Four Commandments of SEO

"Search engine optimization is extremely simple," says Luke Matthews in a guest post at The Responsible Marketing Blog, "but the waters are constantly muddied by misinformation spread by wannabe experts and noobs who want to garner authority and respect."

 To help you navigate the SEO waters—and avoid the frequent riptides—Matthews created his own 10 Commandments of SEO.

 Here are a few:

• Thou Shalt Reciprocate Link Love. Inbound links are good; they tell search engines that your content is valuable. But it's not polite to take without giving. When you receive links from high-quality sites, return the favor.

• Thou Shalt Not Beg for Links. You've just gotten an email from someone you don't know asking for a link. Do you acquiesce? Probably not. But what if someone who leaves insightful comments at your blog, and links to your site, makes a similar request? In that scenario, you'll probably oblige. And vice-versa.

• Thou Shalt Find the Best Keywords. Keywords that generate the most traffic aren't your "best" keywords if that traffic doesn't convert. Look instead for less competitive terms used by your target audience. It is "relatively easy to rank for these terms and 30 keywords each getting 50 searches per month adds to up to a lot of traffic," notes Matthews.

• Thou Shalt Not Write for Search Engines. Google and Bing want content written for humans; you'll impress search engines with a focus on readability and value.

 

Thus, if you want to avoid the wrath of a vengeful search engine, take serious heed of SEO best practices.

Source: MarketingProfs

Blogging Drives Leads, Website Traffic

Companies that increase the number of blog posts they publish via their website each month can boost their inbound traffic levels and lead counts, according to a new report by HubSpot.

On average, companies that publish 15 or more blog articles per month generate five times more Web traffic than companies that don't blog at all, and those that blog 9-15 times per month generate three times more traffic than companies that don't blog:

Below, additional findings from the report titled "Marketing Benchmarks from 7,000 Businesses," by HubSpot, based on data collected from its customer base of some 7,000 brands.

Blogging drives traffic because published content gets indexed in search engines and shared via various channels, including social media. By committing to regularly publishing blog content, companies can build up a powerful arsenal of content, with each article published creating another inroad to a website, HubSpot found.

Small businesses (1-10 employees) tend to generate a bigger lift than larger companies when they accumulate published blog content:

When companies boost their blogging efforts, Web traffic volume increases in varying degrees:

• On average, companies generate a 45% lift in traffic when they increase the number of published blog posts from 11-20 articles to 21-50 articles.
• B2C companies generate a 59% increase in traffic after growing total published blog articles from 100 to 200.

Blogging efforts also appear to impact lead generation.

Companies that have published more than 200 blog articles generate 5 times more leads than those with 10 or fewer posts:

B2B companies that blog only 1-2 times per month generate 70% more leads than those that don't blog, HubSpot found.

However, surprisingly, B2C companies generate a bigger lift in leads as they grow their arsenal of blog posts:

Boosting blogging efforts pays off: Companies that increase the number of blog posts from 3-5 per month to 6-8 per month nearly double their monthly lead count.

Using social media also boosts traffic:

• Companies gain a 185% lift in Web traffic after achieving 1,000 Facebook likes.
• Companies with 51 to 100 Twitter followers generate 106% more traffic than those with 25 or fewer followers.

About the data: Findings are based on the analysis of data collected among 7,000 companies that use HubSpot's Inbound Marketing platform. The data was collected in July and August 2012.


Source: MarketingProfs