Has Guest Blogging Gone Bad for SEO?

One of the reasons why guest blogging gained in popularity over the years is because it worked well for SEO purposes. With guest blogging you can:

-       Expand your SEO influence, through linking or by using relevant links

-       Explore opportunities to connect with a new and a wider audience and

-       Improve your overall SEO rankings

These reasons, combined with a fairly good practice at guest blogging or guest posting, can make your search engine rankings fairly positive.

So what went wrong?

You could say that bad guest blogging practices are the culprit. Guest blogs are advantageous for SEO purposes, yet this tool has been overused, tainting a good blog that should have been of good quality and well-defined links and rendering it a horde of spammy or low-quality content. Instead of providing readers with information, a lot of guest blogs today have been swamped with links, forgetting the importance of high quality content in their bid to hastily work their way up the Google rankings.

Has Guest Blogging Gone Bad for You?

Wrong practices have given guest blogging its bad reputation. Matt Cutts, head of Google Web Spam, even hinted that guest blogging is already dead. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you should bid goodbye to guest blogging altogether. With regards to spammy content, which quality bloggers can spot a mile away, there are actually four ways to make your guest blogging a positive SEO tool.

Choose high quality guest sites. Pitch articles and contribute content to websites that are relevant, reputable and are already experts in your kind of industry. There are a lot of websites and those of any quality will always be thorough with the posts to their sites. If it sounds like “you can write anything you want and we’ll post it”, back off already. Quality is the key here and sites with words intent on luring you into guest posting, are more often than not spammy.

Write for quality with quality. Picking up a quality site to do your guest blog is just the beginning. The next thing to focus on is writing high quality content. Quality guest blogs will always follow a specific requirement including topic relevance, length, formatting, spelling, readability, appropriate linking and of course, quality content that is original. If you write well, your readers are likely to follow you on your own website.

Use links smartly. Don’t just insert links and flood your post with them. If you don’t want Google to crawl your content as spam, keep the links to a minimum and make them look as natural as possible, as you place them in your content. To be on the safe side including two or three links back to your site will suffice.

Always build relationships. Establish yourself in the guest blogging community and the doors of opportunity will open up, helping you to successfully build on your SEO rankings. Guest blogging may not be easy - all things considered but continually building relationships and keeping the value of your content will doubtless see you becoming an expert in your field, not to mention the guest blogging community.

In terms of SEO, guest blogging is still a gold mine of opportunity for success. The real deal here is that guest blogging is not dead or bad, despite rumours to the contrary. If you want to maximise your SEO efforts with guest blogging, speak to an expert at the Devon SEO Co. 

The Social Media Power for SEO

Have you updated your status on Facebook yet? Today, with the great number of people getting hooked with social media sites, it is not surprising that even your mother has signed up to have her own Facebook account. It’s true that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many others are originally meant to share personal thoughts and pictures with family and friends. The concept is to have a ‘place’ where people can socialise and even meet new people over the internet. This very idea has overwhelmed many and we now find ourselves in a world where people can get updated with other people’s lives without meeting or talking to them in person. 

If you haven’t noticed already, social media sites are no longer limited for personal uses. In fact, many businesses noticed its potential as a marketing tool that they began to utilise social media in their strategy to promote their brand. Those businesses that have been struggling with their SEO saw the advantage of using social media as a powerful method to help them get to the top of the rankings. Many have tried this plan and they have proven that it actually works.

Let people know that your brand exists.

Remember that many people use these social media sites. Know your brand’s strength and present this through a medium that you know will attract the attention of many. Use pictures or videos with great quality and start to introduce your brand to the world. Make sure that all the important information is provided and that everything is updated on a regular basis.

Gain followers.

The more people who know your brand, the more followers you can have. Keep in mind that having a great number of followers is almost equal to having a 24/7 online advertisement. The more followers you have, the more people will find your brand to be credible and of course, highly commendable.

Have online interaction with followers.

Aside from having followers, it is equally important to maintain a level of activity on your social media site, where your followers can participate in. Did you know that the more your brand is mentioned over the internet, the more it is highly possible to get ranked? Remember that search engines also measure the volume of how many people actually know and mention your brand. This factor contributes to how your own site can get ranked.

Social media has indeed evolved through the years and it has also become more influential. It has become part of our everyday lives and now, it is even greater because of its proven impact in the world of SEO.

Need help with SEO? The Devon SEO can guarantee that your website’s ranking can improve! For enquiries, please feel free to call 01752 548881.

     

Why You Shouldn’t Miss Out on Email Marketing

In the past, many people will tell you that email marketing is the only way to go when it comes to online marketing. Nowadays, many have disregarded email marketing completely, and jumped on the bandwagon of social media and mobile marketing. Although it is true that email marketing has lost some of its effectiveness in recent years, we at Devon SEO think email marketing is still a powerful weapon in a business’ arsenal, and here’s why:

Everyone has an email account – Anyone who regularly uses the Internet will likely have an email account of their own. If you consider that more and more people are using the Internet every day, that’s a lot of potential leads just waiting to receive your email.

Email marketing can be done automatically – One of the main advantages of email marketing is that anyone can set it up automatically. If you want to go a step further, you can customise each email (manually or automatically) based on the recipient’s chosen settings and preferences. This gives them a more personal experience, and thus, a better incentive to open the email.

Email marketing is inexpensive – Compared to other forms of marketing, email remains an inexpensive option for online marketing; only requiring an email server and a connection to the Internet to start a full email marketing campaign.

Email marketing builds a relationship with your recipients – While the primary objective of marketing is to get sales, its other purpose is to form a relationship with your potential leads. Sending them unforgettable emails and showing them that you care will put your emails above the rest of your competitors – after all, their inbox is often their only private space online.

Email marketing can still generate a lot of sales – Even if you exclude all the benefits we’ve just mentioned, you should not cross-out email marketing campaigns from your list. Statistics show that email marketing is still profitable even with the advent of social media and spam awareness - businesses only need to adjust how they write their emails to make their email marketing campaign have a better chance to succeed.