SEO (search engine optimization) is one of the most talked about topics that bloggers hear about. Whether we want to understand it or not, bloggers need to be aware of the basics of SEO. If we choose to ignore it, we’ll either miss the opportunity to get free organic search traffic or (even worse) risk being de-indexed by Google completely.
Today, in this episode of my #FridayFinds series, let’s take a look at some of the basics of SEO. My first find is chock full of SEO tips for publishing on LinkedIn and my second find recaps a roundup of eleven articles from bloggers including Dr. Peter J. Meyers (MOZ.com), Christopher Ratcliff (eConsultancy.com), David Shiffman (SEMRush.com), Garrett Moon (CoSchedule.com), Danny Sullivan (SearchEngineLand.com), Jayson DeMers (AudienceBloom.com) and Rizvan Ullah (Ranktactics.com).
You’ll also find some videos from Matt Cutts and John Mueller. Some of these posts are older but (I believe) they’re evergreen.
LinkedIn and SEO
Do you publish on LinkedIn? If you do, you’ll want to check out The Linkedin Publishing Platform and SEO by Paul Shapiro on SearchWilderness.com. While this post is a little older than those that I usually include in my #FridayFinds (published on 10/13/14, it’s still worthy of being included. After all, it is based on a data analysis of “3,000 posts to see what works in the SERPS” (search engine result pages).
In all you’ll find the answers to these eight questions:
- Based on the audience that you want to attract, what level of education should you be writing for?
- What’s the optimal number of images to use to generate the greatest number of backlinks?
- Should you embed multimedia into your LinkedIn posts?
- Are “How-to” posts or posts that ask questions popular?
- Are headings effective in attracting views and backlinks?
- How does word count affect the number of backlinks and views that a post gets?
- Does the tone of your post (neutral, negative or positive) have an impact on the average number of backlinks?
- How many characters should your post title be?
Paul’s article (originally posted this article on OkDork.com) included this great infographic:
Data compiled by Search Wilderness and originally posted on OkDork.com
SEO – Simply Said:
One of my personal favorites (and one of my most often shared articles) is Does SEO Confuse You? I have to admit it’s a post that I wrote here but it’s also from my #FridayFinds series.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with my “Friday Finds” series. They’re roundup posts where I find some of the best (and often in-depth) articles on a topic. Then, I give you the “Readers Digest” version by bullet-pointing the highlights, elaborating on anything that I think may need an introduction and then encouraging you to explore those articles that you want to learn more about.
It’s a great way to introduce you to some of the best resources on the web (and it doesn’t hurt for me to link to authority sites). Although, not all of the sites fall into that category, many are up and coming blogging stars.
So, (without further ado), here are the highlights of the 11 articles that I shared in that post:
- Basic SEO Tips: The article a SEO Beginners guide by Christopher Ratcliff (on Econsultancy.com) was published a year ago (and Google Authorship was still intact) but it’s well written and definitely a good start. If you’re new to terms like anchor text , xml sitemaps and bounce rates, you may want to bookmark this one.
- Semantic Search: Are You Confused by Google Semantics? is a guest post that Jeannette Paladino (of WriteSpeakSell.com) wrote for my readers. What makes this article deserving of a share is that it is written by a social media writer and blogger. Rather than trying to impressing us with her knowledge of SEO techniques, she focuses on using phasing and keywords as we write.
- Post Title Length: The importance of the length of your post titles came into light after Google redesigned their SERP (Search Engine Result Page) format. Dr. Peter J. Meyers’ post New Title Tag Guidelines & Preview Tool (on MOZ.com) was published in March of 2014. Although there have been many articles written about this topic since, this one will shed some insight that you may not find elsewhere. (The preview tool is nice too.)
- Headlines & SEO: In his post, The Real Reason Headlines Are Important for Improved Rankings, David Shiffman (on SEMRush.com) shares five actionable steps that should help you start writing headlines that will increase the number of shares, clicks and comments to drive more traffic back to your site.
- Headlines & EMV (Emotional Value): Those of you who know me, probably know that I’m a huge fan of the EMV (Emotional Marketing Value) analyzer tool (more of that in #6). I had already been using that tool for a while when I came upon Garrett Moon’s post with proof that emotional headlines get shared more (on CoSchedule.com).
- A Tool for Analyzing your Headlines: I’ve been using the Advanced Marketing Institute’s free tool to write better headlines for almost two years now. (If you have a different favorite tool, please tell us about it in the comments.) Meanwhile, if you’re interested, here’s more about the EMV anlalyzer tool and other tips to improve your blog.
- Google Panda 4.1 & Quality Content: Google Panda was first rolled out in February of 2011. It was when Google Panda 4.1 rolled out (in September of last year), that I published Google Panda 4.1 & Quality Content. The bloggers I featured that week included: Danny Sullivan (com), Jayson DeMers (founder & CEO of AudienceBloom.com) and Rizvan Ullah, (the founder of Ranktactics).
- Writing Quality Content: I was turning into a big Jayson Demers fan at the time I wrote this post. Jason had recently published 12 Essential Elements Of High-Quality Content, (on Forbes.com). The twelve elements include: content length, embedded media, grammar & spelling, page & text formatting, readability scores, authoritative content, guest authors, social signals, internal & external links, domain quality, comment quality and value.)
- Manual Web Spam Actions & Backlinks: Anyone remember Google’s manual web spam actions back in March of 2014? Many well-known and respected bloggers found themselves totally de-indexed by Google and some never recovered. This post included two Matt Cutts’ videos about algorithmic penalties and manual actions due to unnatural links. It also included some tips from me including how to add the nofollow attribute tag. While this all seems in the past, there are a lot of lessons to learn here.
- Spam Comments: Most bloggers get their fair share of spam and bloggers who use the CommentLuv commenting plugin, seem to get more than our share (usually from spammers looking for backlinks on DoFollow enabled blogs). This Matt Cutts video (from August 2013) is still one of the best explanations I’ve seen/read on unnatural links.
- SEO & Link Building: My final share is the article Why Google Says Building Links Can Harm Your SEO Efforts by Joshua Steimle (published on Forbes.com on 2/17/15.) The gist of his article is that it’s not link building that can harm your SEO efforts but building bad links. Joshua embedded a video of a Google hangout with webmaster trend analyst John Mueller in which his answer to the question “is link building in any way good?” was “In general, I’d try to avoid that.” Bottom-line, we shouldn’t force building links. We should be building links naturally.
Over To You:
Do you find SEO exciting, confusing or somewhere in between? What are some of your favorite SEO resources? Did you find Paul Shapiro’s post about publishing on LinkedIn helpful? Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas in the comments. As I always say, we can all learn from each other.
If you would like to connect with this week’s featured authors on Google+, you can find them here: Paul Shapiro, Christopher Ratcliff, Jeannette Paladino, Dr. Peter J. Meyers, David Shiffman, Garrett Moon, Jayson Demers, John Mueller, Joshua Steimle, and me (Sherryl Perry).
About Sherryl PerryWelcome! If you're looking for help building an Internet presence that fits your needs and works for you, you're in the right place. I blog common sense articles about WordPress, social media and SEO. My goal is to help small business owners and entrepreneurs understand their core business. Together, we can develop and implement business strategies that make sense to you.
Google panda ruined lots of spam blogs. Therefore only unique and original content had the chance to survive. The people who writes for search engines lots of their jobs, but the people who think really on the audience survived. Therefore the panda is not a panda, it is kind of a machine that eats all the spammers and fake bloggers.
~Sajith
It is 2019 and so, so, so many people are still completely unaware of what SEO is and what it can do for your business/blog/company. Consulting on SEO literally has limitless opportunities these days. Your numerous recommendations on headlines and titling were my favorite part. Surely ways in which I can improve my “curb appeal”!
I have feared emotional titles with my blog, but perhaps I should consider it. It’s not easy when your subject is already a hard one to swallow. I honestly should be more in the know about LinkedIn. With that said, I feel that you have given me a good start on making my foray into it! Thanks for the helpful infographic and tips!
Nice article sherry about SEO
After reading the post I definitely try linked for SEO
I have a question is there any other social network sites that we can use for seo ?
I think Twitter and Pinterest also do same
gurwinder singh recently posted..Customer Stories: Interview With William Green
You have create a complete on page SEO checklist with latest SEO Trends. Linkedin and other type of SEO that you mentiond in your blog post is great. I like the blog that your share you in this blog post.
Gaurav Verma recently posted..SEOPressor Connect Advance SEO Plugin Reveiw
Hi Gaurav,
Thanks for letting me know that you found my post helpful. This is one of my older posts but the basics of SEO stand the test of time. I’m glad you took the time to join the conversation.
I hope you have a great weekend!
Sherryl Perry recently posted..How Safe Are Your Backlinks? #FridayFinds
Personally, I think publishing on Linkedin has tangible rewards, it gives increased exposure to your article and blog, If you are lucky enough to capture the attention of your readers on Linkedin then expect some good traffic back to your site as well. One of my best SEO tools to date is the All-in-one-SEO by Yoast, its such a wonderful tool for WordPress bloggers and I know that quite a lot of people use it as well. Thanks
Obodo Charles recently posted..Avoid These 5 SEO Mistakes And Maximize Your Website Traffic
Great advice Charles. I have to admit that I have not blogged on LinkedIn yet. Actually, I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus from blogging in general. Hopefully, next month, I’ll get back into the swing of things.
Thanks for recommending Yoast’s SEO plugin. I agree that it is highly respected and I have it installed on several client sites. The only reason that I don’t use it here is that it conflicts with the built-in SEO of the theme that I’m using. Otherwise, I would be using ti as well. When I switch themes, I definitely will install it on my site.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Do You Want to Consolidate Multiple Websites?
Hi Sherryl,
Great infographic ,Excellent post Sherryl , we could include one more thing here which is contribution in groups/discussions and linkedin pulse content . Thanks for the guide . Would be great to learn a whole post focused on LinkedIn groups .Not only we can gain exposure with this but also the built in links which Search engine loves
Hi Robert,
Contributing to LinkedIn groups/discussions and LinkedIn Pulse are great suggestions. Thanks for adding those. After what LinkedIn recently did to their groups, that would certainly warrant a #FridayFinds post.
I manage a LI group and switched it to standard recently. Thankfully, I share management responsibilities four other members. I think a group could quickly get spammed even more easily now than before. I really don’t know what LinkedIn was thinking.
Thanks for weighing in on this. I appreciate it.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Do You Sell Online? Want To?
Hi Sherry,
Very nicely explained about SEO resources, these 11 factors are very important for every blog. SEO has been changed a lot and the old techniques that we were using before might not work this year in 2015. But these factors are very common and still very effective, every blogger should use this.
I never done posting on linkedin, because i didn’t aware of SEO+Linkedin connection.
I found this post very interesting, now i am going to try linkedin too. 🙂
Gaurav Tripathi recently posted..70+ Best Dofollow CommentLuv Blogs to Increase Backlinks and Traffic
Hi Gaurav,
I’m glad you found these resources helpful. I’m a huge advocate for incorporating simple SEO techniques into our blog posts. SEO does not have to be confusing and overwhelming.
The tips on title length, images, media, headings etc. are good rules of thumbs for posting on our blogs too. I’ve found research that recommends 55 characters for post titles and that’s what I set for a limit.
I think that if LinkedIn is the only place that you’re blogging that the suggestion of 1900-2000 words would make sense. However, that’s a lot of content to generate. For me, I would have to prioritize either the LinkedIn platform or my own blog. (My choice would be my blog.)
I’m not sure if you saw Don Purdum’s comment below. Don is doing an amazing job promoting his consulting business through blogging. He’s been successful using LinkedIn as a platform to promote posts on his blog. I think this is a brilliant strategy and when/if I start blogging on LinkedIn that will be the approach that I take.
The reason that I haven’t started posting to LinkedIn is that I haven’t been blogging much lately. So, I need to pay attention to my own blog before I start blogging on someone else’s platform.
I will add that I was taken aback by #10 in the infographic. On my blog, I’ve found that using questions as my blog title can be very effective. I believe it works as a challenge to readers to offer their input. Also, someone looking for an answer would want to check it out.
I would have to test this myself to see what works best on LinkedIn. I believe that when I lead off with a question, my readers expect a discussion to pursue. Since most people know that my mantra is “We can all learn from each other” they’re usually eager to join in on the discussion.
Thanks so much for taking the time to join the conversation. I appreciate your input.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Do You Want to Consolidate Multiple Websites?
I still think Linkedin is not very useful for SEO. Maybe is a mistake from me o maybe is not done for this purpose
Hi Ruben,
I can’t personally address blogging on LinkedIn and SEO because I still am not blogging there. I do know several influential bloggers who are driving traffic to their sites using LinkedIn.
As for SEO in general, I believe that any time that we can incorporate SEO techniques into our writing we should. Why not? It may help drive organic traffic and at the very least, it helps reinforce SEO sklills.
Thanks so much for weighing in on this. I appreciate your input.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Do You Want to Consolidate Multiple Websites?
I really love the way you presented this post. I think those blogs are best who present a thorough post which infographics in it because either people use only infographics or only words. lovely
Hi Neeraj,
Thanks for taking the time to join the conversation and letting me know that you enjoyed my post. I think infographics can be really helpful to communicate ideas but I do like to elaborate on them and put them into context.
I appreciate your coming over here to my blog. I hope you’re having a wonderful week.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..How Convincing Content Can Get Your Customers to Buy
Hey Sherryl,
When I first got on the blogging scene I found SEO a bit mysterious but yet something I didn’t want to learn LOL… In my mind I thought it was going to be real difficult and I’d probably end up paying a professional to implement it on my blog. Now days, I find it more interesting and challenging. Why the change? The main reason is through some of my results. I figure that I can DIY and still get great results among my fellow bloggers who are similar to me than anything.
I really like the LinkedIn Infograph. It gives us some type of criteria to follow to make the best out of our blog posts when we post them on LinkedIn. A lot of what is mentioned in the list I’m already doing anyways. But I do have to take note to not make any of my headline into a question!
Thanks Sherryl for share this post! I hope you’re enjoying your weekend!
Sherman Smith recently posted..My Top 6 Blog Posts For May and June: Short Videos, Google Analytics, Monetize Blog, Guest Post Traffic, Research Next Blog Post, Long Tail Keywords
Hi Sherman,
SEO does have a certain mystic about it. On top of it, we often hear horror stories from people who have been hit by Google algorithm changes and even worse completely de-indexed. It’s no wonder that some people try to totally ignore SEO. Both you and I know though that can really get you into trouble.
I’m glad to hear that you embraced SEO and learned enough to handle it yourself. Paying a professional for help can get costly and we’ve all heard horror stories of people who hired SEO “pros” and it backfired on them. I think for a lot of bloggers, DIY can work.
I really liked the LinkedIn infographic too. Now, all I have to do is to start blogging on LI. That won’t be until I finish a couple of client projects and write my submission for your round-up post. (Thanks again for inviting me.)
As always, thanks so much for joining the conversation here. I always appreciate your insight and I hope you’re enjoying your weekend too!
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Will Building Your Blog Community Make You a Superstar? #FridayFinds
Hi, SHERRYL PERRY, Thank you for the interesting and full of knowledge post.Yes I find SEO exciting. My favorite resource is All-in-one SEO by yoast and also I use Google Keyword Planer for searching keywords. Shapiro’s post about publishing on LinkedIn is helpful, I read that post through out and learn lot of things from Shapito\’s post, Thank Shapiro.Hangout video is also helpful. Have a nice day!
Hi Nisha,
Thanks so much for dropping by and sharing your thoughts with us. It’s great to hear from other bloggers who find SEO exciting. SEO does not have to be intimidating. There are so many simple steps that we can take to incorporate it into our sites.
Thanks for the recommendation to use Yoast ‘s All-in-one SEO plugin. The only reason that I don’t use it is that my blog theme incorporates SEO and there’s a conflict between the two. As soon as I switch themes, I’ll install it.
I”m glad you found Paul Shapiro’s post and the Hangout video helpful too.
I hope you’ve been enjoying the weekend and I hope you have a great week ahead!
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Does SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Confuse You? #FridayFinds
Hi Sherryl,
Thanks for this post. After reading this post i’m now seriously thinking of updating some of post by adding correct number of subheaders. There is so much to learn while it come’s to SEO and i’m glad i that i landed here. Thanks again.
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Hi Sherryl,
Just found this post of yours, very informative and educational.
For sure posts that are at least over 1,000 words work much better for blogs/articles today.
Wow, 5 subheaders? That’s quite a lot and it’s interesting how much better results you can get with that. Something to think about.
I thought number 6 was interesting, but not surprised when it comes to Linkedin as it’s a totally different beast than other social media platforms.
I haven’t posted an article on Linkedin for ages, but I’ll be sure to do on Thursday next time I do.
This post is absolutely excellent. Great job putting all these together.
~Sylviane
Sylviane Nuccio recently posted..5 Tell-Tale Signs That You Are A True Leader
Hi Sylviane,
Who would have ever thought that one day blog posts of 1,000 words or more would be popular? When I started blogging, I would edit my posts to keep them under 750 words. It seemed like that was too lengthy back then.
I’m a fan of using heading tags but I usually use the H2 tag for all of them. It’s good for SEO and it visually breaks up the page for our readers. In my early posts, I rarely used heading tags. Every once in a while, I’ll update an old post, and adding keyword-rich heading tags is one of the first things that I do.
70% better is pretty high (for neutral posts on LinkedIn). I wonder if it’s because of the diversity on LinkedIn.
I need to find the time to post on LinkedIn. I really think Don Purdum’s strategy to use LI to promote his posts would work for me. If I published a mini version of my Friday Finds, that might drive traffic.
It’s always a pleasure to see you here! Thanks so much for dropping by. I’ll be by your place soon!
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Ready To Take Your Blog to the Next Level? #FridayFinds
Hi, Sherryl,
Oh. My. Word. What a fantastic infographic! I love infographics, especially about seemingly ’difficult to understand’ topics.
As you know, I just had Dennis as my last featured guest writer, and he covered SEO, and shared a few tools as well. I find this an intriguing topic to say the least.
Definitely believe in publishing my own content on my Authority Blog FIRST then sharing that out to the different platforms like LinkedIn, etc. So, will continue to do that. I want to be in control of my content and reap the rewards of ranking for it on my own domain, and then share from there (the hub of my wheel).
Now, as Don uses it to ‘prep’ for his blog posts, that great, for his target audience. Probably not so much for mine, so we have to go with what works. Although, I could certainly test it. Thanks for the ideas, Sherryl! Fantastic food for thought here.
Have a good evening. ????
Carol Amato
Carol Amato recently posted..Carol’s Cut – Best of the Month 2
Hi Carol,
I love good infographics that tackle ‘difficult to understand’ topics too. I don’t care much for ‘silly’ infographics that take up a lot of space but you don’t really learn anything from. I’m sure there are people who love those though and they’d probably shy away from the type of infographics that you and I enjoy.
I saw the SEO post by Dennis. He did a really good job. SEO is my favorite topic and I’m glad to see that more bloggers are tackling this topic. We don’t have to be a techie or a SEO guru to optimize our sites. To me, it’s more important to know how to avoid getting into trouble with Google than to try to appear at the top of the SERPs.
I wouldn’t use LI the same way Don uses it but I think I could benefit from by using it for promotion. I could do a recap/”teaser” post to drive traffic to my Friday Finds series. Now, I just need to find the time. As you say, we have to put our blogs first.
Thanks so much for dropping by and weighing in on this. (Thanks for alerting me to the javascript errors you encountered too. I appreciate that you kept trying to comment until you succeeded!) I hope you’re having a great week.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Does SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Confuse You? #FridayFinds
This post was filled with so many good ideas that I saved the entire thing to my harddrive. Thank you so much. I have a bit of work to do.
Rahul Yadav recently posted..All Latest Government Jobs for 10th, 12th Pass in India 2015, Upcoming Recruitment Notification 2015-16, Sarkari Naukri 2016
Thanks for letting me know that you found my post valuable Rahul. I’m glad you found it helpful. It’s nice to meet you here.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Does SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Confuse You? #FridayFinds
Sherryl —
Thanks for the shout-out about my semantics post. I had written a couple of posts for LinkedIn, and I’ve decided to repurpose some of my older posts from my blog and step up my activity. Google does search LinkedIn so it helps, even if a tiny, bit with SEO. I actually do get some decent readership and shares, too.
Recently Glenn Leibowitz, owner of the blog “Write With Impact,” did a podcast (and a PDF transcript) with LinkedIn Senior Editor Isabelle Roughol entitled “This is What LinkedIn Editors Really Want.” Here is the link http://www.writewithimpact.com/this-is-what-linkedins-editors-really-want/.
It’s definitely worth a read. She says the “sweet spot” for a LinkedIn post is between 500-900 words. Also, and I found this to be very important, is that “LinkedIn’s editors are looking for fresh analysis and commentary on the news stories of the day. Take a look at what’s trending, and offer your unique perspective on it.”
This advice applies to our own blogs, too. You can hitch-hike on the news and draw traffic from readers who are searching for information on the topic.
Thanks, Sherryl, as usual, for a great round-up post.
Jeannette Paladino recently posted..What the Heck are Native Advertising and Branded Content?
Hi Jeannette,
It was my pleasure to include your post about semantics. I appreciate how much work you spent researching and writing that article. The way you approach semantics makes it easy to understand – which is exactly what I try to do here for my readers. It’s great when someone reads a post like yours and can implement your suggestions into their blogging.
That’s great that you’ve already posted on LinkedIn. I know that it helps with SEO. Plus, it’s one more way to be in front of your audience. I am swamped right now but (after reading how Don Purdum approaches blogging on LI), I have a strategy for moving forward.
I’ll be back to read Glenn’s post/podcast. (I appreciate it when a transcript is included with a podcast.)
Thanks for sharing that! LinkedIn editors look for “analysis and commentary”? That sounds perfect for me! 🙂
As always, thanks so much for dropping by and sharing your insight with us. (As usual), I’m behind visiting (and commenting on) blogs but I will be by soon. I hope you had a wonderful week and that you’re having a fun weekend.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Choosing WordPress Themes: Security Risks, Code Bloat and Other Issues
Hi Jeannette,
It was my pleasure to include your post about semantics. I appreciate how much work you spent researching and writing that article. The way you approach semantics makes it easy to understand – which is exactly what I try to do here for my readers. It’s great when someone reads a post like yours and can implement your suggestions into their blogging.
That’s great that you’ve already posted on LinkedIn. I know that it helps with SEO. Plus, it’s one more way to be in front of your audience. I am swamped right now but (after reading how Don Purdum approaches blogging on LI), I have a strategy for moving forward.
I’ll be back to read Glenn’s post/podcast. (I appreciate it when a transcript is included with a podcast.)
Thanks for sharing that! LinkedIn editors look for “analysis and commentary”? That sounds perfect for me! 🙂
As always, thanks so much for dropping by and sharing your insight with us. (As usual), I’m behind visiting (and commenting on) blogs but I will be by soon. I hope you had a wonderful week and that you’re having a fun weekend.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Choosing WordPress Themes: Security Risks, Code Bloat and Other Issues
Hey Sherryl,
Well you know my thoughts on SEO and whether or not we want to admit it, I’m sure each of us do the on-page SEO on each post. Although Google has definitely confused me over the years for some reason I kept on doing it on my posts. I didn’t do the keyword research but when writing my post I did keep in mind my topic and used those keywords when writing. I have no clue if that was what people were searching for but it sure as heck was what I wanted my audience to read. Not smart, I know.
I always appreciate your finds though whether I want to face the fact that SEO will never die and without it we would all be pretty screwed.
Not sure how I feel about posting on LinkedIn because as you know I believe our content should be on our blogs and I just see that as yet one more accident waiting to happen. I would hate to see those who put all their efforts into that platform only for LinkedIn to change their rules. I appreciate your finds though and thanks for all these great posts.
Hope you’re doing well and having a great week.
~Adrienne
Adrienne Smith recently posted..Why You Are Never Too Old To Blog
Hi Adrienne,
I do know your thoughts on SEO Adrienne. I also know that you do on-page SEO on your blog posts in a way that’s very similar to what I do.
I admit it. I don’t do keyword research for my site. By now, (like you), I know my topics. Like you, I write for my readers and not the search engines. Geesh, with Google’s interest in semantic search, writing for our readers is finally becoming valued. 🙂
A lot of my SEO posts are more to share what can get us into trouble with Google. To me, that’s more important than being found in the search results.
Other of my SEO posts revolve around suggestions from SEO gurus who have done the research (for example, the best length for a title or the recommended length for a meta-description).
I have not posted on LinkedIn yet but I just read Don Purdum’s comment (which you may not have seen yet due to the problems you were having commenting). He’s strategically publishing 300-word posts to “prep” his blog posts. That got me to thinking of a similar strategy that I could implement.
(Up until now, I too felt that I should be blogging on my blog or as a guest blogger.)
Thanks for letting me know that you appreciate my finds. It’s encouraging to know. I hope you have a great week too.
Hi Sherryl,
Personally, I love the LinkedIn “blog” trend. What I’ve been able to successfully do is prep a blog article for it on my site. Meaning, I write part of the article (under 300 words) and post it on LinkedIn. I think people on LI like a shorter article that gets to the point.
I will tell them if they want more details I offer them the link to the article on my blog. I’m telling you that it has been very successful to driving the traffic back to my blog. Plus, I get the SEO benefits all around as well as LI’s audience.
It’s a strategy I plan to employ more of in the near future.
Great post Sherryl!!!
I hope you have a great week.
~ Don Purdum
Don Purdum recently posted..Marketing without Vision Sucks and Why It’s Obvious You Don’t Have One
Hi Don,
Honestly, it’s encouraging to hear that you love the LinkedIn blog trend. It’s something that I have not done yet but it’s been in the back of my mind that I should be doing it.
My problem is that I am having trouble keeping up with blogging in general. I certainly don’t blog as often as I used to and I’m relying more on guest bloggers. (Thanks to you again for authoring the post that I linked to below.)
Your strategy to prep articles on LinkedIn and keep them under 300 words makes so much sense. That’s a strategy that could possibly work for me too.
Instead of prepping an article, as you do, I could post mini Friday-Finds. You would not believe how many times I have started writing for this series and ended up not posting it. Often, it’s because it was time sensitive (or something that was about to be written about too much) and I don’t get it published before it becomes stale. Publishing a short 300-word post on LinkedIn sounds like a potential solution
Thanks so much for sharing your strategy with us! I (and I’m sure many of my readers) appreciate it.
You have a great week too Don.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..People Will Buy From You When They Understand What Business Youâre Really In!
I am not a fan of the whole LinkedIn “blog” trend. I believe you are better off putting your effort into a blog of your own that you brand for yourself.
I do understand LinkedIn has a big captive audience and you can get a bunch of reads via LinkedIn. If someone wanted to publish there occasionally while mostly focusing on their own blog I wouldn’t find that too bad – though I don’t publish posts on LinkedIn, or AOL or Facebook or MySpace, for that matter.
That said the ideas mentioned in this post for those that are going to use LinkedIn do look pretty decent.
I would bet large amounts of money, point number 2 is ONLY due to bad statistical analysis. Data is wonderful, but you can’t just pull correlations and assume that they are meaningful. engineering.curiouscatblog.net/2007/02/20/seeing-patterns-where-none-exists/
John recently posted..Reverse Budgeting: Money that Must be Spent
Hi John,
I have mixed feelings about blogging on LinkedIn. I agree with you that we need to build our presence on our own site. On the other hand, I’m sure by blogging on LinkedIn, we’d be reinforcing our presence there as well.
I honestly have not blogged on LinkedIn yet but it’s a time management thing for me right now. Next to word-of-mouth referrals, LinkedIn has been my top source for new clients. So, reinforcing my presence there would make sense.
I wouldn’t advise anyone to use LinkedIn as their sole blogging platform. A good friend of mine is doing that right now. She has her own website but she only blogs on LinkedIn. She also is not writing content that I find valuable enough to share. It’s unfortunate because her ideal clients are corporations. (I sent her a link to the original article here but I haven’t heard back from her yet.)
You raise a good point about statistical analysis. It can be misinterpreted.
Thanks so much for dropping by and weighing in on this. It’s always good to see you here and I value your input.
Sherryl Perry recently posted..Ready To Take Your Blog to the Next Level? #FridayFinds
> LinkedIn has been my top source for new clients
That is a very key statement. If this is true for someone, or they thought it would be true for them (if they put in effort on LinkedIn) then I agree posting on LinkedIn is wise. I would still make the most effort on make my personal site worthwhile, but putting effort into LinkedIn would make a great deal of sense in a case where, LinkedIn is directly putting cash into your bank account.
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John,
I agree with you about not neglecting my own blog. I own my content here. Any content I post on LinkedIn would be copyrighted but I wouldn’t have control over it.
Don Purdum commented (after you) and he shared his strategy for blogging on LinkedIn. He’s publishing short 300-word posts that are related to an original article on his blog and he’s including a link to the article on his blog. In addition to the SEO benefits, he’s driving traffic to his site. (Thanks again to Don for sharing that idea with us.)
I think this is a great strategy that would lend itself well to my Friday Finds series. I would probably approach it differently from Don. I’m thinking I would do small versions of my finds and link to the original authority site. (If appropriate, I could link to a post on my site too.)
As always, thanks for weighing in on this. I appreciate your input. I hope you’re having a great week.
Hi Sherryl,
Great resources. I find SEO somewhere in between exciting and confusing. I understand how powerful it is, and I get good traffic from Google and some of the other search engines, but at the same time it seems that it’s a topic that it’s close to impossible to become an expert in. There are so many things to learn and it keeps changing.
I am using RankTracker to analyze how I’m doing, and I’m using All-in-one-SEO by Yoast and Scribe by Copyblogger. I think that’s about it.
Hi Jens,
I hear you about SEO. It is constantly changing which is part of the reason that I’m fascinated by it As much as I love the free organic traffic that I get from it, I completely understand that at any time, Google could whack my site and I could be completely de-indexed. That alone is part of my motivation for trying to keep up with SEO and alert others to what we should and should not be doing.
I can’t use Yoast’s plugin on my site because it’s not compatible with the Thesis theme. As soon as I switch themes, Yoast’s plugin is definitely on my list of must-have plugins.
Thanks for the recommendation of RankTracker. I think that was on my to-do list but I haven’t gotten to it yet.
As always, thanks for dropping by and adding your insight to the conversation. I’ll be by your site soon. My 3-year old granddaughter will be here any minute. So, I’m calling it quits for the rest of the day. 🙂 I hope you have a great weekend!
Sherryl Perry recently posted..People Will Buy From You When They Understand What Business Youâre Really In!
Hey!
Great infographic and definitely worth reading 🙂
I love the tip specially on emotional value. Super good stuffs!
Keep it up and just shared on Triberr as well. By the way, how have you been? Hope you are in good health!
Hi Reginald,
Isn’t that infographic great? I remember reading the original article but (honestly) seeing the data presented in an infographic had more impact on me.
I really like the AMI headline analyzer tool. When I first started using it, I would spend a bit of time tweaking my post titles. After two years of using it, it takes me much less time to come up with a score of 50% or better. I’m a firm believer that it’s helped me a lot.
The one issue that using that tool raises is that the title of this post ranks 50% when I include my #FridayFinds hashtag and 60% if I leave it off. I’m sure that’s due to the fact that my hashtag doesn’t exist in their database but it does make me wonder if I should be using it. Is including my hashtag (positively or negatively) affecting the amount of shares and clicks? Any thoughts? (Anyone?)
I love Triberr Reginald. I just finished making the rounds there and I scheduled a couple of your posts to share as well.
All’s well here! I hope you can say the same. Have a great weekend!
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