How to get most results out of your SEO, Social Media & Digital Marketing activities.

8 Deadly Sins of Link Building

The ultimate aim of any website owner is to drive more and more traffic to his website and bring it to the top of search engines. There are many methods available by which one can achieve this but one of the most famous methods is link building.

Link Building

In fact, a study shows that 72% of CEOs believe link building is a key ranking factor. It is the process of linking your web page with third party web pages that have relevant content. This is an effective way in which a user can surf the internet. These links are used by the search engines to access one website to another.

Thus, link building will not only increase your website traffic but also enhance your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and domain authority.

However, link building is probably one of the hardest parts of an SEO specialist’s job.

Link building can be metaphorically related to walking through a balancing rope. A perfect balance will take you to the other side. An inch here or there, you are bound to fall. If done in the right way, link building can tremendously boost your website traffic and improve search rankings.

However, there are certain NO’s of link building that if not adhered to, can ruin your entire SEO efforts and even negatively affect your page rankings. Below are the 8 deadly sins of link building.

Plugins are there to make our lives easier, and I, for one, make the most of them. There are thousands available to add extra functionality to your WordPress site, covering everything from extra security measures and site backups to image galleries and social media. The best thing about these app-style add-ons is how easy they are to install and you don’t need much experience to use them.

With all this in mind, it’s easy to get carried away browsing the plugin libraries. Instead of creating a bloated user experience on a slow-moving site, consider a “less is more” approach. I tend to keep a tight ship on how many plugins I use. My WordPress-based site isn’t jam-packed with them; if they don’t serve a real purpose or aren’t necessary as a stand-alone download, they’re out.

Chances are, many of your site features and elements are or will be powered by plugins. They are an asset to any successful WordPress website. Keep in mind that adding plugins isn’t like collecting Pokemon. Just because there is a plugin for pretty much every function or feature you can think of doesn’t mean you should indulge in adding them all. Using too many can eat up disk space on your site’s server, make plugin management cumbersome or slow down the performance of your site. Worst case scenario – they can open your site up to being hacked.

Limiting the type and number of plugins you use is a great first step to improving your website. In this article, I’m going to give you a list of only mandatory WordPress plugins you need to use on your WordPress site. This includes plugins that improve security, SEO, user experience and backing up your content, as well as saving time and improving conversions.

If you don’t have these 12 WordPress plugins already, you should install them now to keep your site ticking along nicely.

If you are serious about running any kind of business these days, social media is where you and your company need to be. It is the place where most of your target audience hang around, and the perfect setting for you to interact with them and engage them, and take your relationship with them to the next level.

If you don’t believe in this, take a look at the numbers. Around 70% of all businesses in the US include social media in their marketing strategy because they realize how valuable it can be. Facebook is by far the biggest social media platform out there since it gathers over 1 billion users. Other popular options include Twitter and Instagram, which allow you to reach your target audience even more easily by using hashtags.

According to Timothy Lewis, who is the head of digital marketing at Bestessays, social media enables you to establish credibility and make your company look more personable and human, as opposed to being a generic corporate entity:

“People appreciate personal interaction with their favorite brands, and social media provides you with all the tools to facilitate that interaction.”

The most important tool of the bunch is Facebook Messenger which, according to Lewis, is the key to developing a more personal relationship with your customers. He has also decided to share 5 effective Facebook Messenger tips that will help you transform your marketing strategy. Keep on reading to find out more.

A CNBC study conducted in January revealed that brands increased advertising spending by 65 percent on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram in 2016 over 2015. This pattern has only continued in 2017, where social media advertising is suspected to hit record levels.

Use Instagram Effectively

Across the wide variety of platforms, Instagram has been the place of the most significant spending growth for advertisers. The reason is that Instagram is growing! And fast! Consumers appreciate its streamlined, simple feel.

It is the perfect hybrid between Twitter and Facebook because you get images and videos while keeping written content small. The following steps will help you optimize your Instagram ad campaign to take advantage of this rapidly expanding platform.

Wrong Niche for Your Blog

The niche you choose for your blog can literally make or break your career as a blogger. With a myriad of niches to choose from, what happens when you choose the wrong niche for your blog? This article will discuss just that.

When some bloggers or website owners hire SEO experts or agencies, one of the most common misconceptions and false expectations they have is that, by doing so, they can miraculously just climb SERP ranks. Most of the time, that mistake proves fatal to the blog or site.

The thing is, your chosen blogging niche really plays a huge part in your success. In my blog at KevinOcasio.com, where I offer help and instructions to aspiring bloggers who want to begin their blogging career, I’ve also highlighted this particular point in one of my articles.

Choosing a blogging niche is difficult enough. But what do you do when you realize that you actually chose the wrong niche for your blog?

To answer that question, we must first get to the bottom of this one.

UX and SEO

Every savvy digital marketer knows that there’s not “just SEO” or “just user experience” in the online sphere. They coexist in the same space. Even though both practices share the same goal, which is to increase the number of conversions and success for the business, they have different approaches on how to reach it. This is where UX and SEO can clash. So how do we find a compromise between them? Let’s take a look.

SEO for Small and Mid-sized Businesses

As a proud owner of an SMB (Small & Mid-sized Business), you’re bound to have a never-ending task list. You have several duties to take care of 24/7 – between stepping into your store in the morning to turning the lights off before you leave. But dedicating time to market your business online in your busy schedule is vital to your business’ growth.

No matter how many advertisements and flyers you put up, it simply isn’t enough in this all-digital world. Giving your business a solid online presence to make sure consumers can find you online is a must. And adopting a local SEO strategy is a fantastic, easy way to give your business the online presence it deserves.

Most often digital business owners don’t really know how SEO works, and so they underestimate its importance. While at the same time, SEO experts don’t take the time to explain all the details related to optimization, and thus don’t show its power and what it can do for a business. That leads to miscommunication and unmet expectations.

So, I wanted to make things clear and help both specialists do their work better, and business owners feel more comfortable giving SEO a chance so that they can all use it to their advantage.

That’s why I conducted a research and interviewed SEO experts, and saw some tendencies in the answers they gave. Let me now share with you the 7 most common false expectations that clients have when they hire an SEO agency.

PPC Marketing

Pay-Per-Click is one of the best online marketing investments you can make for your business. Not only is it a cost-effective way of getting quick entry into the digital space, but it also provides you with handy data about your products/services.

Bing and Google Adwords PPC ads are affordable marketing platforms that deliver fast results. More importantly, they can help you reach people most likely to be interested in your brand – based on demographic data and interest targeting.

According to Google, search ads can increase brand awareness by 80%. So PPC is inarguably one of the best ways to increase your presence whilst driving high-quality traffic to your site. There is also some data to suggest that a PPC visitor is 50% more likely to make a purchase than an organic visitor. So when it comes to SEO vs. PPC, the latter can give you a much better conversion.

There’s no question about whether PPC should be a part of your online strategy. It’s a powerful avenue that will contribute to your business goals and it even works seamlessly with other marketing campaigns. The real question is: who are you entrusting with your PPC management? Despite all the benefits to Pay-Per-Click marketing, there’s also room for error and bad ads can have a negative impact on your site.

PPC needs to be approached with best practices in mind. With the right knowledge and with enough time to fully manage the process. With that in mind, is it better to hire an in-house team or sign up for an agency? Here we look at the pros and cons of both.

You might think that with Facebook and Twitter absolutely dominating the B2B advertising, LinkedIn has a snowball’s chance in hell of even making a dent in the overall digital marketing space. Well, you would be wrong. LinkedIn boasts a built-in network of business professionals, a dedicated targeting service and its own publishing platform.

This makes it the ideal solution for every B2B marketer looking to re-emerge as a thought leader. In fact, some of the biggest names in the advertising industry have used LinkedIn to fuel their campaigns of reaching new audiences, strengthening their brand visibility and increase their revenues.

8 Deadly Sins of Link Building

The 14 Best WordPress Plugins You Need Right Now

What to Do When You Choose the Wrong Niche for Your Blog

How to Find a Compromise Between UX and SEO?

SEO for Small and Mid-sized Businesses

7 False Expectations that Clients Have When They Hire an SEO Agency

In-house or Agency: The Best Choice for PPC Marketing