#I wonder if it's because having dedicated places for socially unacceptable behavior

[raelemond]

in my experience the kink community is actually a great place to meet trans elders

[bigtittiecomitte]

[Small Rant!]

(Hope this is alright!! Sorry for my ask being so long and all over the place, but I just had so much to say!)

I honestly might leave the fandom, I'm REALLY tempted to at this point. Because, I don't know how much more of this toxicity, the behavior of Envy and V stans (NOT ALL, BTW) and the Nuzi hatedom, I can take..especially knowing that Envy and V stans are doing the same thing they did back when episode 6 released, attacking and harassing Liam Vickers + sending death threats...it's absolutely disgusting and unacceptable and shouldn't be normalized, AT ALL. These individuals who are doing this aren't real fans of the show and don't care about it, they don't give a shit about the love, dedication and care that goes into Murder Drones or all the hard work that goes into the show. They only care about wether their ship becomes canon or not and if they don't get what they want, they start harassing and shitting on the crew behind the show, especially the creator (Liam) and say they don't wanna watch the show anymore and it just proves they were probably NEVER fans in the first place and only cared about shipping and that's just so damn sad, it's especially pathetic and childish how some of these fans act..

I've said it before and I'll say it once more, SHIPPING ISN'T EVERYTHING, STOP MAKING IT A BIG DEAL. There's so much more to love and appreciate about the Murder Drones and there's so much to love about the show and shipping shouldn't be something you should even go into and look forward to when getting into any piece of media, MD isn't even a romance show. I'm overall just so damn tired and sick of this fandom, like REALLY TIRED..it's just so damn draining and exhausting especially when the same arguments are used again and again. The fandom just sucks and I fear it'll only get worse and I really don't know if I can stay for much longer. (I'm seriously missing the pilot-era days when the fandom was small and not that bad) but even though the community isn't the best, I'm glad we have some respectful and caring individuals in the fanbase like you and others, I honestly don't think the fandom isn't as bad here as it is on both TikTok and Twitter, the MD fandom side of things on Tumblr is more tame compared to the other social medias I mentioned.

Overall, MD is such a comfort show for me and has had such a huge impact on me, it's seriously one of my favorite shows, I'm not even joking. I'm incredibly thankful and happy for it's existence and also thankful to Liam, GLITCH, the animators, the VA's and just the entire team as a whole for making such a great and wonderful show! It means so much to me and I'll never stop loving it despite it's ups and downs + the community not being the best at times, I'm truly thankful for this show and those I've met in the fandom. ❤️💞

Hey you Dorky goober

No need to apologise for the long rant. Generally I adore long rants so win win for both of us (if anyone does need to rant about something then I’ll totally be here for you, I know what it feels like to not rant about something but you really do)

With you thinking about leaving the fandom due to the toxicity honestly I would not blame you at all. I’m someone who’s comfort ship is Nuzi so just seeing any hate would make me think about it for the rest of the day

Usually what I do when I see any toxicity is just laugh at it, laugh at how stupid their take is. Recently I had a fight with this Lesslie person and all I did was laugh at how silly it was like bro was getting aggressive bc people preferred Nuzi

I’m trying not to dogpile on toxic V fans + Envy shippers cause I don’t want to seem too obsessive over drama but for some reason it always gets worse

There are toxic Nuzi shippers but there aren’t as many as toxic Envy shippers like never in my life have I seen an Envy shipper getting doxxed because they like Envy. For some reason it’s always the toxic Envy shippers that make this fandom miserable

I don’t think they even know that they’re toxic shippers and desperately need to leave the fandom, most of them are kids but that never excuses any actions that they do because it’s the internet, once you post something it’s there forever

Murder Drones has so much in store than just romance and I’m saying this as someone who mostly posts Nuzi related things although I really do want to post more about the lore and I even planned for a full post on the details (I was pretty busy so I didn’t complete that but it’s in the drafts lol)

Not only the lore but just Murder Drones in general, the romance is great but so is the show, just everything about this show is filled with so much love and you can tell just by all the silly things they put in the backgrounds and the writing by Liam

Like the N x Uzi scenes are just small scenes like they’re put in different places but it works because the show isn’t focused on romance. I do think people forget that the N x Uzi scenes are quite literally important for the plot as well, it’s not just there for fanservice. Liam knows what he’s doing and anyone that tells him otherwise can go fuck off honestly

There are bad people but there are also a lot of good people in this fandom, a lot that do appreciate Murder Drones for even continuing. Screw whatever those 13 year olds on Twitter say, they don’t know crap about respect

[monroe-nc-near-blog]

City Living

Monroe is a small city in North Carolina that adapts a country-style living. It gives you the relaxing feeling of living away from the hustle and bustle of development. But while it is a quiet place, development is very evident when you move around the city proper. The neighborhood creates a relaxing ambiance along with the friendly smiles of people. Some people say that Monroe has a lot of untapped potential. But residents say that they like the city this way - low profile yet very progressive. So, if you wish to start a family in the city, Monroe can be a great choice.

Whether you need lawn mowing service, landscaping, leaf removal, or lawn maintenance, Performance Lawn & Landscape got you covered. This one of the premier companies in Monroe, North Carolina who delivers excellent results. For more than a decade, they are known for exceeding the expectations of their clients. The well-experienced and licensed team are top rated. The company offers affordable and flexible terms like weekly, monthly, or seasonal package that is fit for your home or business needs. If you are hesitant because of the price, you can always call them for a free estimate. You will then be surprised that the price is not bad at all.

Suspect arrested for armed robbery of prescription medicine in Monroe

MONROE, N.C. (WBTV) - Police say a suspect was arrested after pointing a gun at a pharmacy clerk and stealing prescription medicine in Monroe Thursday. Just before 3:00 p.m., police say the suspect robbed the Walgreen’s Pharmacy on Dickerson Boulevard at gunpoint of prescription medication. Officers from the Monroe Police Department assisted by Union County Sheriff’s Deputies arrived on scene and took the suspect into custody as he was exiting the store. Read more here.

Crime rates have dropped in many cities as home quarantine is being implemented. The news of robbery in a pharmacy is surprising. I wonder what specific prescription medication is the suspect trying to steal. But whatever it is, pointing a gun to a clerk is definitely unacceptable. He has to face the consequences of his behavior. I pity the pharmacy assistant. The person must have been very terrified to see people acting this way amidst the crisis that everyone is going through. In the meantime, this is a warning for everyone to still remain vigilant and alert since criminals can still attack anytime.

Jesse Helms Center in Monroe, NC

Getting old can be a little worrisome if you do not know where to go. But if you are living around Monroe, the Jesse Helms Nursing Center is available. This is a 70-bed nursing facility in North Carolina. Apart from its regular nursing facility, it features landscaped grounds, public living area, and media area. Elderly people can enjoy daily exercises, religious, and social activities, health and wellness programs, arts and crafts, and even off-site outings. The center has a team of professionals who care for their clients’ holistic needs like nutrition and spirituality. The center is very near to hospitals, pharmacies, and churches.

Hosting a party can be demanding. You need to prepare your whole house including your lawn or garden to accommodate your guests. Definitely you do not want them to see your space messy. But since you may be busy preparing the menu and other party needs, you may not have enough time to work on your lawn. This is the best time to call the Performance Lawn & Landscape. They do lawn maintenance at very affordable price. On your scheduled day, a dedicated team comes to your home to do the lawn mowing, shrub pruning, and so much more. They ensure that your place is picture perfect for your guests.

Link to Map

Jesse Helms Nursing Center 1411 Dove St, Monroe, NC 28112, United States

Take E Sunset Dr to Lancaster Ave 7 min (2.7 mi)

Continue on Lancaster Ave to Buford 13 min (9.8 mi)

Turn right onto Tom Greene Rd Destination will be on the left 21 s (0.2 mi)

Performance Lawn & Landscape 3315 Tom Greene Rd Monroe, NC 28112, USA

[j-kaiwa]

Discussion Article March 30th

Intolerant Anti-Bully laws are killing Freedom of Speech

Only July 4, the United States will be celebrating Independence Day, the birth of our nation. Unfortunately, the greatest freedom provided us by this new democracy has been dying and few people seem to be aware of it or care about it. And many others are even cheering it on.

The democratic world has made "tolerance" its number one social goal. Nevertheless, this goal has been elusive, as victimized groups continue to lobby for laws that remove the stigmas against them, and educators, social scientists and parents continue to proclaim the horrors of bullying. Despite decades of diversity education, members of the various races congregate largely with their own kind in our schools and neighborhoods.

The truly ironic thing is that the most essential element of a tolerant society has been with us for the past two centuries, as it is also the central element of democracy, but we are slowly but surely killing it. That element is in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and is called Freedom of Speech. We need to be allowed to say what we want, as long as our words don't cause tangible harm to people's bodies or property, or society will stagnate and we will be prisoners in our own skulls, only permitted to say things that the authorities approve of. Without Freedom of Speech, we would never solve problems that require abandonment of current ways of thinking. Without Freedom of Speech, the government could be as despotic as it wishes, killing off any protestors without impunity. Where the concept of Freedom of Speech is absent, people believe they are entitled to kill others who say things they find offensive. Without Freedom of Speech, we would literally be living in the Dark Ages.

We Americans love to call our Constitution the greatest political blueprint ever created. It was formulated by wise, educated, brave men who studied philosophy and spent a great deal of time hashing out the principles for a system of government that maximizes human freedom and well-being. But the ultimate freedom, Freedom of Speech, is now dead.

Do you think I am exaggerating? Perhaps. But only a drop. Who teaches Freedom of Speech anymore? It is ignored from grade school through university. And if it is taught, is it ever given more than brief lip service? Is more than one paragraph ever allocated to it?  Are its meaning, purpose and practice discussed? Even many journalists today, who owe their professions to Freedom of Speech, do not believe in it because they don't study and understand it.

As I repeatedly demonstrate at my seminars, in my videos and in my writings, Freedom of Speech is the key to peace among people. It is a wonderful principle not only for running a country. It is also a wonderful principle for interpersonal harmony. And though it is a wonderful psychological and moral principle, it is never taught in courses in psychology or morality.

Not only is no one teaching Freedom of Speech anymore, that precious freedom is being slowly but surely killed. It is being murdered by the growing social movement that has successfully brainwashed virtually everyone into believing that the solution to human emotional misery is to create, by force of law, a society in which no one says anything anyone else finds offensive, in which there is no stigma, and in which there are no imbalances of power. There is not one social movement in the history of the world that has enjoyed such unanimous support as the anti-bully movement. Not one religious or political group has criticized it, despite its being contrary to the basic philosophies of most religions and political groups. Not one psychological organization has criticized it, despite the fact that it violates the principles of almost all major schools of psychology. Neither the American Civil Liberties Union nor any other rights-advocacy group has criticized it, despite the fact that anti-bully laws violate the most basic democratic right, Freedom of Speech. Even organizations that are dedicated to promoting Freedom of Speech have failed to criticize this anti-free-speech movement.

The number one tool of science is logical thinking. 2,400 years ago, Aristotle said, "One thing no government can do, no matter how good it is, is to make its citizens morally virtous." Simple logic will lead anyone with a basic understanding of human nature to realize that a society in which everyone is always nice to each other is impossible. It has never existed-and will never exist-because it can't exist. Only in Heaven, if such a place exists, is such a society possible. And logic will lead thinking people to conclude, as Aristotle and our Founding Fathers did, that the attempt to create such a society by force of law can only cause more harm than good. But the social sciences, in their zeal to protect the feelings of people, have thrown logic out the window and are unwittingly creating a less tolerant society. We are in effect teaching: It is very important to be completely tolerant of everyone. And if anyone shows you any kind of intolerance, we will have no tolerance for them!

Ironically, some of the most intolerant, offensive people you can find are ones who most forcefully insist that we need to create a society in which no one is intolerant or offensive. As I am wont to say at my seminars, few people get insulted as much as I do. I have given seminars to tens of thousands of people, and I get evaluations at the end of the day. It never ceases to amaze me how nasty mental health professionals and educators can be! Thanks to my website and blog, I receive letters from people all over the world. Because I am the world's most visible critic of the anti-bully movement, I am also the world's leading recipient of the vitriol of anti-bully zealots. Many angry emailers naively accuse me of having no idea of what it's like to be bullied. They should read my email! They should read the threatening letters sent to Cross Country Education for daring to sponsor my seminars! They should have been there to witness the vicious attacks against me at a few of the presentations I have given in schools! They should read some of the nasty comments to articles about my work on the Internet! Very few people get bullied and cyberbullied as much as I do! (And i haven't tried to get any of my bullies punished!)

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." ~Voltaire

Freedom of Speech requires me to respect your right to say what I don't like to hear--even to publicly insult and humiliate me--just as it requires you to respect my right to say what you don't like to hear. And just because we have ideas that are unacceptable to each other, it doesn't make us enemies. You may be giving me the best advice in the world but I don't realize it and find it offensive. Should you be prevented from, or punished for, saying it? We are supposed to love each other despite our opposing ideas. When I recognize your right to say things I don't like, I don't get angry at you for saying them. You, in return, respect me for acting respectable. Furthermore, since I don't get angry at you, you cannot have the pleasure of getting me angry, so you don't seek to torment me with words. All wise people throughout the world understand this. It is the most basic ingredient of peace.

Unfortunately, because Freedom of Speech is no longer taught, and our citizens have been indoctrinated with the very opposite, many people today cannot tolerate criticism, insults, or views opposite to their own. And that's why bullying has becoming a more serious problem during the very period that we have been trying hardest to get rid of it. Especially during the ten years since the Columbine massacre, the anti-bully movement has been teaching us that no one has a right to say anything to us that can cause us emotional or psychological distress. So when people say things that are offensive to us, we feel totally justified in getting angry, thinking self-righteously, "You have no right to say that!" and the situation escalates as they become even meaner back to us. And when we try to get them in trouble with the authorities, that's when they really want to kill us!

So that this won't be just theoretical, I would like to present you with a couple of recent examples of intelligent, educated people who would like to deny me Freedom of Speech.

I received the following email from someone identifying him/herself as Real Person, who had apparently read my article, The Psychological Solution to the Stigma of Obesity, and didn't like it. The article is written respectfully and is based on ideas that any decent Cognitive Behavior therapist or Rational Emotive therapist would whole-heartedly advocate. (I just reread it, and I happen to think it is quite good. I believe it will help any obese person who is willing to face reality.) The subject line of the email was, Sometimes the freest speech is silence. What this writer obviously wants, as you will see, is my silence, not his/her own, God forbid.

And the greatest freedom is to not have to listen to you! You know nothing. Some cute slogan and a soapbox and you're off... There needs to be an anti-bullying movement in every heart, everywhere! It's called common decency and respect for others. With your help, and the idiocy of bureaucrats, people have divorced their own actions from any sense of responsibility. Who are you to say that the stigma of obesity isn't worse than the obesity itself? Cruel words lead to cruel actions. It's just too bad that the gentlest souls far too often direct those actions toward themselves. Then idiots like you turn around and blame them. Do the world a favor and just shut up. Listen for a change. You might be surprised at what you haven't heard.

This person insists there must be decency and respect for everyone. Except, of course, to me, because she doesn't agree with me. She doesn't question her right to be as nasty and insulting to me as she wishes.

I received the following comment to my blog entry, The "Perfect" Anti-Bully Law, from someone identifying herself as Jeannette:

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You have either no understanding or no experience - probably both - of any kind of bullying behaviour that reaches deeper than mild irritation. There are few people for whom the usual daily small and sometimes painful lessons of childhood - do not give them sufficient life skills to deal with the kind of bullying your 'booklet' describes. I checked out your infallible rules. Complete nonsense....I have listened with too much patience already to voices like yours, who recommend these simplistic solutions - ideas from people who - on finding themselves in any similar situation - would have not the slightest idea of any way to cope, and would be brought down very low by it....If you have never experienced that - you may not hope to understand how your article sounds, like nonsense, to anyone who has.

You have absolutely no right whatsoever to be making this attempt to harrass those who try to protect the lives of children and adults from one of the most pernicious ills of our time.

This intelligent writer believes that since I am criticizing the failing anti-bully movement, trying to wake the public up to the folly of anti-bully laws, and providing free advice that has helped countless people throughout the world successully deal with bullying, I am somehow "harassing" her. Have I ever done a thing to stop her--or anyone else--from trying to protect children from each other? It is not I who is fighting for laws that force us to think or behave in a certain way.

She says I "have absolutely no right whatsoever to be making this attempt..." Absolutely no right whatsoever?! How about the First Amendment?! But Freedom of Speech is dead, and even the most educated people today have forgotten it. These anti-bully activists who are so dead set against nastiness have no hesitation to be nasty to anyone they don't agree with. Only one point of view is permitted today. The only Freedom of Speech we have today is to say things that the anti-bully crusaders approve of. Three cheers for the demise of democracy!

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If you haven't already viewed these videos, I invite you to see the power of Freedom of Speech in action. Two of the three sample videos from my Victim-Proof Your School program that can be viewed on my website demonstrate the power of Freedom of Speech to stop bullying. In each video scene, I first try to deny the other person Freedom of Speech; the second time I grant them Freedom of Speech.

The following is a scene in which a student is cursing a teacher: How Should Teachers Handle Being Bullied

The following is a medley of scenes of people calling me idiot (it would work with any other insult): The Idiot Game

I hope you are getting an increased appreciation for Freedom of Speech. If society were to spend a fraction of the time and effort teaching the meaning and practice of Freedom of Speech that it does fighting for anti-bully laws, we would achieve a greater reduction in bullying and a greater increase in tolerance and harmony than we can ever hope to achieve through the most intensive anti-bully laws!

[duaneodavila]

Judge McMahon and The Graham Rule

The brave voices who now admit they knew all about Judge Kozinski’s porn peccadilloes but only spoke out after Heidi Bond was brave enough to take the lead and they could follow behind her in safety, talk about the whisper network. There were whisper of risk and impropriety, so those who sought and obtained clerkships with Koz knew what they were getting into.

Penn State lawprof Dara Purvis says the Legal Academy should allow the women who took the risk to do so again. Rather, they should blackball judges who are reputed to be a danger to students.

If there are credible reports that a judge’s chambers are not safe for our graduates, professors should band together, refuse to send our students to that judge and publicly explain why.

But judges have their whisper networks too. And Chief Judge Colleen McMahon of the Southern District of New York is hearing the whispers.

    But a corollary development is largely being ignored.

It is the re-emergence of a very offensive “defensive” practice that today bears the moniker of a prominent politician, but that used to be known as the “Graham Rule.”

The Graham Rule says that a man should make sure he is never alone in a room with any woman other than his wife for any reason—including perfectly legitimate business reasons.

That way, he can avoid both the temptation to engage in inappropriate behavior and any chance that he might be the victim of an unwarranted accusation.

The Graham Rule walls off women from the associational benefits enjoyed by male lawyers and clerks, denying them the same participation that males enjoy.

That scares me to death.

Because I remember a time when entirely too many women, in our profession and every other,  were denied opportunities for mentoring, for networking, for assignment to the best deals and the most exciting, challenging cases—all because someone was, or claimed to be, living by the Graham Rule.

Are some male judges ready to circle the wagons?

As revelation cascades upon revelation, some perfectly sensible men, concerned that there may be difference of opinion between men and women over what constitutes unacceptable behavior in the workplace, have wondered aloud in my presence whether something like the Graham Rule might not be a salutary and effective prophylactic.

Judge McMahon put it gently, and somewhat underwhelmingly, from what I hear on the whisper network. The “business” of a judge isn’t to provide a place for female clerks to go in the morning. It’s not that they have any desire to discriminate against women, but they aren’t prepared to dedicate their jobs, chambers, careers, to cater to whatever some particularly woke female clerk may later decide is harassment. They want female clerks. Just not badly enough to invite potential misery into their chambers.

Facing a potential minefield, what’s a judge to do? If your answer is absurdly simplistic “just don’t harass,” you’re likely not clerk material in the first place. Harassment is whatever someone claims it is, without parameters or limitations, As any moderately sentient lawyer knows, if the putative victim defines the offense, the putative perpetrator has no clue what it will be until after the dirty deed is done. Nobody is willing to live like that.

Even the “good guys” are concerned about what they’re inviting into their chambers going forward. They’ve seen the bus run over the good guys just like the bad guys. Hiring female clerks in an effort to provide equal opportunity may demonstrate their good intentions, but good intentions won’t stop that landmine from exploding should they step on it.

What could go wrong? An off-color joke gets told in chambers. A less-than-social-justice-approved question gets raised? More to the point, who knows what will be deemed offensive these days? Should judges obsess over whatever microaggression arises? Their job is to serve as judges, not to recreate the courthouse to meet the ever-changing, often post hoc, demands of the baby lawyer to whom they’ve given the opportunity to clerk.

Judge McMahon is right about the Graham Rule, that it’s a terrible thing to wall off female law clerks from the opportunities they should enjoy. But even if a judge tries to be as sensitive to the demands of female clerks as possible, any mistake could land them on the prawfs blacklist. Or worse, on the front page of the newspaper. As she asserts, it’s illegal and immoral.

It is illegal because it violates the law to treat women and men differently at work in any respect. That includes refusing to meet with or mentor colleagues of one gender but not another, or cutting colleagues of one gender off from opportunities, even in the name of propriety.

And it is immoral because it puts the onus for controlling inappropriate behavior on the wrong person.

While true, this doesn’t quite address the problem, providing no parameters to what makes behavior inappropriate,  no limit on the “wrong person” from accusations of behavior that is innocuous except to the person offended. Some people can find reasons to be offended by almost anything. And Judge McMahon seems to be giving this warning.

Women in this room, especially young women, you dare not let this pernicious form of discrimination creep back, in the guise of making your workplace safer.

For if you do, you will discover that women can be victimized because of their gender in many ways, not all of which involve sexual misconduct, but all of which are detrimental to your chance of becoming an outstanding member of our profession.

Perhaps this means to stop seeking out reasons to be offended, to claim harassment, or you will overplay your hand and force judges to either invoke the Graham Rule or worse, stop hiring female clerks. Perhaps this means something entirely different. It’s hard to say. But Judge McMahon never had a me too moment.

And never once—never once—did any of them say or do anything that made me uncomfortable.

She offers the solution in the Liman Rule, referring to the legendary Arthur Liman.

It went like this: Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want your mother to read about on the front page of The New York Times.

It’s a nice rule from an earlier, simpler age, but neither Judge McMahon nor mom are the metric of discomfort giving rise to accusations today. And the judges know it.

Copyright © 2007-2017 Simple Justice NY, LLC This feed is for personal, non-commercial and Newstex use only. The use of this feed anywhere else violates copyright. If this content is not in your news reader, it means the page you are viewing infringes copyright. (Digital Fingerprint: 51981395c77d7762065ca2c084b63e47) Judge McMahon and The Graham Rule republished via Simple Justice

[marie85marketing]

The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO

Search engine optimization — SEO — is one of those “you love it or you hate it” topics.

Some get a charge out of the challenge of keeping up with those wily engineers at Google.

Others would rather eat a bug than try to figure out what “headless crawling” means and which redirect is the right one to pick in months that end in R.

I have to confess, I’m in the bug-eating camp on this one.

Fortunately, although technical SEO is still important for some sites, there’s a crazy-powerful optimization technique that people like me can get really good at.

Yes, it’s content. (You already knew that, because you’re smart.) Yes, it has to be good content. And yes, I’m going to talk about what, specifically, “good” means.

But first, I’m going to talk about my most important search optimization rule.

The great rule of SEO

My first and primary rule, when thinking about search engines, is never to do anything for the sake of SEO that screws up the experience for the audience.

That cuts out some downright dumb behavior, like overstuffing your content with keywords.

But it also helps you evaluate new advice that comes along. If it makes your site less useable, if it makes your message less effective, or if it alienates or confuses your audience … you should probably skip it.

Here are nine SEO recommendations that also work to make your site experience better for the human beings who read your content, listen to your podcasts, and actually pay for your products and services.

#1: Answer actual audience questions

Want lots and lots of people to visit your site, and stick around once they find you? Answer their pressing questions, and you’ll get your wish.

People fire up a search engine because they have unanswered questions. If you’re smart and knowledgeable about your topic, you can help with that.

Tutorial content is wonderful, but also think about questions like:

Why is [the thing] so hard to get started?

How competitive is [the thing]?

How can I get motivated to do more of [the thing]?

Is there a community of people who want to talk about [the thing]?

Where can I share my own stories about [the thing] and read other people’s?

#2: Use the language they use

Hand in hand with answering real audience questions is using your audience’s language.

That brings us to our friend keyword research. (Check out Beth’s post tomorrow for more on that.)

It’s too bad that some people still think keyword research means looking up a bunch of word salad that makes sense to rooms of computers in Silicon Valley.

Keyword research means figuring out the language that real human beings enter into search engines to find your stuff.

There are great tools out there for finding those turns of phrase. You can also add in some smart social media listening and pay attention to how people talk on the web about your topic. (This is also a good way to find more of those “problems people care about” I talked about in the last point.)

By the way, you don’t have to feel chained to a narrow set of word combinations that you found with your keyword research tool. Use the keyword phrases you find, absolutely, but don’t use them so much that it gets weird. You don’t have to do an in-depth study of latent semantic indexing — just use synonyms.

(Kind of like a real writer does. Golly.)

Use metaphors and analogies. Use a few big or unusual words (if they’re natural to your voice). Flesh out your list of keywords with all of the fascinating and creative things that writers and artists do.

#3: Cover topics comprehensively

Content and SEO experts love to write articles about precisely how long your content should be. Over the years, the recommendations have gone up, and then down, sideways, and any other direction you might think of.

My advice: your content should be as long as necessary to make your point.

Some ideas can be expressed quickly, with punchy, interesting little posts.

Some ideas need more time to develop fully. They deserve a longer format or a content series that gets published over time. You could even dedicate specific months to covering a subject in more depth, like we’re doing this year on Copyblogger. (Have you noticed? Three guesses what March’s topic theme is …)

A strong series can be repurposed into ebooks (or a whole ebook library, once you have a solid archive), podcasts, infographics, SlideShares, videos, and premium products like courses.

Stop falling for the myth of the “goldfish attention span.” Twenty-first-century audiences have plenty of attention for the things they care about, as long as you make the content easy to consume. Which brings us to …

#4: Create a user-friendly experience

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your content is — if it’s published in walls of tiny gray type, without subheads or line breaks, most users will skip it.

It’s actually really simple to take a strong piece of writing and make it much more accessible by formatting it well.

Make sure everything on your site is easy to read, watch, or listen to. Give everything a clear call to action, so people know what to do next. And establish clear paths to the outcomes your users want … using smart content marketing strategy to present useful options at every point along the way.

While we’re on the subject, if your site looks like it was published in 2003, you need a makeover. Immediately. Premium WordPress themes are a massive bargain for the design expertise (and clean back-end code) they give you in a turnkey package.

Also, users and search engines share a hatred of hacked websites. Use secure tools, including reputable themes and quality hosting, and a good monitoring service like Sucuri to make sure nothing funky is going on.

#5: Write about the whole picture

Covering your topic comprehensively matters, but it’s not just about going deep.

There’s also a real benefit to looking around and going wide with your content.

What’s the context for your topic? Who else is publishing about it? What are the trends? What’s changing? How is the larger environment shaping what’s going on? Who do you agree with? Who do you disagree with?

What do people need to know before they dive into your thing? Where do they start? Where do they go next?

If you write about social media marketing, write about people who have given up on it. Write about people who haven’t started yet. Write about how the larger culture and worldview are changing social media … and how social media is changing the world.

Every topic takes place in a larger context. If that context interests your audience, it should be part of your content mix.

#6: Cultivate your community of topic experts

Link-building is one of the most important topics in SEO.

Here’s a secret:

Link-building is community-building.

Even if your competitors aren’t into the whole “co-opetition” idea, there’s a larger community that cares about what you do.

My friend Jim is an orthopedic surgeon who creates YouTube content about surgical procedures. Other surgeons might (but probably won’t) link to him, because he’s a true competitor — you only get your knee operated on once. (We hope.)

But runners would link to him. Skiers would, too. And sites about staying athletic as you age.

Think about the community of web publishers who have the audience you want. Develop relationships with them. Support each other.

This isn’t, of course, about spamming people you don’t know and begging them for links. It’s about making yourself a valued participant in a larger ecosystem.

One terrific way to build amazing connections (and the links that go with them) is to publish guest content on excellent sites. Try it in a lazy, cheap way and it’s spam. Put the effort in to craft genuinely excellent material that serves their audience (and invites them to come check you out), and it’s a winning strategy.

#7: Keep things organized

Good technical SEOs know all about creating a logical site structure that’s easy for search engines to parse.

As I may have mentioned, I in no way resemble a good technical SEO. Instead, I rely on the Genesis framework and common-sense tags and categories to keep my site properly organized on the back end.

But it pays to keep yourself organized on the front end as well. That means making sure your navigation makes sense for what your site looks like today, not two years ago. It means you take your most valuable content and get it somewhere people can easily find it. And it means you link to your best content often, so your audience naturally continues to find and benefit from it.

#8: Quit being so damned boring

You can do everything “right” for SEO and still get no traction.

Why? Because no one links to you, no one visits your site, and no one recommends your content — it’s too similar to a thousand other sites. It’s boring.

If your niche is incredibly narrow and no one else can write about it, maybe you can get away with boring. Even then, it’s risky.

Be interesting.

#9: Don’t rely (solely) on SEO

And the final SEO tip?

Don’t try to make the search engines your only source of traffic.

Relying on one source of customers for your business is unacceptably risky.

Relying on a monolithic megacorporation as your one source of customers is insane.

Google doesn’t care about your business. Not even a tiny bit. Not even if you give them a lot of money every month for ads.

Make sure there are lots of different ways that potential customers can find you. Keep your eyes open for new opportunities. A platform that was a dud for you last year might offer a lot of promise today. And keep growing your email list, so if you do have a traffic hiccup, you still have a way to reach your most loyal audience.

So … let’s talk search engines

While search engine optimization shouldn’t be the only way you get traffic, it can be an important way for great people to find your site. So this month, we’ll be talking about smart ways to optimize your site for search … without messing up what you’re doing well.

Where are you on the SEO spectrum? Do you enjoy it, maybe even geek out about it, or are you in the eat-a-bug category? Let us know in the comments.

Image source: Jill Heyer via Unsplash.

The post The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO appeared first on Copyblogger.

[hypertagmaster]

The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO

Search engine optimization — SEO — is one of those “you love it or you hate it” topics.

Some get a charge out of the challenge of keeping up with those wily engineers at Google.

Others would rather eat a bug than try to figure out what “headless crawling” means and which redirect is the right one to pick in months that end in R.

I have to confess, I’m in the bug-eating camp on this one.

Fortunately, although technical SEO is still important for some sites, there’s a crazy-powerful optimization technique that people like me can get really good at.

Yes, it’s content. (You already knew that, because you’re smart.) Yes, it has to be good content. And yes, I’m going to talk about what, specifically, “good” means.

But first, I’m going to talk about my most important search optimization rule.

The great rule of SEO

My first and primary rule, when thinking about search engines, is never to do anything for the sake of SEO that screws up the experience for the audience.

That cuts out some downright dumb behavior, like overstuffing your content with keywords.

But it also helps you evaluate new advice that comes along. If it makes your site less useable, if it makes your message less effective, or if it alienates or confuses your audience … you should probably skip it.

Here are nine SEO recommendations that also work to make your site experience better for the human beings who read your content, listen to your podcasts, and actually pay for your products and services.

#1: Answer actual audience questions

Want lots and lots of people to visit your site, and stick around once they find you? Answer their pressing questions, and you’ll get your wish.

People fire up a search engine because they have unanswered questions. If you’re smart and knowledgeable about your topic, you can help with that.

Tutorial content is wonderful, but also think about questions like:

Why is [the thing] so hard to get started?

How competitive is [the thing]?

How can I get motivated to do more of [the thing]?

Is there a community of people who want to talk about [the thing]?

Where can I share my own stories about [the thing] and read other people’s?

#2: Use the language they use

Hand in hand with answering real audience questions is using your audience’s language.

That brings us to our friend keyword research. (Check out Beth’s post tomorrow for more on that.)

It’s too bad that some people still think keyword research means looking up a bunch of word salad that makes sense to rooms of computers in Silicon Valley.

Keyword research means figuring out the language that real human beings enter into search engines to find your stuff.

There are great tools out there for finding those turns of phrase. You can also add in some smart social media listening and pay attention to how people talk on the web about your topic. (This is also a good way to find more of those “problems people care about” I talked about in the last point.)

By the way, you don’t have to feel chained to a narrow set of word combinations that you found with your keyword research tool. Use the keyword phrases you find, absolutely, but don’t use them so much that it gets weird. You don’t have to do an in-depth study of latent semantic indexing — just use synonyms.

(Kind of like a real writer does. Golly.)

Use metaphors and analogies. Use a few big or unusual words (if they’re natural to your voice). Flesh out your list of keywords with all of the fascinating and creative things that writers and artists do.

#3: Cover topics comprehensively

Content and SEO experts love to write articles about precisely how long your content should be. Over the years, the recommendations have gone up, and then down, sideways, and any other direction you might think of.

My advice: your content should be as long as necessary to make your point.

Some ideas can be expressed quickly, with punchy, interesting little posts.

Some ideas need more time to develop fully. They deserve a longer format or a content series that gets published over time. You could even dedicate specific months to covering a subject in more depth, like we’re doing this year on Copyblogger. (Have you noticed? Three guesses what March’s topic theme is …)

A strong series can be repurposed into ebooks (or a whole ebook library, once you have a solid archive), podcasts, infographics, SlideShares, videos, and premium products like courses.

Stop falling for the myth of the “goldfish attention span.” Twenty-first-century audiences have plenty of attention for the things they care about, as long as you make the content easy to consume. Which brings us to …

#4: Create a user-friendly experience

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your content is — if it’s published in walls of tiny gray type, without subheads or line breaks, most users will skip it.

It’s actually really simple to take a strong piece of writing and make it much more accessible by formatting it well.

Make sure everything on your site is easy to read, watch, or listen to. Give everything a clear call to action, so people know what to do next. And establish clear paths to the outcomes your users want … using smart content marketing strategy to present useful options at every point along the way.

While we’re on the subject, if your site looks like it was published in 2003, you need a makeover. Immediately. Premium WordPress themes are a massive bargain for the design expertise (and clean back-end code) they give you in a turnkey package.

Also, users and search engines share a hatred of hacked websites. Use secure tools, including reputable themes and quality hosting, and a good monitoring service like Sucuri to make sure nothing funky is going on.

#5: Write about the whole picture

Covering your topic comprehensively matters, but it’s not just about going deep.

There’s also a real benefit to looking around and going wide with your content.

What’s the context for your topic? Who else is publishing about it? What are the trends? What’s changing? How is the larger environment shaping what’s going on? Who do you agree with? Who do you disagree with?

What do people need to know before they dive into your thing? Where do they start? Where do they go next?

If you write about social media marketing, write about people who have given up on it. Write about people who haven’t started yet. Write about how the larger culture and worldview are changing social media … and how social media is changing the world.

Every topic takes place in a larger context. If that context interests your audience, it should be part of your content mix.

#6: Cultivate your community of topic experts

Link-building is one of the most important topics in SEO.

Here’s a secret:

Link-building is community-building.

Even if your competitors aren’t into the whole “co-opetition” idea, there’s a larger community that cares about what you do.

My friend Jim is an orthopedic surgeon who creates YouTube content about surgical procedures. Other surgeons might (but probably won’t) link to him, because he’s a true competitor — you only get your knee operated on once. (We hope.)

But runners would link to him. Skiers would, too. And sites about staying athletic as you age.

Think about the community of web publishers who have the audience you want. Develop relationships with them. Support each other.

This isn’t, of course, about spamming people you don’t know and begging them for links. It’s about making yourself a valued participant in a larger ecosystem.

One terrific way to build amazing connections (and the links that go with them) is to publish guest content on excellent sites. Try it in a lazy, cheap way and it’s spam. Put the effort in to craft genuinely excellent material that serves their audience (and invites them to come check you out), and it’s a winning strategy.

#7: Keep things organized

Good technical SEOs know all about creating a logical site structure that’s easy for search engines to parse.

As I may have mentioned, I in no way resemble a good technical SEO. Instead, I rely on the Genesis framework and common-sense tags and categories to keep my site properly organized on the back end.

But it pays to keep yourself organized on the front end as well. That means making sure your navigation makes sense for what your site looks like today, not two years ago. It means you take your most valuable content and get it somewhere people can easily find it. And it means you link to your best content often, so your audience naturally continues to find and benefit from it.

#8: Quit being so damned boring

You can do everything “right” for SEO and still get no traction.

Why? Because no one links to you, no one visits your site, and no one recommends your content — it’s too similar to a thousand other sites. It’s boring.

If your niche is incredibly narrow and no one else can write about it, maybe you can get away with boring. Even then, it’s risky.

Be interesting.

#9: Don’t rely (solely) on SEO

And the final SEO tip?

Don’t try to make the search engines your only source of traffic.

Relying on one source of customers for your business is unacceptably risky.

Relying on a monolithic megacorporation as your one source of customers is insane.

Google doesn’t care about your business. Not even a tiny bit. Not even if you give them a lot of money every month for ads.

Make sure there are lots of different ways that potential customers can find you. Keep your eyes open for new opportunities. A platform that was a dud for you last year might offer a lot of promise today. And keep growing your email list, so if you do have a traffic hiccup, you still have a way to reach your most loyal audience.

So … let’s talk search engines

While search engine optimization shouldn’t be the only way you get traffic, it can be an important way for great people to find your site. So this month, we’ll be talking about smart ways to optimize your site for search … without messing up what you’re doing well.

Where are you on the SEO spectrum? Do you enjoy it, maybe even geek out about it, or are you in the eat-a-bug category? Let us know in the comments.

Image source: Jill Heyer via Unsplash.

The post The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO appeared first on Copyblogger.

via marketing http://ift.tt/2n5QnzJ

[goldieseoservices]

The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO

Search engine optimization — SEO — is one of those “you love it or you hate it” topics.

Some get a charge out of the challenge of keeping up with those wily engineers at Google.

Others would rather eat a bug than try to figure out what “headless crawling” means and which redirect is the right one to pick in months that end in R.

I have to confess, I’m in the bug-eating camp on this one.

Fortunately, although technical SEO is still important for some sites, there’s a crazy-powerful optimization technique that people like me can get really good at.

Yes, it’s content. (You already knew that, because you’re smart.) Yes, it has to be good content. And yes, I’m going to talk about what, specifically, “good” means.

But first, I’m going to talk about my most important search optimization rule.

The great rule of SEO

My first and primary rule, when thinking about search engines, is never to do anything for the sake of SEO that screws up the experience for the audience.

That cuts out some downright dumb behavior, like overstuffing your content with keywords.

But it also helps you evaluate new advice that comes along. If it makes your site less useable, if it makes your message less effective, or if it alienates or confuses your audience … you should probably skip it.

Here are nine SEO recommendations that also work to make your site experience better for the human beings who read your content, listen to your podcasts, and actually pay for your products and services.

#1: Answer actual audience questions

Want lots and lots of people to visit your site, and stick around once they find you? Answer their pressing questions, and you’ll get your wish.

People fire up a search engine because they have unanswered questions. If you’re smart and knowledgeable about your topic, you can help with that.

Tutorial content is wonderful, but also think about questions like:

Why is [the thing] so hard to get started?

How competitive is [the thing]?

How can I get motivated to do more of [the thing]?

Is there a community of people who want to talk about [the thing]?

Where can I share my own stories about [the thing] and read other people’s?

#2: Use the language they use

Hand in hand with answering real audience questions is using your audience’s language.

That brings us to our friend keyword research. (Check out Beth’s post tomorrow for more on that.)

It’s too bad that some people still think keyword research means looking up a bunch of word salad that makes sense to rooms of computers in Silicon Valley.

Keyword research means figuring out the language that real human beings enter into search engines to find your stuff.

There are great tools out there for finding those turns of phrase. You can also add in some smart social media listening and pay attention to how people talk on the web about your topic. (This is also a good way to find more of those “problems people care about” I talked about in the last point.)

By the way, you don’t have to feel chained to a narrow set of word combinations that you found with your keyword research tool. Use the keyword phrases you find, absolutely, but don’t use them so much that it gets weird. You don’t have to do an in-depth study of latent semantic indexing — just use synonyms.

(Kind of like a real writer does. Golly.)

Use metaphors and analogies. Use a few big or unusual words (if they’re natural to your voice). Flesh out your list of keywords with all of the fascinating and creative things that writers and artists do.

#3: Cover topics comprehensively

Content and SEO experts love to write articles about precisely how long your content should be. Over the years, the recommendations have gone up, and then down, sideways, and any other direction you might think of.

My advice: your content should be as long as necessary to make your point.

Some ideas can be expressed quickly, with punchy, interesting little posts.

Some ideas need more time to develop fully. They deserve a longer format or a content series that gets published over time. You could even dedicate specific months to covering a subject in more depth, like we’re doing this year on Copyblogger. (Have you noticed? Three guesses what March’s topic theme is …)

A strong series can be repurposed into ebooks (or a whole ebook library, once you have a solid archive), podcasts, infographics, SlideShares, videos, and premium products like courses.

Stop falling for the myth of the “goldfish attention span.” Twenty-first-century audiences have plenty of attention for the things they care about, as long as you make the content easy to consume. Which brings us to …

#4: Create a user-friendly experience

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your content is — if it’s published in walls of tiny gray type, without subheads or line breaks, most users will skip it.

It’s actually really simple to take a strong piece of writing and make it much more accessible by formatting it well.

Make sure everything on your site is easy to read, watch, or listen to. Give everything a clear call to action, so people know what to do next. And establish clear paths to the outcomes your users want … using smart content marketing strategy to present useful options at every point along the way.

While we’re on the subject, if your site looks like it was published in 2003, you need a makeover. Immediately. Premium WordPress themes are a massive bargain for the design expertise (and clean back-end code) they give you in a turnkey package.

Also, users and search engines share a hatred of hacked websites. Use secure tools, including reputable themes and quality hosting, and a good monitoring service like Sucuri to make sure nothing funky is going on.

#5: Write about the whole picture

Covering your topic comprehensively matters, but it’s not just about going deep.

There’s also a real benefit to looking around and going wide with your content.

What’s the context for your topic? Who else is publishing about it? What are the trends? What’s changing? How is the larger environment shaping what’s going on? Who do you agree with? Who do you disagree with?

What do people need to know before they dive into your thing? Where do they start? Where do they go next?

If you write about social media marketing, write about people who have given up on it. Write about people who haven’t started yet. Write about how the larger culture and worldview are changing social media … and how social media is changing the world.

Every topic takes place in a larger context. If that context interests your audience, it should be part of your content mix.

#6: Cultivate your community of topic experts

Link-building is one of the most important topics in SEO.

Here’s a secret:

Link-building is community-building.

Even if your competitors aren’t into the whole “co-opetition” idea, there’s a larger community that cares about what you do.

My friend Jim is an orthopedic surgeon who creates YouTube content about surgical procedures. Other surgeons might (but probably won’t) link to him, because he’s a true competitor — you only get your knee operated on once. (We hope.)

But runners would link to him. Skiers would, too. And sites about staying athletic as you age.

Think about the community of web publishers who have the audience you want. Develop relationships with them. Support each other.

This isn’t, of course, about spamming people you don’t know and begging them for links. It’s about making yourself a valued participant in a larger ecosystem.

One terrific way to build amazing connections (and the links that go with them) is to publish guest content on excellent sites. Try it in a lazy, cheap way and it’s spam. Put the effort in to craft genuinely excellent material that serves their audience (and invites them to come check you out), and it’s a winning strategy.

#7: Keep things organized

Good technical SEOs know all about creating a logical site structure that’s easy for search engines to parse.

As I may have mentioned, I in no way resemble a good technical SEO. Instead, I rely on the Genesis framework and common-sense tags and categories to keep my site properly organized on the back end.

But it pays to keep yourself organized on the front end as well. That means making sure your navigation makes sense for what your site looks like today, not two years ago. It means you take your most valuable content and get it somewhere people can easily find it. And it means you link to your best content often, so your audience naturally continues to find and benefit from it.

#8: Quit being so damned boring

You can do everything “right” for SEO and still get no traction.

Why? Because no one links to you, no one visits your site, and no one recommends your content — it’s too similar to a thousand other sites. It’s boring.

If your niche is incredibly narrow and no one else can write about it, maybe you can get away with boring. Even then, it’s risky.

Be interesting.

#9: Don’t rely (solely) on SEO

And the final SEO tip?

Don’t try to make the search engines your only source of traffic.

Relying on one source of customers for your business is unacceptably risky.

Relying on a monolithic megacorporation as your one source of customers is insane.

Google doesn’t care about your business. Not even a tiny bit. Not even if you give them a lot of money every month for ads.

Make sure there are lots of different ways that potential customers can find you. Keep your eyes open for new opportunities. A platform that was a dud for you last year might offer a lot of promise today. And keep growing your email list, so if you do have a traffic hiccup, you still have a way to reach your most loyal audience.

So … let’s talk search engines

While search engine optimization shouldn’t be the only way you get traffic, it can be an important way for great people to find your site. So this month, we’ll be talking about smart ways to optimize your site for search … without messing up what you’re doing well.

Where are you on the SEO spectrum? Do you enjoy it, maybe even geek out about it, or are you in the eat-a-bug category? Let us know in the comments.

Image source: Jill Heyer via Unsplash.

The post The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO appeared first on Copyblogger.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2lwbSgM

[seo53703]

The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO

Search engine optimization — SEO — is one of those “you love it or you hate it” topics.

Some get a charge out of the challenge of keeping up with those wily engineers at Google.

Others would rather eat a bug than try to figure out what “headless crawling” means and which redirect is the right one to pick in months that end in R.

I have to confess, I’m in the bug-eating camp on this one.

Fortunately, although technical SEO is still important for some sites, there’s a crazy-powerful optimization technique that people like me can get really good at.

Yes, it’s content. (You already knew that, because you’re smart.) Yes, it has to be good content. And yes, I’m going to talk about what, specifically, “good” means.

But first, I’m going to talk about my most important search optimization rule.

The great rule of SEO

My first and primary rule, when thinking about search engines, is never to do anything for the sake of SEO that screws up the experience for the audience.

That cuts out some downright dumb behavior, like overstuffing your content with keywords.

But it also helps you evaluate new advice that comes along. If it makes your site less useable, if it makes your message less effective, or if it alienates or confuses your audience … you should probably skip it.

Here are nine SEO recommendations that also work to make your site experience better for the human beings who read your content, listen to your podcasts, and actually pay for your products and services.

#1: Answer actual audience questions

Want lots and lots of people to visit your site, and stick around once they find you? Answer their pressing questions, and you’ll get your wish.

People fire up a search engine because they have unanswered questions. If you’re smart and knowledgeable about your topic, you can help with that.

Tutorial content is wonderful, but also think about questions like:

Why is [the thing] so hard to get started?

How competitive is [the thing]?

How can I get motivated to do more of [the thing]?

Is there a community of people who want to talk about [the thing]?

Where can I share my own stories about [the thing] and read other people’s?

#2: Use the language they use

Hand in hand with answering real audience questions is using your audience’s language.

That brings us to our friend keyword research. (Check out Beth’s post tomorrow for more on that.)

It’s too bad that some people still think keyword research means looking up a bunch of word salad that makes sense to rooms of computers in Silicon Valley.

Keyword research means figuring out the language that real human beings enter into search engines to find your stuff.

There are great tools out there for finding those turns of phrase. You can also add in some smart social media listening and pay attention to how people talk on the web about your topic. (This is also a good way to find more of those “problems people care about” I talked about in the last point.)

By the way, you don’t have to feel chained to a narrow set of word combinations that you found with your keyword research tool. Use the keyword phrases you find, absolutely, but don’t use them so much that it gets weird. You don’t have to do an in-depth study of latent semantic indexing — just use synonyms.

(Kind of like a real writer does. Golly.)

Use metaphors and analogies. Use a few big or unusual words (if they’re natural to your voice). Flesh out your list of keywords with all of the fascinating and creative things that writers and artists do.

#3: Cover topics comprehensively

Content and SEO experts love to write articles about precisely how long your content should be. Over the years, the recommendations have gone up, and then down, sideways, and any other direction you might think of.

My advice: your content should be as long as necessary to make your point.

Some ideas can be expressed quickly, with punchy, interesting little posts.

Some ideas need more time to develop fully. They deserve a longer format or a content series that gets published over time. You could even dedicate specific months to covering a subject in more depth, like we’re doing this year on Copyblogger. (Have you noticed? Three guesses what March’s topic theme is …)

A strong series can be repurposed into ebooks (or a whole ebook library, once you have a solid archive), podcasts, infographics, SlideShares, videos, and premium products like courses.

Stop falling for the myth of the “goldfish attention span.” Twenty-first-century audiences have plenty of attention for the things they care about, as long as you make the content easy to consume. Which brings us to …

#4: Create a user-friendly experience

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your content is — if it’s published in walls of tiny gray type, without subheads or line breaks, most users will skip it.

It’s actually really simple to take a strong piece of writing and make it much more accessible by formatting it well.

Make sure everything on your site is easy to read, watch, or listen to. Give everything a clear call to action, so people know what to do next. And establish clear paths to the outcomes your users want … using smart content marketing strategy to present useful options at every point along the way.

While we’re on the subject, if your site looks like it was published in 2003, you need a makeover. Immediately. Premium WordPress themes are a massive bargain for the design expertise (and clean back-end code) they give you in a turnkey package.

Also, users and search engines share a hatred of hacked websites. Use secure tools, including reputable themes and quality hosting, and a good monitoring service like Sucuri to make sure nothing funky is going on.

#5: Write about the whole picture

Covering your topic comprehensively matters, but it’s not just about going deep.

There’s also a real benefit to looking around and going wide with your content.

What’s the context for your topic? Who else is publishing about it? What are the trends? What’s changing? How is the larger environment shaping what’s going on? Who do you agree with? Who do you disagree with?

What do people need to know before they dive into your thing? Where do they start? Where do they go next?

If you write about social media marketing, write about people who have given up on it. Write about people who haven’t started yet. Write about how the larger culture and worldview are changing social media … and how social media is changing the world.

Every topic takes place in a larger context. If that context interests your audience, it should be part of your content mix.

#6: Cultivate your community of topic experts

Link-building is one of the most important topics in SEO.

Here’s a secret:

Link-building is community-building.

Even if your competitors aren’t into the whole “co-opetition” idea, there’s a larger community that cares about what you do.

My friend Jim is an orthopedic surgeon who creates YouTube content about surgical procedures. Other surgeons might (but probably won’t) link to him, because he’s a true competitor — you only get your knee operated on once. (We hope.)

But runners would link to him. Skiers would, too. And sites about staying athletic as you age.

Think about the community of web publishers who have the audience you want. Develop relationships with them. Support each other.

This isn’t, of course, about spamming people you don’t know and begging them for links. It’s about making yourself a valued participant in a larger ecosystem.

One terrific way to build amazing connections (and the links that go with them) is to publish guest content on excellent sites. Try it in a lazy, cheap way and it’s spam. Put the effort in to craft genuinely excellent material that serves their audience (and invites them to come check you out), and it’s a winning strategy.

#7: Keep things organized

Good technical SEOs know all about creating a logical site structure that’s easy for search engines to parse.

As I may have mentioned, I in no way resemble a good technical SEO. Instead, I rely on the Genesis framework and common-sense tags and categories to keep my site properly organized on the back end.

But it pays to keep yourself organized on the front end as well. That means making sure your navigation makes sense for what your site looks like today, not two years ago. It means you take your most valuable content and get it somewhere people can easily find it. And it means you link to your best content often, so your audience naturally continues to find and benefit from it.

#8: Quit being so damned boring

You can do everything “right” for SEO and still get no traction.

Why? Because no one links to you, no one visits your site, and no one recommends your content — it’s too similar to a thousand other sites. It’s boring.

If your niche is incredibly narrow and no one else can write about it, maybe you can get away with boring. Even then, it’s risky.

Be interesting.

#9: Don’t rely (solely) on SEO

And the final SEO tip?

Don’t try to make the search engines your only source of traffic.

Relying on one source of customers for your business is unacceptably risky.

Relying on a monolithic megacorporation as your one source of customers is insane.

Google doesn’t care about your business. Not even a tiny bit. Not even if you give them a lot of money every month for ads.

Make sure there are lots of different ways that potential customers can find you. Keep your eyes open for new opportunities. A platform that was a dud for you last year might offer a lot of promise today. And keep growing your email list, so if you do have a traffic hiccup, you still have a way to reach your most loyal audience.

So … let’s talk search engines

While search engine optimization shouldn’t be the only way you get traffic, it can be an important way for great people to find your site. So this month, we’ll be talking about smart ways to optimize your site for search … without messing up what you’re doing well.

Where are you on the SEO spectrum? Do you enjoy it, maybe even geek out about it, or are you in the eat-a-bug category? Let us know in the comments.

Image source: Jill Heyer via Unsplash.

The post The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO appeared first on Copyblogger.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2lwbSgM

[seoprovider2110]

The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO

Search engine optimization — SEO — is one of those “you love it or you hate it” topics.

Some get a charge out of the challenge of keeping up with those wily engineers at Google.

Others would rather eat a bug than try to figure out what “headless crawling” means and which redirect is the right one to pick in months that end in R.

I have to confess, I’m in the bug-eating camp on this one.

Fortunately, although technical SEO is still important for some sites, there’s a crazy-powerful optimization technique that people like me can get really good at.

Yes, it’s content. (You already knew that, because you’re smart.) Yes, it has to be good content. And yes, I’m going to talk about what, specifically, “good” means.

But first, I’m going to talk about my most important search optimization rule.

The great rule of SEO

My first and primary rule, when thinking about search engines, is never to do anything for the sake of SEO that screws up the experience for the audience.

That cuts out some downright dumb behavior, like overstuffing your content with keywords.

But it also helps you evaluate new advice that comes along. If it makes your site less useable, if it makes your message less effective, or if it alienates or confuses your audience … you should probably skip it.

Here are nine SEO recommendations that also work to make your site experience better for the human beings who read your content, listen to your podcasts, and actually pay for your products and services.

#1: Answer actual audience questions

Want lots and lots of people to visit your site, and stick around once they find you? Answer their pressing questions, and you’ll get your wish.

People fire up a search engine because they have unanswered questions. If you’re smart and knowledgeable about your topic, you can help with that.

Tutorial content is wonderful, but also think about questions like:

Why is [the thing] so hard to get started?

How competitive is [the thing]?

How can I get motivated to do more of [the thing]?

Is there a community of people who want to talk about [the thing]?

Where can I share my own stories about [the thing] and read other people’s?

#2: Use the language they use

Hand in hand with answering real audience questions is using your audience’s language.

That brings us to our friend keyword research. (Check out Beth’s post tomorrow for more on that.)

It’s too bad that some people still think keyword research means looking up a bunch of word salad that makes sense to rooms of computers in Silicon Valley.

Keyword research means figuring out the language that real human beings enter into search engines to find your stuff.

There are great tools out there for finding those turns of phrase. You can also add in some smart social media listening and pay attention to how people talk on the web about your topic. (This is also a good way to find more of those “problems people care about” I talked about in the last point.)

By the way, you don’t have to feel chained to a narrow set of word combinations that you found with your keyword research tool. Use the keyword phrases you find, absolutely, but don’t use them so much that it gets weird. You don’t have to do an in-depth study of latent semantic indexing — just use synonyms.

(Kind of like a real writer does. Golly.)

Use metaphors and analogies. Use a few big or unusual words (if they’re natural to your voice). Flesh out your list of keywords with all of the fascinating and creative things that writers and artists do.

#3: Cover topics comprehensively

Content and SEO experts love to write articles about precisely how long your content should be. Over the years, the recommendations have gone up, and then down, sideways, and any other direction you might think of.

My advice: your content should be as long as necessary to make your point.

Some ideas can be expressed quickly, with punchy, interesting little posts.

Some ideas need more time to develop fully. They deserve a longer format or a content series that gets published over time. You could even dedicate specific months to covering a subject in more depth, like we’re doing this year on Copyblogger. (Have you noticed? Three guesses what March’s topic theme is …)

A strong series can be repurposed into ebooks (or a whole ebook library, once you have a solid archive), podcasts, infographics, SlideShares, videos, and premium products like courses.

Stop falling for the myth of the “goldfish attention span.” Twenty-first-century audiences have plenty of attention for the things they care about, as long as you make the content easy to consume. Which brings us to …

#4: Create a user-friendly experience

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your content is — if it’s published in walls of tiny gray type, without subheads or line breaks, most users will skip it.

It’s actually really simple to take a strong piece of writing and make it much more accessible by formatting it well.

Make sure everything on your site is easy to read, watch, or listen to. Give everything a clear call to action, so people know what to do next. And establish clear paths to the outcomes your users want … using smart content marketing strategy to present useful options at every point along the way.

While we’re on the subject, if your site looks like it was published in 2003, you need a makeover. Immediately. Premium WordPress themes are a massive bargain for the design expertise (and clean back-end code) they give you in a turnkey package.

Also, users and search engines share a hatred of hacked websites. Use secure tools, including reputable themes and quality hosting, and a good monitoring service like Sucuri to make sure nothing funky is going on.

#5: Write about the whole picture

Covering your topic comprehensively matters, but it’s not just about going deep.

There’s also a real benefit to looking around and going wide with your content.

What’s the context for your topic? Who else is publishing about it? What are the trends? What’s changing? How is the larger environment shaping what’s going on? Who do you agree with? Who do you disagree with?

What do people need to know before they dive into your thing? Where do they start? Where do they go next?

If you write about social media marketing, write about people who have given up on it. Write about people who haven’t started yet. Write about how the larger culture and worldview are changing social media … and how social media is changing the world.

Every topic takes place in a larger context. If that context interests your audience, it should be part of your content mix.

#6: Cultivate your community of topic experts

Link-building is one of the most important topics in SEO.

Here’s a secret:

Link-building is community-building.

Even if your competitors aren’t into the whole “co-opetition” idea, there’s a larger community that cares about what you do.

My friend Jim is an orthopedic surgeon who creates YouTube content about surgical procedures. Other surgeons might (but probably won’t) link to him, because he’s a true competitor — you only get your knee operated on once. (We hope.)

But runners would link to him. Skiers would, too. And sites about staying athletic as you age.

Think about the community of web publishers who have the audience you want. Develop relationships with them. Support each other.

This isn’t, of course, about spamming people you don’t know and begging them for links. It’s about making yourself a valued participant in a larger ecosystem.

One terrific way to build amazing connections (and the links that go with them) is to publish guest content on excellent sites. Try it in a lazy, cheap way and it’s spam. Put the effort in to craft genuinely excellent material that serves their audience (and invites them to come check you out), and it’s a winning strategy.

#7: Keep things organized

Good technical SEOs know all about creating a logical site structure that’s easy for search engines to parse.

As I may have mentioned, I in no way resemble a good technical SEO. Instead, I rely on the Genesis framework and common-sense tags and categories to keep my site properly organized on the back end.

But it pays to keep yourself organized on the front end as well. That means making sure your navigation makes sense for what your site looks like today, not two years ago. It means you take your most valuable content and get it somewhere people can easily find it. And it means you link to your best content often, so your audience naturally continues to find and benefit from it.

#8: Quit being so damned boring

You can do everything “right” for SEO and still get no traction.

Why? Because no one links to you, no one visits your site, and no one recommends your content — it’s too similar to a thousand other sites. It’s boring.

If your niche is incredibly narrow and no one else can write about it, maybe you can get away with boring. Even then, it’s risky.

Be interesting.

#9: Don’t rely (solely) on SEO

And the final SEO tip?

Don’t try to make the search engines your only source of traffic.

Relying on one source of customers for your business is unacceptably risky.

Relying on a monolithic megacorporation as your one source of customers is insane.

Google doesn’t care about your business. Not even a tiny bit. Not even if you give them a lot of money every month for ads.

Make sure there are lots of different ways that potential customers can find you. Keep your eyes open for new opportunities. A platform that was a dud for you last year might offer a lot of promise today. And keep growing your email list, so if you do have a traffic hiccup, you still have a way to reach your most loyal audience.

So … let’s talk search engines

While search engine optimization shouldn’t be the only way you get traffic, it can be an important way for great people to find your site. So this month, we’ll be talking about smart ways to optimize your site for search … without messing up what you’re doing well.

Where are you on the SEO spectrum? Do you enjoy it, maybe even geek out about it, or are you in the eat-a-bug category? Let us know in the comments.

Image source: Jill Heyer via Unsplash.

The post The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO appeared first on Copyblogger.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2lwbSgM

[seo90210]

The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO

Search engine optimization — SEO — is one of those “you love it or you hate it” topics.

Some get a charge out of the challenge of keeping up with those wily engineers at Google.

Others would rather eat a bug than try to figure out what “headless crawling” means and which redirect is the right one to pick in months that end in R.

I have to confess, I’m in the bug-eating camp on this one.

Fortunately, although technical SEO is still important for some sites, there’s a crazy-powerful optimization technique that people like me can get really good at.

Yes, it’s content. (You already knew that, because you’re smart.) Yes, it has to be good content. And yes, I’m going to talk about what, specifically, “good” means.

But first, I’m going to talk about my most important search optimization rule.

The great rule of SEO

My first and primary rule, when thinking about search engines, is never to do anything for the sake of SEO that screws up the experience for the audience.

That cuts out some downright dumb behavior, like overstuffing your content with keywords.

But it also helps you evaluate new advice that comes along. If it makes your site less useable, if it makes your message less effective, or if it alienates or confuses your audience … you should probably skip it.

Here are nine SEO recommendations that also work to make your site experience better for the human beings who read your content, listen to your podcasts, and actually pay for your products and services.

#1: Answer actual audience questions

Want lots and lots of people to visit your site, and stick around once they find you? Answer their pressing questions, and you’ll get your wish.

People fire up a search engine because they have unanswered questions. If you’re smart and knowledgeable about your topic, you can help with that.

Tutorial content is wonderful, but also think about questions like:

Why is [the thing] so hard to get started?

How competitive is [the thing]?

How can I get motivated to do more of [the thing]?

Is there a community of people who want to talk about [the thing]?

Where can I share my own stories about [the thing] and read other people’s?

#2: Use the language they use

Hand in hand with answering real audience questions is using your audience’s language.

That brings us to our friend keyword research. (Check out Beth’s post tomorrow for more on that.)

It’s too bad that some people still think keyword research means looking up a bunch of word salad that makes sense to rooms of computers in Silicon Valley.

Keyword research means figuring out the language that real human beings enter into search engines to find your stuff.

There are great tools out there for finding those turns of phrase. You can also add in some smart social media listening and pay attention to how people talk on the web about your topic. (This is also a good way to find more of those “problems people care about” I talked about in the last point.)

By the way, you don’t have to feel chained to a narrow set of word combinations that you found with your keyword research tool. Use the keyword phrases you find, absolutely, but don’t use them so much that it gets weird. You don’t have to do an in-depth study of latent semantic indexing — just use synonyms.

(Kind of like a real writer does. Golly.)

Use metaphors and analogies. Use a few big or unusual words (if they’re natural to your voice). Flesh out your list of keywords with all of the fascinating and creative things that writers and artists do.

#3: Cover topics comprehensively

Content and SEO experts love to write articles about precisely how long your content should be. Over the years, the recommendations have gone up, and then down, sideways, and any other direction you might think of.

My advice: your content should be as long as necessary to make your point.

Some ideas can be expressed quickly, with punchy, interesting little posts.

Some ideas need more time to develop fully. They deserve a longer format or a content series that gets published over time. You could even dedicate specific months to covering a subject in more depth, like we’re doing this year on Copyblogger. (Have you noticed? Three guesses what March’s topic theme is …)

A strong series can be repurposed into ebooks (or a whole ebook library, once you have a solid archive), podcasts, infographics, SlideShares, videos, and premium products like courses.

Stop falling for the myth of the “goldfish attention span.” Twenty-first-century audiences have plenty of attention for the things they care about, as long as you make the content easy to consume. Which brings us to …

#4: Create a user-friendly experience

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your content is — if it’s published in walls of tiny gray type, without subheads or line breaks, most users will skip it.

It’s actually really simple to take a strong piece of writing and make it much more accessible by formatting it well.

Make sure everything on your site is easy to read, watch, or listen to. Give everything a clear call to action, so people know what to do next. And establish clear paths to the outcomes your users want … using smart content marketing strategy to present useful options at every point along the way.

While we’re on the subject, if your site looks like it was published in 2003, you need a makeover. Immediately. Premium WordPress themes are a massive bargain for the design expertise (and clean back-end code) they give you in a turnkey package.

Also, users and search engines share a hatred of hacked websites. Use secure tools, including reputable themes and quality hosting, and a good monitoring service like Sucuri to make sure nothing funky is going on.

#5: Write about the whole picture

Covering your topic comprehensively matters, but it’s not just about going deep.

There’s also a real benefit to looking around and going wide with your content.

What’s the context for your topic? Who else is publishing about it? What are the trends? What’s changing? How is the larger environment shaping what’s going on? Who do you agree with? Who do you disagree with?

What do people need to know before they dive into your thing? Where do they start? Where do they go next?

If you write about social media marketing, write about people who have given up on it. Write about people who haven’t started yet. Write about how the larger culture and worldview are changing social media … and how social media is changing the world.

Every topic takes place in a larger context. If that context interests your audience, it should be part of your content mix.

#6: Cultivate your community of topic experts

Link-building is one of the most important topics in SEO.

Here’s a secret:

Link-building is community-building.

Even if your competitors aren’t into the whole “co-opetition” idea, there’s a larger community that cares about what you do.

My friend Jim is an orthopedic surgeon who creates YouTube content about surgical procedures. Other surgeons might (but probably won’t) link to him, because he’s a true competitor — you only get your knee operated on once. (We hope.)

But runners would link to him. Skiers would, too. And sites about staying athletic as you age.

Think about the community of web publishers who have the audience you want. Develop relationships with them. Support each other.

This isn’t, of course, about spamming people you don’t know and begging them for links. It’s about making yourself a valued participant in a larger ecosystem.

One terrific way to build amazing connections (and the links that go with them) is to publish guest content on excellent sites. Try it in a lazy, cheap way and it’s spam. Put the effort in to craft genuinely excellent material that serves their audience (and invites them to come check you out), and it’s a winning strategy.

#7: Keep things organized

Good technical SEOs know all about creating a logical site structure that’s easy for search engines to parse.

As I may have mentioned, I in no way resemble a good technical SEO. Instead, I rely on the Genesis framework and common-sense tags and categories to keep my site properly organized on the back end.

But it pays to keep yourself organized on the front end as well. That means making sure your navigation makes sense for what your site looks like today, not two years ago. It means you take your most valuable content and get it somewhere people can easily find it. And it means you link to your best content often, so your audience naturally continues to find and benefit from it.

#8: Quit being so damned boring

You can do everything “right” for SEO and still get no traction.

Why? Because no one links to you, no one visits your site, and no one recommends your content — it’s too similar to a thousand other sites. It’s boring.

If your niche is incredibly narrow and no one else can write about it, maybe you can get away with boring. Even then, it’s risky.

Be interesting.

#9: Don’t rely (solely) on SEO

And the final SEO tip?

Don’t try to make the search engines your only source of traffic.

Relying on one source of customers for your business is unacceptably risky.

Relying on a monolithic megacorporation as your one source of customers is insane.

Google doesn’t care about your business. Not even a tiny bit. Not even if you give them a lot of money every month for ads.

Make sure there are lots of different ways that potential customers can find you. Keep your eyes open for new opportunities. A platform that was a dud for you last year might offer a lot of promise today. And keep growing your email list, so if you do have a traffic hiccup, you still have a way to reach your most loyal audience.

So … let’s talk search engines

While search engine optimization shouldn’t be the only way you get traffic, it can be an important way for great people to find your site. So this month, we’ll be talking about smart ways to optimize your site for search … without messing up what you’re doing well.

Where are you on the SEO spectrum? Do you enjoy it, maybe even geek out about it, or are you in the eat-a-bug category? Let us know in the comments.

Image source: Jill Heyer via Unsplash.

The post The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO appeared first on Copyblogger.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2lwbSgM

[seo78580]

The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO

Search engine optimization — SEO — is one of those “you love it or you hate it” topics.

Some get a charge out of the challenge of keeping up with those wily engineers at Google.

Others would rather eat a bug than try to figure out what “headless crawling” means and which redirect is the right one to pick in months that end in R.

I have to confess, I’m in the bug-eating camp on this one.

Fortunately, although technical SEO is still important for some sites, there’s a crazy-powerful optimization technique that people like me can get really good at.

Yes, it’s content. (You already knew that, because you’re smart.) Yes, it has to be good content. And yes, I’m going to talk about what, specifically, “good” means.

But first, I’m going to talk about my most important search optimization rule.

The great rule of SEO

My first and primary rule, when thinking about search engines, is never to do anything for the sake of SEO that screws up the experience for the audience.

That cuts out some downright dumb behavior, like overstuffing your content with keywords.

But it also helps you evaluate new advice that comes along. If it makes your site less useable, if it makes your message less effective, or if it alienates or confuses your audience … you should probably skip it.

Here are nine SEO recommendations that also work to make your site experience better for the human beings who read your content, listen to your podcasts, and actually pay for your products and services.

#1: Answer actual audience questions

Want lots and lots of people to visit your site, and stick around once they find you? Answer their pressing questions, and you’ll get your wish.

People fire up a search engine because they have unanswered questions. If you’re smart and knowledgeable about your topic, you can help with that.

Tutorial content is wonderful, but also think about questions like:

Why is [the thing] so hard to get started?

How competitive is [the thing]?

How can I get motivated to do more of [the thing]?

Is there a community of people who want to talk about [the thing]?

Where can I share my own stories about [the thing] and read other people’s?

#2: Use the language they use

Hand in hand with answering real audience questions is using your audience’s language.

That brings us to our friend keyword research. (Check out Beth’s post tomorrow for more on that.)

It’s too bad that some people still think keyword research means looking up a bunch of word salad that makes sense to rooms of computers in Silicon Valley.

Keyword research means figuring out the language that real human beings enter into search engines to find your stuff.

There are great tools out there for finding those turns of phrase. You can also add in some smart social media listening and pay attention to how people talk on the web about your topic. (This is also a good way to find more of those “problems people care about” I talked about in the last point.)

By the way, you don’t have to feel chained to a narrow set of word combinations that you found with your keyword research tool. Use the keyword phrases you find, absolutely, but don’t use them so much that it gets weird. You don’t have to do an in-depth study of latent semantic indexing — just use synonyms.

(Kind of like a real writer does. Golly.)

Use metaphors and analogies. Use a few big or unusual words (if they’re natural to your voice). Flesh out your list of keywords with all of the fascinating and creative things that writers and artists do.

#3: Cover topics comprehensively

Content and SEO experts love to write articles about precisely how long your content should be. Over the years, the recommendations have gone up, and then down, sideways, and any other direction you might think of.

My advice: your content should be as long as necessary to make your point.

Some ideas can be expressed quickly, with punchy, interesting little posts.

Some ideas need more time to develop fully. They deserve a longer format or a content series that gets published over time. You could even dedicate specific months to covering a subject in more depth, like we’re doing this year on Copyblogger. (Have you noticed? Three guesses what March’s topic theme is …)

A strong series can be repurposed into ebooks (or a whole ebook library, once you have a solid archive), podcasts, infographics, SlideShares, videos, and premium products like courses.

Stop falling for the myth of the “goldfish attention span.” Twenty-first-century audiences have plenty of attention for the things they care about, as long as you make the content easy to consume. Which brings us to …

#4: Create a user-friendly experience

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your content is — if it’s published in walls of tiny gray type, without subheads or line breaks, most users will skip it.

It’s actually really simple to take a strong piece of writing and make it much more accessible by formatting it well.

Make sure everything on your site is easy to read, watch, or listen to. Give everything a clear call to action, so people know what to do next. And establish clear paths to the outcomes your users want … using smart content marketing strategy to present useful options at every point along the way.

While we’re on the subject, if your site looks like it was published in 2003, you need a makeover. Immediately. Premium WordPress themes are a massive bargain for the design expertise (and clean back-end code) they give you in a turnkey package.

Also, users and search engines share a hatred of hacked websites. Use secure tools, including reputable themes and quality hosting, and a good monitoring service like Sucuri to make sure nothing funky is going on.

#5: Write about the whole picture

Covering your topic comprehensively matters, but it’s not just about going deep.

There’s also a real benefit to looking around and going wide with your content.

What’s the context for your topic? Who else is publishing about it? What are the trends? What’s changing? How is the larger environment shaping what’s going on? Who do you agree with? Who do you disagree with?

What do people need to know before they dive into your thing? Where do they start? Where do they go next?

If you write about social media marketing, write about people who have given up on it. Write about people who haven’t started yet. Write about how the larger culture and worldview are changing social media … and how social media is changing the world.

Every topic takes place in a larger context. If that context interests your audience, it should be part of your content mix.

#6: Cultivate your community of topic experts

Link-building is one of the most important topics in SEO.

Here’s a secret:

Link-building is community-building.

Even if your competitors aren’t into the whole “co-opetition” idea, there’s a larger community that cares about what you do.

My friend Jim is an orthopedic surgeon who creates YouTube content about surgical procedures. Other surgeons might (but probably won’t) link to him, because he’s a true competitor — you only get your knee operated on once. (We hope.)

But runners would link to him. Skiers would, too. And sites about staying athletic as you age.

Think about the community of web publishers who have the audience you want. Develop relationships with them. Support each other.

This isn’t, of course, about spamming people you don’t know and begging them for links. It’s about making yourself a valued participant in a larger ecosystem.

One terrific way to build amazing connections (and the links that go with them) is to publish guest content on excellent sites. Try it in a lazy, cheap way and it’s spam. Put the effort in to craft genuinely excellent material that serves their audience (and invites them to come check you out), and it’s a winning strategy.

#7: Keep things organized

Good technical SEOs know all about creating a logical site structure that’s easy for search engines to parse.

As I may have mentioned, I in no way resemble a good technical SEO. Instead, I rely on the Genesis framework and common-sense tags and categories to keep my site properly organized on the back end.

But it pays to keep yourself organized on the front end as well. That means making sure your navigation makes sense for what your site looks like today, not two years ago. It means you take your most valuable content and get it somewhere people can easily find it. And it means you link to your best content often, so your audience naturally continues to find and benefit from it.

#8: Quit being so damned boring

You can do everything “right” for SEO and still get no traction.

Why? Because no one links to you, no one visits your site, and no one recommends your content — it’s too similar to a thousand other sites. It’s boring.

If your niche is incredibly narrow and no one else can write about it, maybe you can get away with boring. Even then, it’s risky.

Be interesting.

#9: Don’t rely (solely) on SEO

And the final SEO tip?

Don’t try to make the search engines your only source of traffic.

Relying on one source of customers for your business is unacceptably risky.

Relying on a monolithic megacorporation as your one source of customers is insane.

Google doesn’t care about your business. Not even a tiny bit. Not even if you give them a lot of money every month for ads.

Make sure there are lots of different ways that potential customers can find you. Keep your eyes open for new opportunities. A platform that was a dud for you last year might offer a lot of promise today. And keep growing your email list, so if you do have a traffic hiccup, you still have a way to reach your most loyal audience.

So … let’s talk search engines

While search engine optimization shouldn’t be the only way you get traffic, it can be an important way for great people to find your site. So this month, we’ll be talking about smart ways to optimize your site for search … without messing up what you’re doing well.

Where are you on the SEO spectrum? Do you enjoy it, maybe even geek out about it, or are you in the eat-a-bug category? Let us know in the comments.

Image source: Jill Heyer via Unsplash.

The post The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO appeared first on Copyblogger.

from DIYS http://ift.tt/2lwbSgM

[nathandgibsca]

The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO

Search engine optimization — SEO — is one of those “you love it or you hate it” topics.

Some get a charge out of the challenge of keeping up with those wily engineers at Google.

Others would rather eat a bug than try to figure out what “headless crawling” means and which redirect is the right one to pick in months that end in R.

I have to confess, I’m in the bug-eating camp on this one.

Fortunately, although technical SEO is still important for some sites, there’s a crazy-powerful optimization technique that people like me can get really good at.

Yes, it’s content. (You already knew that, because you’re smart.) Yes, it has to be good content. And yes, I’m going to talk about what, specifically, “good” means.

But first, I’m going to talk about my most important search optimization rule.

The great rule of SEO

My first and primary rule, when thinking about search engines, is never to do anything for the sake of SEO that screws up the experience for the audience.

That cuts out some downright dumb behavior, like overstuffing your content with keywords.

But it also helps you evaluate new advice that comes along. If it makes your site less useable, if it makes your message less effective, or if it alienates or confuses your audience … you should probably skip it.

Here are nine SEO recommendations that also work to make your site experience better for the human beings who read your content, listen to your podcasts, and actually pay for your products and services.

#1: Answer actual audience questions

Want lots and lots of people to visit your site, and stick around once they find you? Answer their pressing questions, and you’ll get your wish.

People fire up a search engine because they have unanswered questions. If you’re smart and knowledgeable about your topic, you can help with that.

Tutorial content is wonderful, but also think about questions like:

Why is [the thing] so hard to get started?

How competitive is [the thing]?

How can I get motivated to do more of [the thing]?

Is there a community of people who want to talk about [the thing]?

Where can I share my own stories about [the thing] and read other people’s?

#2: Use the language they use

Hand in hand with answering real audience questions is using your audience’s language.

That brings us to our friend keyword research. (Check out Beth’s post tomorrow for more on that.)

It’s too bad that some people still think keyword research means looking up a bunch of word salad that makes sense to rooms of computers in Silicon Valley.

Keyword research means figuring out the language that real human beings enter into search engines to find your stuff.

There are great tools out there for finding those turns of phrase. You can also add in some smart social media listening and pay attention to how people talk on the web about your topic. (This is also a good way to find more of those “problems people care about” I talked about in the last point.)

By the way, you don’t have to feel chained to a narrow set of word combinations that you found with your keyword research tool. Use the keyword phrases you find, absolutely, but don’t use them so much that it gets weird. You don’t have to do an in-depth study of latent semantic indexing — just use synonyms.

(Kind of like a real writer does. Golly.)

Use metaphors and analogies. Use a few big or unusual words (if they’re natural to your voice). Flesh out your list of keywords with all of the fascinating and creative things that writers and artists do.

#3: Cover topics comprehensively

Content and SEO experts love to write articles about precisely how long your content should be. Over the years, the recommendations have gone up, and then down, sideways, and any other direction you might think of.

My advice: your content should be as long as necessary to make your point.

Some ideas can be expressed quickly, with punchy, interesting little posts.

Some ideas need more time to develop fully. They deserve a longer format or a content series that gets published over time. You could even dedicate specific months to covering a subject in more depth, like we’re doing this year on Copyblogger. (Have you noticed? Three guesses what March’s topic theme is …)

A strong series can be repurposed into ebooks (or a whole ebook library, once you have a solid archive), podcasts, infographics, SlideShares, videos, and premium products like courses.

Stop falling for the myth of the “goldfish attention span.” Twenty-first-century audiences have plenty of attention for the things they care about, as long as you make the content easy to consume. Which brings us to …

#4: Create a user-friendly experience

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your content is — if it’s published in walls of tiny gray type, without subheads or line breaks, most users will skip it.

It’s actually really simple to take a strong piece of writing and make it much more accessible by formatting it well.

Make sure everything on your site is easy to read, watch, or listen to. Give everything a clear call to action, so people know what to do next. And establish clear paths to the outcomes your users want … using smart content marketing strategy to present useful options at every point along the way.

While we’re on the subject, if your site looks like it was published in 2003, you need a makeover. Immediately. Premium WordPress themes are a massive bargain for the design expertise (and clean back-end code) they give you in a turnkey package.

Also, users and search engines share a hatred of hacked websites. Use secure tools, including reputable themes and quality hosting, and a good monitoring service like Sucuri to make sure nothing funky is going on.

#5: Write about the whole picture

Covering your topic comprehensively matters, but it’s not just about going deep.

There’s also a real benefit to looking around and going wide with your content.

What’s the context for your topic? Who else is publishing about it? What are the trends? What’s changing? How is the larger environment shaping what’s going on? Who do you agree with? Who do you disagree with?

What do people need to know before they dive into your thing? Where do they start? Where do they go next?

If you write about social media marketing, write about people who have given up on it. Write about people who haven’t started yet. Write about how the larger culture and worldview are changing social media … and how social media is changing the world.

Every topic takes place in a larger context. If that context interests your audience, it should be part of your content mix.

#6: Cultivate your community of topic experts

Link-building is one of the most important topics in SEO.

Here’s a secret:

Link-building is community-building.

Even if your competitors aren’t into the whole “co-opetition” idea, there’s a larger community that cares about what you do.

My friend Jim is an orthopedic surgeon who creates YouTube content about surgical procedures. Other surgeons might (but probably won’t) link to him, because he’s a true competitor — you only get your knee operated on once. (We hope.)

But runners would link to him. Skiers would, too. And sites about staying athletic as you age.

Think about the community of web publishers who have the audience you want. Develop relationships with them. Support each other.

This isn’t, of course, about spamming people you don’t know and begging them for links. It’s about making yourself a valued participant in a larger ecosystem.

One terrific way to build amazing connections (and the links that go with them) is to publish guest content on excellent sites. Try it in a lazy, cheap way and it’s spam. Put the effort in to craft genuinely excellent material that serves their audience (and invites them to come check you out), and it’s a winning strategy.

#7: Keep things organized

Good technical SEOs know all about creating a logical site structure that’s easy for search engines to parse.

As I may have mentioned, I in no way resemble a good technical SEO. Instead, I rely on the Genesis framework and common-sense tags and categories to keep my site properly organized on the back end.

But it pays to keep yourself organized on the front end as well. That means making sure your navigation makes sense for what your site looks like today, not two years ago. It means you take your most valuable content and get it somewhere people can easily find it. And it means you link to your best content often, so your audience naturally continues to find and benefit from it.

#8: Quit being so damned boring

You can do everything “right” for SEO and still get no traction.

Why? Because no one links to you, no one visits your site, and no one recommends your content — it’s too similar to a thousand other sites. It’s boring.

If your niche is incredibly narrow and no one else can write about it, maybe you can get away with boring. Even then, it’s risky.

Be interesting.

#9: Don’t rely (solely) on SEO

And the final SEO tip?

Don’t try to make the search engines your only source of traffic.

Relying on one source of customers for your business is unacceptably risky.

Relying on a monolithic megacorporation as your one source of customers is insane.

Google doesn’t care about your business. Not even a tiny bit. Not even if you give them a lot of money every month for ads.

Make sure there are lots of different ways that potential customers can find you. Keep your eyes open for new opportunities. A platform that was a dud for you last year might offer a lot of promise today. And keep growing your email list, so if you do have a traffic hiccup, you still have a way to reach your most loyal audience.

So … let’s talk search engines

While search engine optimization shouldn’t be the only way you get traffic, it can be an important way for great people to find your site. So this month, we’ll be talking about smart ways to optimize your site for search … without messing up what you’re doing well.

Where are you on the SEO spectrum? Do you enjoy it, maybe even geek out about it, or are you in the eat-a-bug category? Let us know in the comments.

Image source: Jill Heyer via Unsplash.

The post The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO appeared first on Copyblogger.

from SEO Tips http://feeds.copyblogger.com/~/277832258/0/copyblogger~The-Wise-Content-Marketers-Guide-to-Sensible-SEO/

[soph28collins]

The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO

Search engine optimization — SEO — is one of those “you love it or you hate it” topics.

Some get a charge out of the challenge of keeping up with those wily engineers at Google.

Others would rather eat a bug than try to figure out what “headless crawling” means and which redirect is the right one to pick in months that end in R.

I have to confess, I’m in the bug-eating camp on this one.

Fortunately, although technical SEO is still important for some sites, there’s a crazy-powerful optimization technique that people like me can get really good at.

Yes, it’s content. (You already knew that, because you’re smart.) Yes, it has to be good content. And yes, I’m going to talk about what, specifically, “good” means.

But first, I’m going to talk about my most important search optimization rule.

The great rule of SEO

My first and primary rule, when thinking about search engines, is never to do anything for the sake of SEO that screws up the experience for the audience.

That cuts out some downright dumb behavior, like overstuffing your content with keywords.

But it also helps you evaluate new advice that comes along. If it makes your site less useable, if it makes your message less effective, or if it alienates or confuses your audience … you should probably skip it.

Here are nine SEO recommendations that also work to make your site experience better for the human beings who read your content, listen to your podcasts, and actually pay for your products and services.

#1: Answer actual audience questions

Want lots and lots of people to visit your site, and stick around once they find you? Answer their pressing questions, and you’ll get your wish.

People fire up a search engine because they have unanswered questions. If you’re smart and knowledgeable about your topic, you can help with that.

Tutorial content is wonderful, but also think about questions like:

Why is [the thing] so hard to get started?

How competitive is [the thing]?

How can I get motivated to do more of [the thing]?

Is there a community of people who want to talk about [the thing]?

Where can I share my own stories about [the thing] and read other people’s?

#2: Use the language they use

Hand in hand with answering real audience questions is using your audience’s language.

That brings us to our friend keyword research. (Check out Beth’s post tomorrow for more on that.)

It’s too bad that some people still think keyword research means looking up a bunch of word salad that makes sense to rooms of computers in Silicon Valley.

Keyword research means figuring out the language that real human beings enter into search engines to find your stuff.

There are great tools out there for finding those turns of phrase. You can also add in some smart social media listening and pay attention to how people talk on the web about your topic. (This is also a good way to find more of those “problems people care about” I talked about in the last point.)

By the way, you don’t have to feel chained to a narrow set of word combinations that you found with your keyword research tool. Use the keyword phrases you find, absolutely, but don’t use them so much that it gets weird. You don’t have to do an in-depth study of latent semantic indexing — just use synonyms.

(Kind of like a real writer does. Golly.)

Use metaphors and analogies. Use a few big or unusual words (if they’re natural to your voice). Flesh out your list of keywords with all of the fascinating and creative things that writers and artists do.

#3: Cover topics comprehensively

Content and SEO experts love to write articles about precisely how long your content should be. Over the years, the recommendations have gone up, and then down, sideways, and any other direction you might think of.

My advice: your content should be as long as necessary to make your point.

Some ideas can be expressed quickly, with punchy, interesting little posts.

Some ideas need more time to develop fully. They deserve a longer format or a content series that gets published over time. You could even dedicate specific months to covering a subject in more depth, like we’re doing this year on Copyblogger. (Have you noticed? Three guesses what March’s topic theme is …)

A strong series can be repurposed into ebooks (or a whole ebook library, once you have a solid archive), podcasts, infographics, SlideShares, videos, and premium products like courses.

Stop falling for the myth of the “goldfish attention span.” Twenty-first-century audiences have plenty of attention for the things they care about, as long as you make the content easy to consume. Which brings us to …

#4: Create a user-friendly experience

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your content is — if it’s published in walls of tiny gray type, without subheads or line breaks, most users will skip it.

It’s actually really simple to take a strong piece of writing and make it much more accessible by formatting it well.

Make sure everything on your site is easy to read, watch, or listen to. Give everything a clear call to action, so people know what to do next. And establish clear paths to the outcomes your users want … using smart content marketing strategy to present useful options at every point along the way.

While we’re on the subject, if your site looks like it was published in 2003, you need a makeover. Immediately. Premium WordPress themes are a massive bargain for the design expertise (and clean back-end code) they give you in a turnkey package.

Also, users and search engines share a hatred of hacked websites. Use secure tools, including reputable themes and quality hosting, and a good monitoring service like Sucuri to make sure nothing funky is going on.

#5: Write about the whole picture

Covering your topic comprehensively matters, but it’s not just about going deep.

There’s also a real benefit to looking around and going wide with your content.

What’s the context for your topic? Who else is publishing about it? What are the trends? What’s changing? How is the larger environment shaping what’s going on? Who do you agree with? Who do you disagree with?

What do people need to know before they dive into your thing? Where do they start? Where do they go next?

If you write about social media marketing, write about people who have given up on it. Write about people who haven’t started yet. Write about how the larger culture and worldview are changing social media … and how social media is changing the world.

Every topic takes place in a larger context. If that context interests your audience, it should be part of your content mix.

#6: Cultivate your community of topic experts

Link-building is one of the most important topics in SEO.

Here’s a secret:

Link-building is community-building.

Even if your competitors aren’t into the whole “co-opetition” idea, there’s a larger community that cares about what you do.

My friend Jim is an orthopedic surgeon who creates YouTube content about surgical procedures. Other surgeons might (but probably won’t) link to him, because he’s a true competitor — you only get your knee operated on once. (We hope.)

But runners would link to him. Skiers would, too. And sites about staying athletic as you age.

Think about the community of web publishers who have the audience you want. Develop relationships with them. Support each other.

This isn’t, of course, about spamming people you don’t know and begging them for links. It’s about making yourself a valued participant in a larger ecosystem.

One terrific way to build amazing connections (and the links that go with them) is to publish guest content on excellent sites. Try it in a lazy, cheap way and it’s spam. Put the effort in to craft genuinely excellent material that serves their audience (and invites them to come check you out), and it’s a winning strategy.

#7: Keep things organized

Good technical SEOs know all about creating a logical site structure that’s easy for search engines to parse.

As I may have mentioned, I in no way resemble a good technical SEO. Instead, I rely on the Genesis framework and common-sense tags and categories to keep my site properly organized on the back end.

But it pays to keep yourself organized on the front end as well. That means making sure your navigation makes sense for what your site looks like today, not two years ago. It means you take your most valuable content and get it somewhere people can easily find it. And it means you link to your best content often, so your audience naturally continues to find and benefit from it.

#8: Quit being so damned boring

You can do everything “right” for SEO and still get no traction.

Why? Because no one links to you, no one visits your site, and no one recommends your content — it’s too similar to a thousand other sites. It’s boring.

If your niche is incredibly narrow and no one else can write about it, maybe you can get away with boring. Even then, it’s risky.

Be interesting.

#9: Don’t rely (solely) on SEO

And the final SEO tip?

Don’t try to make the search engines your only source of traffic.

Relying on one source of customers for your business is unacceptably risky.

Relying on a monolithic megacorporation as your one source of customers is insane.

Google doesn’t care about your business. Not even a tiny bit. Not even if you give them a lot of money every month for ads.

Make sure there are lots of different ways that potential customers can find you. Keep your eyes open for new opportunities. A platform that was a dud for you last year might offer a lot of promise today. And keep growing your email list, so if you do have a traffic hiccup, you still have a way to reach your most loyal audience.

So … let’s talk search engines

While search engine optimization shouldn’t be the only way you get traffic, it can be an important way for great people to find your site. So this month, we’ll be talking about smart ways to optimize your site for search … without messing up what you’re doing well.

Where are you on the SEO spectrum? Do you enjoy it, maybe even geek out about it, or are you in the eat-a-bug category? Let us know in the comments.

Image source: Jill Heyer via Unsplash.

The post The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO appeared first on Copyblogger.

from Copyblogger http://www.copyblogger.com/sensible-seo/

[annegalliher]

The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO

Search engine optimization — SEO — is one of those “you love it or you hate it” topics.

Some get a charge out of the challenge of keeping up with those wily engineers at Google.

Others would rather eat a bug than try to figure out what “headless crawling” means and which redirect is the right one to pick in months that end in R.

I have to confess, I’m in the bug-eating camp on this one.

Fortunately, although technical SEO is still important for some sites, there’s a crazy-powerful optimization technique that people like me can get really good at.

Yes, it’s content. (You already knew that, because you’re smart.) Yes, it has to be good content. And yes, I’m going to talk about what, specifically, “good” means.

But first, I’m going to talk about my most important search optimization rule.

The great rule of SEO

My first and primary rule, when thinking about search engines, is never to do anything for the sake of SEO that screws up the experience for the audience.

That cuts out some downright dumb behavior, like overstuffing your content with keywords.

But it also helps you evaluate new advice that comes along. If it makes your site less useable, if it makes your message less effective, or if it alienates or confuses your audience … you should probably skip it.

Here are nine SEO recommendations that also work to make your site experience better for the human beings who read your content, listen to your podcasts, and actually pay for your products and services.

#1: Answer actual audience questions

Want lots and lots of people to visit your site, and stick around once they find you? Answer their pressing questions, and you’ll get your wish.

People fire up a search engine because they have unanswered questions. If you’re smart and knowledgeable about your topic, you can help with that.

Tutorial content is wonderful, but also think about questions like:

Why is [the thing] so hard to get started?

How competitive is [the thing]?

How can I get motivated to do more of [the thing]?

Is there a community of people who want to talk about [the thing]?

Where can I share my own stories about [the thing] and read other people’s?

#2: Use the language they use

Hand in hand with answering real audience questions is using your audience’s language.

That brings us to our friend keyword research. (Check out Beth’s post tomorrow for more on that.)

It’s too bad that some people still think keyword research means looking up a bunch of word salad that makes sense to rooms of computers in Silicon Valley.

Keyword research means figuring out the language that real human beings enter into search engines to find your stuff.

There are great tools out there for finding those turns of phrase. You can also add in some smart social media listening and pay attention to how people talk on the web about your topic. (This is also a good way to find more of those “problems people care about” I talked about in the last point.)

By the way, you don’t have to feel chained to a narrow set of word combinations that you found with your keyword research tool. Use the keyword phrases you find, absolutely, but don’t use them so much that it gets weird. You don’t have to do an in-depth study of latent semantic indexing — just use synonyms.

(Kind of like a real writer does. Golly.)

Use metaphors and analogies. Use a few big or unusual words (if they’re natural to your voice). Flesh out your list of keywords with all of the fascinating and creative things that writers and artists do.

#3: Cover topics comprehensively

Content and SEO experts love to write articles about precisely how long your content should be. Over the years, the recommendations have gone up, and then down, sideways, and any other direction you might think of.

My advice: your content should be as long as necessary to make your point.

Some ideas can be expressed quickly, with punchy, interesting little posts.

Some ideas need more time to develop fully. They deserve a longer format or a content series that gets published over time. You could even dedicate specific months to covering a subject in more depth, like we’re doing this year on Copyblogger. (Have you noticed? Three guesses what March’s topic theme is …)

A strong series can be repurposed into ebooks (or a whole ebook library, once you have a solid archive), podcasts, infographics, SlideShares, videos, and premium products like courses.

Stop falling for the myth of the “goldfish attention span.” Twenty-first-century audiences have plenty of attention for the things they care about, as long as you make the content easy to consume. Which brings us to …

#4: Create a user-friendly experience

It doesn’t matter how brilliant your content is — if it’s published in walls of tiny gray type, without subheads or line breaks, most users will skip it.

It’s actually really simple to take a strong piece of writing and make it much more accessible by formatting it well.

Make sure everything on your site is easy to read, watch, or listen to. Give everything a clear call to action, so people know what to do next. And establish clear paths to the outcomes your users want … using smart content marketing strategy to present useful options at every point along the way.

While we’re on the subject, if your site looks like it was published in 2003, you need a makeover. Immediately. Premium WordPress themes are a massive bargain for the design expertise (and clean back-end code) they give you in a turnkey package.

Also, users and search engines share a hatred of hacked websites. Use secure tools, including reputable themes and quality hosting, and a good monitoring service like Sucuri to make sure nothing funky is going on.

#5: Write about the whole picture

Covering your topic comprehensively matters, but it’s not just about going deep.

There’s also a real benefit to looking around and going wide with your content.

What’s the context for your topic? Who else is publishing about it? What are the trends? What’s changing? How is the larger environment shaping what’s going on? Who do you agree with? Who do you disagree with?

What do people need to know before they dive into your thing? Where do they start? Where do they go next?

If you write about social media marketing, write about people who have given up on it. Write about people who haven’t started yet. Write about how the larger culture and worldview are changing social media … and how social media is changing the world.

Every topic takes place in a larger context. If that context interests your audience, it should be part of your content mix.

#6: Cultivate your community of topic experts

Link-building is one of the most important topics in SEO.

Here’s a secret:

Link-building is community-building.

Even if your competitors aren’t into the whole “co-opetition” idea, there’s a larger community that cares about what you do.

My friend Jim is an orthopedic surgeon who creates YouTube content about surgical procedures. Other surgeons might (but probably won’t) link to him, because he’s a true competitor — you only get your knee operated on once. (We hope.)

But runners would link to him. Skiers would, too. And sites about staying athletic as you age.

Think about the community of web publishers who have the audience you want. Develop relationships with them. Support each other.

This isn’t, of course, about spamming people you don’t know and begging them for links. It’s about making yourself a valued participant in a larger ecosystem.

One terrific way to build amazing connections (and the links that go with them) is to publish guest content on excellent sites. Try it in a lazy, cheap way and it’s spam. Put the effort in to craft genuinely excellent material that serves their audience (and invites them to come check you out), and it’s a winning strategy.

#7: Keep things organized

Good technical SEOs know all about creating a logical site structure that’s easy for search engines to parse.

As I may have mentioned, I in no way resemble a good technical SEO. Instead, I rely on the Genesis framework and common-sense tags and categories to keep my site properly organized on the back end.

But it pays to keep yourself organized on the front end as well. That means making sure your navigation makes sense for what your site looks like today, not two years ago. It means you take your most valuable content and get it somewhere people can easily find it. And it means you link to your best content often, so your audience naturally continues to find and benefit from it.

#8: Quit being so damned boring

You can do everything “right” for SEO and still get no traction.

Why? Because no one links to you, no one visits your site, and no one recommends your content — it’s too similar to a thousand other sites. It’s boring.

If your niche is incredibly narrow and no one else can write about it, maybe you can get away with boring. Even then, it’s risky.

Be interesting.

#9: Don’t rely (solely) on SEO

And the final SEO tip?

Don’t try to make the search engines your only source of traffic.

Relying on one source of customers for your business is unacceptably risky.

Relying on a monolithic megacorporation as your one source of customers is insane.

Google doesn’t care about your business. Not even a tiny bit. Not even if you give them a lot of money every month for ads.

Make sure there are lots of different ways that potential customers can find you. Keep your eyes open for new opportunities. A platform that was a dud for you last year might offer a lot of promise today. And keep growing your email list, so if you do have a traffic hiccup, you still have a way to reach your most loyal audience.

So … let’s talk search engines

While search engine optimization shouldn’t be the only way you get traffic, it can be an important way for great people to find your site. So this month, we’ll be talking about smart ways to optimize your site for search … without messing up what you’re doing well.

Where are you on the SEO spectrum? Do you enjoy it, maybe even geek out about it, or are you in the eat-a-bug category? Let us know in the comments.

Image source: Jill Heyer via Unsplash.

The post The Wise Content Marketer’s Guide to Sensible SEO appeared first on Copyblogger.