decision Making
All to often, great content is produced for a business, internally or externally, and never gets posted- not because of the content quality, but because the business’ decision makers were too busy to look it over and by the time they did, it was no longer relevant.
What to Look for in Selecting a Digital Agency
Since everyone and their brother calls themselves digital, it is important that you do your homework when evaluating marketing agencies. Here are a few simple suggestions I have that may help you separate the true digital agencies from the impostors…
How To: Use Google+ for Content Marketing
Even though it has been with us for almost two years, Google+ is still an enigma to many businesses and some marketers. Because Google+ is so heavily interwoven in everything Google does these days, people know that they need to be present and active on the network. They just don’t know how to get started.
RIP Snip.it: Content Curation Network Purchased by Yahoo
Snip.it is now gone. They were purchased today by Yahoo. I was shocked about an hour ago, when I tried to snip my latest post about The Top 50 Most Overused Words in PR and got this pop-up:
Another Infographic About Infographics
A creative and informative infographic can often be your most shared content and give your SEO efforts a massive boost. Want a bunch of backlinks? Don’t buy them and face the wrath of Google. Create an infographic with an embed code that includes a backlink.
30 Ways to Promote Your Blog Content (Infographic)
There are a bunch of ways to promote blog content. Here is an awesome infographic from that lays out 30 solid ways to promote blog posts.
What is Digital Marketing? (Infographic)
The reality is that digital marketing encompasses a bunch of “stuff.” Where the field once dealt primarily with marketing that shows up on a computer monitor (websites, some SEO and email), we now need to worry about a bunch of different screens to send our message to…
How To: Generate Organic Backlinks (Infographic)
Here is a helpful infographic from Work that lists the top 5 ways to generate backlinks to your site organically.
New eBook: The Complete Guide to Marketing Your Business on Pinterest
In this eBook, our Digital Team has created a bunch of “How Tos” that walk you through some of the tactics that have worked for our clients, covering a number of areas of Pinterest marketing from creating a Pinterest page and building your community to driving Pinterest traffic to your website.
3 Important Benefits of Digital Public Relations (Infographic)
Here is a handy little infographic that my team has collaborated on that lays out three areas of digital marketing that benefit from digital PR integration: SEO, Content Generation and Social Media.
How To: Embed an Instagram Photo in a WordPress Blog Post
WordPress recently added a feature that is sure to be a useful one to anyone looking to show off their photography skills on their blog. You can now embed an Instagram photo on your blog and it is really easy to do.
3 Important Benefits of Digital Public Relations. Benefit 2: Content Generation
First and foremost, when it comes to blogging, you can never have too much quality content. The blogs with the highest subscription rates generally all post regular and often. A lapse in posting for a prolonged period can lead to a drop off in visitors, which will take a while to get back. That being said, it can be really tough sometimes to generate regular content, especially if your company doesn’t have a dedicated blogger. This is where digital public relations comes in.
How To: Use LinkedIn Groups to Build Authority and Drive Web Traffic
LinkedIn groups can essentially be looked at as part seminar/part networking event/part job fair and part industry newsletter. They are a naturally segmented audience and a great place for you to quickly build authority for yourself and your business if you use them wisely.
4 Steps to Easily Increase the Reach of Your Facebook Page Posts
It is widely accepted in the digital marketing world that most Facebook page posts will only ever be seen organically by a maximum of 16% of the people who like that page. So how do you combat the increasing clutter and get more people to see your content? Simple, you need to understand Facebook’s system and use it to your advantage.
9 Steps to Making Pinterest a Top Referrer of Traffic to Your Website
There is a big misconception out there that Pinterest is only useful to ecommerce sites. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Like any other widely-used social network, just about anyone can find success with Pinterest if used creatively.
How to Write the “Perfect” Marketing Blog Post (INFOGRAPHIC)
I recently found this helpful infographic from Social Triggers that dissects the “Perfect” blog post. There is a bunch of good stuff in here that gives you insights into the psychology of blogging.
An Infographic About Infographics
Here is a useful infographic for all you digital marketers that want to learn how to create awesomely sharable visual content. Thought I’d pass it on….
14 Tools You Should Be Using to Generate Blog Traffic
The old cliché “Content is King” has never been more true in the digital marketing world. New, fresh, sharable website content not only builds your brand and generates potential leads, but it also keeps your consumers engaged and connected to your brand.
Generating your content is tough, but once you come up with the killer blog post or case study, how do you let people know about it?