Who Wants to Win $1,000 in Cash?
Regular readers probably know the following two things about me:
First, I’m a big fan of guest blogging contests. Not only do I like the fact that they give participants an opportunity to win cash and all kinds of great prizes, but I also think they’re a great opportunity for a writer to be exposed to a new audience. Whether a writer is an active blogger or someone who owns a business, a guest blogging contest can connect them with readers that may have otherwise never known about them.
Second, I recently launched MySEOCommunity.com. Because it brings together everything that I’ve been working on for the past few years, I view it as “my baby.” Although I’m well aware that it’s not the Internet’s first SEO community, I think that it has several features that set it apart from the rest. You can read about the community’s unique features on its About page.
As a result of my love of guest blogging contests and the launch of MySEOCommunity, it’s only logical that we’re celebrating the launch of the site with a new guest blogging contest:
The Mad SEO Scientist Guest Blogging Contest – Grand Prize $1000. Cash!
Since a great SEO guest blogging contest has to feature a great 1st prize, the maddest SEO scientist in this contest gets $1,000 in cash and a lifetime premium membership to MyBlogGuest.
If you check out the official announcement, you will see that the prizes for the contest’s other winners aren’t too shabby. In fact, this contest has over $2,000 in total cash prizes, as well as some other awesome goodies from all of our sponsors!
If you’ve participated in any of our other guest blogging contests, you know there are two parts to the recipe for success:
-Write a killer post
-Promote the heck out of it and interact with the post’s audience
Since the new site is all about community, we’re really emphasizing the social aspect of this contest. So, not only will you want to Tweet your post out once it’s published, but you will want to engage with everyone who leaves a comment on it. Additionally, if readers start discussing it on channels like Google +, be sure to interact with them there as well.
The deadline for this contest is March 5th, so it’s time for you to head to your lab and start cooking up an amazing post!
And a huge thanks to all of the sponsors who made this contest possible:
$1000. Sponsors
Next Digital is Asia/Pacific’s largest full-service digital agency. They specialise in creative, marketing, strategy and technology, leading the new digital age to discover what’s next! Digital Marketing
$150. Sponsors
WordStream, provider of ppc software and a better Google Keyword tool
Search Engine Marketing Group SEO Link Building services
$100. Sponsors
Julie Joyce www.LinkFishMedia.com
Doc Sheldon The Clinic
Create amazing blog using our Awesome Thesis Child Themes
A professional website design copmany Helping you create a unique brand image
ShellShock UK Content Strategy Link Building aka Content Marketing
Ash Buckles www.SEO.com
$50. Sponsors
Brian Waraksa Houston Internet marketing
Jacob Share Group Writing Projects
Ajeet Khurana About the Web
The people at Top Web Design Schools, a directory of web related college programs
Customer Paradigm Magento Developers
BestGardenGifts.com Best Garden Gifts
HotTubVariety.com Hot Tub Reviews
EarthCareGreenhouses.com Wholesale Greenhouses
GoGardenGuides.com Home & Garden Social Bookmarking
USA Greenhouse Store Greenhouses
Bob Jones Perth SEO
NewsPuff.com News Puff
MiniGreenhouseKits.com Commercial Greenhouses Supplies
OurCrazyDeals.com Our Crazy Deals
www.Zoomit.com Canadian News
David Leonhardt SEO Ottawa
John McElborough SEO Agency
Contest Media Partners
Free Blogengage Account $29.95 Value blogengage.com
Ana Hoffman www.TrafficGenerationCafe.com/
Non-cash SEO Prizes
David Harry A full years membership at SEO Dojo, a value of $250.SEO Training Dojo
Lifetime membership to: My Blog Guest. MyBlogGuest.com is the free guest post exchange community where users meet to exchange guest posts and network.
Link-Assistant.Com SEO PowerSuite Enterprise (max. functionality license) SEO tools
SEMrush.com – the best tool to spy on your competitors ($210 value) www.semrush.com
WebSEOAnalytics.com 1 Year subscription to their Professonal SEO tools
www.Hostgator.com 1 Year Business web hosting
Publish Free Content and Win $1000 – MyBlogGuest Articles Gallery Contest
How would you like to win $1000 for publishing a guest post on your blog?
No, that wasn’t a typo; you don’t even have to write a post to win $1000!
While this is the first big blogging contest of 2012, it’s the coolest and simplest contest I’ve seen in a long time. Instead of wearing yourself out by trying to put together the perfect post, you can let the platform do the work for you.
So, what’s the catch? There’s not one. MyBlogGuest is an awesome site that’s holding an awesome contest. In case you haven’t had a chance to check them out before, MyBlogGuest connects bloggers with people who want to write guest posts. Instead of spending time sending out cold emails, MBG provides a thriving community of people who already want this content. What’s neat about MBG is you can benefit from both writing guest posts and accepting guest posts from others.
$1000 Contest Details
This contest is centered around a specific feature of MBG, which is the Articles Gallery. Here’s a quick video that shows how easy it is to use the Articles Gallery to find awesome free content to publish on your blog:
Yup, MBG really does make it that easy to find great content that’s 100% free. While you can use MBG all year long, for this contest you will want to publish your guest post anytime between now and February 15th; the contest itself officially ends on February 20th. Keep in mind that the earlier you put your post up, the more time you will have to promote it to your audience.
To participate in this contest, head over to MyBlogGuest to sign up for free. All you need is a PR2+ blog, Twitter & Facebook count buttons installed at the post level and a commenting system that doesn’t require registration.
The winner will be determined by a combination of Tweets, Facebook Likes, comments and how engaged you are with the post & the MBG community.
You can check out the 3 rules on the original announcement, but they’re nothing overly strict. Instead, they just boil down to don’t be a cheater!
Ann Smarty has done an awesome job with MyBlogGuest and this contest, so I’m pumped to see the posts you all enter!
Leave a comment with a link to the post you enter into the contest:
Come on People, Your Attitude to Guest Blogging Is Killing Me!
Well, not literally but if I end up in the obituaries section of the newspaper, you know who to blame.
To give you a bit of background, I decided earlier this year to start a few new blogs. I also decided, having worked as a linkbuilder and copywriter for a number of years to allow guest blogging, thinking I was not only doing something nice for the community but maybe I could spare a few hours writing time and get some really good user-generated content instead.
iPhonebloggers.co.uk was the first of these ‘guest blogging friendly’ blogs and although it’s only been going a few months, I’ve already begun offering guest blogging on it. Although I’ve had a few good suggestions from bloggers, I’ve had a lot of complete and utter crap sent through as well.
I’m not talking about duplicated content, it’s not. It generally meets the basic guest blogging guidelines I’ve set; that’s not normally an issue. What I’m talking about is 400 word pieces of low-quality drivel with a link or two at the end. Probably put together by some freelancer who gets paid peanuts to re-write articles he or she is re-writing from some almost defunct article directory. (When I say unique content, I mean you’ve actually had a think about it and come up with a unique angle – passing copyscape is taken for granted).
I know how it works – I’ve worked as an inhouse and agency seo for a number of years. It worked fine when article directories (god bless their panda-whacked little souls) were all the rage but it won’t work with blogging as well. Sure, there are blogs out there that will take anything. Sometimes I even jump in for an easy link if it’s a slow news day. But, for the majority of blogs and bloggers, guest blogging is a way to build influence and subscribers not just backlinks.
Tell Me Something I Don’t Know
I appreciate that if you have something amazing to say, you probably want to write it on your own blog. That’s a natural instinct, but perhaps you’re just not understanding how guest blogging works.
When you write for another blogger, they’re essentially introducing you to all of their followers and friends. First impressions count. If you’re going to say something interesting, if you want to catch the attention of all these people and get them to follow you, link to you, whatever – now would be a really good time!
Guest blogging is a way to stand out, so put the time and effort into saying something worth saying not just repeating what’s already out there.
Don’t be Selfish about Social
Any serious blogger wants to build a readership, first and foremost. As a guest blogger you can help me do that by posting your blog post on Twitter and Facebook, you can stumble it and you can link to it when you write guest posts on other blogs. Ann Smarty is great for this. Guest blogging on Bloggingpro she links to another post she wrote on cleverdude.com. I’m sure she’ll get invited back. By the way Ann, with that attitude, you’re welcome to write a guest post for any of my blogs.
And linkbuilders don’t forget that pushing your guest posts out socially and linking back to them really strengthens the value of that link, as well as opening it up to more click-throughs and second hand pickup. It’s also plain old-fashioned good manners.
It’s Not A ‘Hit And Run’ Job
If you’re good, I want you back! Come pitch me another guest post and we’ll chat.
Advertisers understand that you often need to be exposed to a product a few times before you begin to notice it and ultimately buy it. The same goes for guest blogging. You might prick people’s attention the first time you write a guest post for me, but if you write two awesome guest posts in the space of a few months, people will sit up and pay attention. They’ll want to know more about you/your company/your blog and they won’t want to miss another post – AKA they’ll subscribe to your blog/follow you on Twitter/become a fan on Facebook – whatever.
Links
I know you want in content links, but what I’m really looking for is in context links. What do I mean by that?
There’s nothing more spammy-looking than seeing a post with keywords forced in. You know the kind of post I mean? You’re reading through it and it’s all fine and then you come across a sentence that reads:
So book your flights to New York and jet off to a new adventure exploring the Big Apple. Or random car insurance links in the middle of an article. Just because you’re able to get the phrase into a sentence doesn’t mean it fits!
As long as you’re not linking to anything dodgy or totally out of context I’m actually cool with you having plenty of links to pages around your site. If you’re writing a post about the ‘Best iPhone Apps for Wannabe Hitmen’ and you’ve written a review of the Gunman iPhone app, well feel free to link to it if it adds value to the piece – that makes sense. Just don’t suddenly mention iPhone insurance or worse still car insurance, unless hitmen actually need and use it. Maybe they do, but it sure as hell sticks out like a sore thumb when you throw in a phrase like ‘cheap online car insurance deals’ with a link back to your site/client.
And while we’re on it, don’t just include your links your own site, Pagerank freaks! Co-citation is equally important in my opinion (and Jim Boykin’s), not just for seo but for actually writing a normal, natural-looking article that has some purpose other than to give you some exact match anchor text (which btw, matters less and less these days – SEOmoz agrees). Plus, you might just grab the attention of the people you’re linking to which could result in a retweet, stumble or more importantly a new relationship.
In summary:
Look I know you or your client needs links (I do too!) and they’re getting harder and harder to get. The life of the seo and in particular linkbuilder is a hard knock one but don’t waste your time pushing out low-quality crap to my blog (at least). The fact that Google has whacked a ton of sites made up of this level of content should be an indication that it wants your copy to do more than just pass Copyscape – and blog owners like me do too! Put the time into writing something that I’ll not only read and publish, but that I’ll promote when I’m guest blogging as well.
The Seven Secret Steps to Irresistible Blog Posts
Go on. Follow these irresistible steps to success...
It’s easy to get hung up on the words you write. As a top blogger, you’d be foolish to not at least consider them. After all, words, sentences and paragraphs are your bread and butter.
But once you’ve worked out what to say and the tone in which to say it, do you take the time to consider the format?
Because if the layout of your copy isn’t readable, nobody’s going to stick around to see what you’ve written. And that renders all your well-chosen words redundant.
So read on and learn the secrets that are going to ensure your target audience is going to read all the way to the end.
The Seven Secret Steps to Irresistible Blog Posts
Master the Art of the Paragraph
We all remember when we’re obliged to start a new paragraph. When you change topic, change time or change place. That’s what your teacher told you at school, so you just keep ploughing on with the same rambling paragraph until you’ve exhausted the topic, run out of time, or moved to sunny Tijuana.
You credulous buffoon. Why on earth did you think your teacher was right?
Here’s the one time you need to change paragraph. Doesn’t matter if time, topic and place are still the same, there’s one point when you need to hit that return key.
When dramatic effect demands it.
A quick, single sentence paragraph is visual shorthand for “this bit is important”. So make use of them when you’re sharing something groundbreaking. And watch as your reader starts to scroll down looking for the next one.
Or for something just as arresting…
Hit ‘em With a Hail of Bullet (Points)
What have great bloggers and successful gangsters got in common? Other than a penchant for whisky cocktails and jaunty hats?
That’s right – they both know how to fire bullet points with deadly accuracy.
Why are bullet points so effective?
- Visually arresting – a bullet point hits you like, well, a bullet between the eyes. You can’t ignore it. You stop and read.
- Clear and concise – it’s impossible to ramble on a bullet point. You’re throwing out pure, distilled information
- Breaks up blocks – people won’t read a wall of text. Liberally scatter your bullets, and your layout remains fresh and interesting.
Stop Skimmers by Sprinkling in Subheadings
Skim readers love subheadings. It’s pretty much all they’ll stop for.
And you want a skim reader to stop, because if they don’t, they’re scrolling all the way to the bottom, off the page and out of your life.
So unleash a few content speedbumps to slow them down. Enticing and enlightening subheadings help your readers to find the content they find most useful or interesting – so they’ll make a bee-line straight for it.
And then they’ll read it.
And if they’ve slowed down long enough to read a whole subsection, they’ve slowed down long enough to write a comment, hammer out a tweet, or buy your eBook.
Not bad for a bit of bolded text.
The Internet Can’t Say No to a Funny Picture
He might be able to write Shakespeare, but he can't format it
By now, the reader’s concentration is beginning to flag. All the typographical tricks are keeping them on the page, but you need to cut them some slack.
So throw in an illustration or two.
Preferably one that backs up your points – and don’t forget to add an amusing caption, just to re-enforce your message. Because long after they’ve forgotten the exact wording of your advice, they’ll remember that the funny monkey told them just how to keep people reading.
Beef Up Arguments With Block Quotes
By now, you’re coming around to my way of thinking. You’re plotting sublime subheaders, and coming up with cunning captions.
But something’s nagging at the back of your mind. Wouldn’t this post be truly, completely irresistible if you could just see a second opinion?
Block quotes are a great way of providing a second opinion. As they’re generally from another authority on your subject of choice, they carry weight.
And because they’re visually interesting, they fulfill the same role as bullets points and subheaders – they force the reader to slow down and pay attention!
Mr603 – Outspoken Member of the Twitterati
Yeah. That’ll just about cover it.
Think About Your Font
What font is your blog written in?
I can say with some certainty that you’re probably not going to have a clue. Which is frankly ridiculous if you want to create a truly irresistible post.
The art of font creation is a huge subject that I don’t have space to get into here. But prove the power of the font to yourself. Copy this post into a word processor.
Now set the font to Comic Sans or Vivaldi.
I think that proves my point. Don’t you?
Avoiding Irritations
Follow the six secret steps, and you’ll have framed your content in an absolutely irresistible way. But don’t rest on your laurels yet, dear blogger.
Because you’ve still got a final chance to throw it all away. By irritating your readers and driving them from your site, never to return.
Irritating blog quirks could fill a whole post to themselves, but there are two content killers that you’ll need to avoid at all costs:
- Pop Ups: I know you want your reader to sign up to your mailing list. But please don’t hurl a pop-up at them after they’ve just started to read. It’ll break their concentration and raise their hackles. Just don’t take the risk.
- Pagination: We’ve all got mouse wheels. So don’t split your post into seven chapters across seven pages. Because a blog reader will scroll for miles and miles to read your content. Just don’t expect them to click.
So there you have it. The seven secret steps to making your blog’s content truly irresistible. You don’t need to use all seven techniques in everything you post, but keep all of these techniques in your locker, and you’ll find your audience to be far more responsive.
And who can blame them? You’re totally irresistible.
The 2nd Annual Bad Ass SEO Guest Blogging Contest Is Here!
It’s time for the 2nd Annual Bad Ass SEO Guest Blogging Contest!
This year’s Donkeys Behaving Badly event is being held In partnership with Blogengage.com. If you would like a free Blogengage account (normally $29.99 but free for contestants, simply email admin@blogengage dot com with your desired username: and e-mail and your contest entry URL and Brian will hook you up with a FREE account) so you’ll be able to reply to comments you receive (see contest rules below). Blogengage will automatically syndicate your contest entries into the Blog Engage community and their portfolio of social media websites such as Blog Serp, Top Blogged, RSS Leak, Blogger Ink, Tag Serp and Blogger Tag.
Also all contest entries will be automatically submitted to blokube.com Blokube is another up and coming social voting community for bloggers and it’s free to join, so go ahead and register on blokube.com if you want to keep up with your submission there. Keep in mind social engagement at both blokube and blogengage will count towards your social engagement score. Again social engagement is a metric we use to settle any tie breakers in this contest.
What is the Bad Ass SEO Guest Blogging Contest?
It’s that time of the year when the donkey starts misbehaving. All joking aside, the contest is (now) an annual contest for SEOs and Internet marketers to showcase their awesome guest blogging skills.
The contest will start today (9/12/11) and last until October 12th, 2011. Acceptable guest post topics include anything related to SEO, Internet marketing or social media Uses of Facebook etc. Although we may extend the publishing duration of the contest to get all the entries published, we will stop accepting entries 30 days from today. Email your contest entries to gweber at sem-group.net, please include any images you would like to use as well as any image credit (if applicable)
What’s In It for Me?
- Cold Hard Cash
- Very Cool SEO Related Prizes
- Increased Exposure for Your Content
- The Potential for More RSS Subscribers
- Networking with Other Like Minded Individuals
- Did I Mention Cash?
What Exactly Can I Win?
- 1st place: $1000. Cash + a Lifetime “PREMIUM membership” to MyBlogGuest.com
- 2nd place: $500. Cash + a full years membership at The SEO training Dojo.
- 3rd Place: $350. cash + Link-Assistant.Com SEO PowerSuite Enterprise (max. functionality license)
- 4th Place: $250. cash + 3 month subscription to SEMRush.com
- 5th place: $175. cash + 3 month subscription to Raven Internet marketing tools
- 6th Place: $100. cash
- 7th place: $75. cash
- 8th place: $50. cash
- 9th place: $50. cash
Now check out all the awesome sponsors that made all these prizes possible!
Contest Media Partner
$500 Sponsors
RankPop.com Affordable SEO
$300 Sponsors
Daniel McGonagle Link Building
SEO-Peace.com Professional link building SEO Company
$150 Sponsors
Hesham Zebida Thesis Skins
$100 Sponsors
Scott Bradley Simple Weight Loss Tips For Entrepreneurs
Milan Matchev Health Directory
Jacob Share JobMob Job Search Tips
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Ileane Smith Blogging Tips
John Britsios www.SEOWorkers.com
Doc Sheldon’s Clinic Critical Thinking for the Discerning SEO
$50 Sponsors
Vertical Measures Internet Marketing Services
Whitney Michael Segura Greenhouses for Sale
Butch Segura Wholesale Greenhouses by EarthCare
Whitney “WeedyP” Segura Internet Marketing Blog by Whitney Segura
Ernest Segura Greenhouse Supplies @ OurCrazyDeals.com
Raxa Design Houston Internet marketing
Ana Hoffman – Traffic Generation Cafe Web Traffic
James Brown James Brown
Anwar Barake Wholesale Herbal Incense
Understand Technology with TechFume
The Tech Blog TechnoZeast
Wilderness Aware Rafting Colorado White Water Rafting
Sales Nexus online CRM
SEO Prize Sponsors
David Harry A full years membership at SEO Dojo, a value of $250.SEO Training Dojo
Lifetime membership to: My Blog Guest. MyBlogGuest.com is the free guest post exchange community where users meet to exchange guest posts and network.
Link-Assistant.Com SEO PowerSuite Enterprise (max. functionality license) SEO tools
SEMrush.com – the best tool to spy on your competitors ($210 value) www.semrush.com
3 month Pro subscription to Raven Internet Marketing Tools ($297 value) Raven Internet Marketing Tools
What are the Rules?
- Register for a SEM Group user account so you can submit your post for review. Please fill out all of your profile information. If you don’t have a Gravatar, please get one. You may have up to 3 links in your bio. If you have already published a guest post on this blog, there is no need to reregister. If you’re in this situation but aren’t sure about your login, just send me an email and I’ll let you know your existing login information.
- You must submit your post by October 12th, 2011.
- Your post must be original content that you personally wrote.
- You must have a paypal account (as that is how we will be paying the winners cash)
- On the day your post is published, you must write a post on your blog about the contest that contains a link to the official contest post and links to all of the sponsors. Click here for a pre-formatted text document of the contest sponsors. It’s ok if you hotlink the image from my server.
Post Guidelines
- Guest posts must be at least 500 words. While they can be as reasonably long as you’d like, please don’t write a book! Please take a moment to review our guest posting guidelines
- You can have as many links as you wish in the body of your content (Please keep this within reason). However, please limit links to your projects or websites to your bio. No affiliate links!
- Your bio must have a Gravatar. Please use a picture of yourself, as opposed to a logo.
- Keep your post relevant to the overall theme of this blog. SEO, link building, Internet marketing, PPC, social media and blogging tips are all acceptable topics.
How Can I Win?
- Write a promotional post about the contest to help spread the word in the blogosphere.
- Add Sponsors’ links to your promotional post. The sponsors are the ones making the cash prizes possible, so please show them some love!
- Your contest submission will be judged first and foremost on the quality and style of your content. Usefulness etc
- A high value is placed on the number and quality of comments you receive on your guest post. Be sure to interact with and respond to your commentators, because this will help you win in the event of a tie breaker. Keep in mind that ambiguous and/or spammy comments will not help you.
- Spread the word about your post through all of your social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, Sphinn etc). A high value will be placed on your entry’s number of Tweets and overall social media promotion.This will help you win in the event of a tiebreaker! (We had about 3 tie breakers last year so social engagement REALLY can help you win. Also keep in mind the social engagement (comments, tweets etc) for your post on Blogengage also count towards your overall social engagement score!
- Keep in mind that the sooner you submit your post, the more time you’ll have to promote it. The contest early bird will likely get the worm!
- Feel free to use the donkey image in your post.
Special Thanks
A few of my friends, who are also sponsors, went WAY above and beyond to help me promote this contest:
Ann Smarty, Ana Hoffman, David Harry, Brian Belfitt – These friends all helped out by mentioning the contest in their newsletters, putting contest banners on their sites/blogs and allowing me to write blog posts about the contest on their web properties. I REALLY appreciate you guys & gals!
If you have any questions about the contest feel free to contact me directly. I’m searchengineguy on skype and thegman on Blogengage and of course @the_gman on Twitter. You can also email me at gweber@sem-group.net
Release the donkey! Let the games begin!
9 Search Optimization Tips with Benefits for Your Visitors
This is a guest post from Kristi Hines . It is part of The “Bad Ass” SEO Guest Blogging Contest.
There are many SEO tips that are not only good for search engines but they are very helpful for people looking for and perusing through your website. Here are nine SEO tips you can do to help search engines and visitors love your site.
1. Keywords and Research
If you choose the right keywords for your homepage and your internal pages, blog posts, etc., you will be helping visitors find what they are searching for easier. The best way to do this is to think of a keyword that fits your page, then a 2 – 3 word phrase that fits including that keyword. It’s really as simple as that.
Keyword Resources
- Google Adwords Keywords Tool
- Google Insights (plus ideas on how to use Insights)
- Microsoft Advertising Intelligence plugin for Excel (plus how to use it)
- Popular Searches
- Anchor text
2. Titles
The title tag is important because it is the heading for search engine listings and it is usually the anchor text when people bookmark your homepage, blog post, or single page on your website. The easiest way to create a title for your page is to include the keyword phrase you thought of during keyword research and include it in the up to 70 character description of your page.
Title Resources
- Title tag best practices
- Creating Killer headlines
- All in One or Platinum SEO for WordPress
3. Meta Descriptions
The meta description is essentially your sales pitch for your page when it comes up in search engines. It is also usually the description that is picked up when people bookmark your site socially. To create a good meta description, create a short sentence or two under 155 characters that includes the main keyword phrase for your page.
Meta Descriptions Resources
- Ultimate guide to meta descriptions
- Meta description best practices
4. Header Tags
Header tags break up your page into easily digestible sections to help readability. Think of your page’s content in outline form – the header tags break up each main section of your text. Header tags should include keyword phrases you would like your page to rank for.
Also, note that the text right after your header tag can play a significant role. For example, I had an H3 header in one of my recent posts that said Most Valuable Guides (not the best keywords, but bear with me). In search results, without any other optimization, link building, etc., search engines pick up that phrase as follows:
So needless to say, header tags are valuable and need to be optimized as well as careful consideration given to the first sentence after the header tag as well.
5. Images
<img src="seo-optimized-image.jpg" alt="A SEO Optimized Image" title="A SEO Optimized Image" />
To get the most out of your keywords and help break up text for visitors with something eye catching, be sure to include an image in your post with keywords in the filename, alt text, and title.
Where does the alt tag come into play outside of SEO? If you were visually impaired and using a screen reader, the alt text would be read to you by your program.
Image Resources
- SEO optimizing images.
- Creative Commons and Flickr image search
- Image copyright laws
- SEO friendly images WordPress plugin
6. Internal Linking
Once people get on your site, you want them to stick around and find more relevant content. Using internal linking will help them learn more about what your site has to offer, especially if you are using the right anchor text as a guide.
Internal Linking Resources
- Never use nofollow on internal links
- SEO Smart Links WordPress plugin
7. Link Building
So what benefit does link building have to offer potential visitors without mentioning any SEO benefits? When I am seeking out link building opportunities, I find that pages already offering their visitors resources for a particular topic. Link building is simply offering another site’s visitors more resources to choose from for more options.
Link Building Resources
- Top 100+ link building resources.
- Link building for beginners.
8. Social Media
Social networking allows you to really connect with your website’s audience, which helps you learn more about their needs and create content, product, and services that will really appeal to them.
In link building, even though Twitter, for example, only gives you nofollow links, someone who sees your link through Twitter may like it so much that they link to it in their blog or elsewhere on their website, which essentially means that nofollow social media link turned into a dofollow one.
Also, it’s not just the social networking you do – it’s the social sharing you make possible. Installing buttons or widgets to make your site more socially sharable makes it easier for your visitors to tell the world about you!
Social Media Resources
- Top social media blogs
- Social media snapshot series: your hub, content, network, and impact, plus creating a dashboard on a spreadsheet.
- Add This, Add to Any, and WordPress plugins
9. Guest Blogging
Last but not least is the ever popular guest blogging. If you have expertise that others would benefit from, then guest blogging will help you share that knowledge with an even wider audience. If your visitors are also bloggers, you can even help them by guest blogging on their site, sending some of your visitors in their direction. The benefits to doing both of these (the right way) are really exponential in helping establish yourself as an authority in your industry.
Guest Blogging Resources
- My Blog Guest
- How guest blogging gets subscribers, links, and even a better Google ranking
- A comprehensive guest blogging guide
Your Thoughts on Search Optimization for Visitors
What ways do you optimize for SEO with your visitors in mind, and what tools and resources would you suggest to help other website and blog owners to do the same?
The Bad Ass SEO Guest Blogging Contest
Yes, you read correctly, it’s time for The Bad Ass SEO Guest Blogging Contest. For the next month, I’ll be accepting guest posts right here on my blog. As you can see below, the top guest bloggers are eligible to receive cash prizes (current pot is $2100.) cash and there are a couple non-cash prizes.
To clarify, you don’t have to actually be a bad ass SEO (although it wouldn’t hurt) to enter the contest. The general theme is SEO and the contest itself is bad ass since we have several generous sponsors that put up cash and a few other prizes.
What is the Bad Ass SEO Guest Blogging Contest? Blogging is always fun, but it’s even more fun when there is cold hard cash involved. Starting today (August 2nd) until September 2nd, you can submit guest posts to my blog. I’m pretty flexible as far as acceptable topics as long as they fit within the general theme of this blog. So, anything from SEO to blogging to social media will do.
How long does the contest last? The contest starts today August 2nd and ends September 2nd You must submit your post between these dates in order to be eligible to win. The winners will be announced 15 days after the contest ends. This will allow us ample time to publish any remaining posts and to judge all contest entries.
What can you win? Take a look at all the sponsors, cash and other prizes!
$200. Prize Sponsors
Daniel McGonagle Link Building
BestTravelWebsites.com Best Travel Sites
ArrangeYourVacation.com Vacation Rentals
$150 Prize Sponsors
$100 Prize Sponsors
Alisa Bowman Marriage Advice
Hesham Zebida Thesis Skins
Gerald Weber Houston SEO
Toni J Young Network Marketing Training
Quillcards Distinctive Ecards by Quillcards
Ghostwriter Dad Ghostwriting services
$50 Prize Sponsors
Whitney Segura Whitney Segura’s Internet Marketing Blog
James Brown James Brown
Raxa Design Houston web design
Eric Brantner Freelance Copywriter
The Servant Media Houston Business Development
Ana Hoffman, Traffic Generation Cafe Increasing Targeted Website Traffic
The Lane Real Estate Team Kennewick Homes
Other prizes: Non-Cash Sponsors
Hostgator.com 1 year Business Hosting plan. Includes toll free phone number and SSL $179.40 value Business Web Hosting
David Harry A full years membership at SEO Dojo, a value of $250.SEO Training Dojo
Link-Assistant.Com SEO PowerSuite Enterprise (max. functionality license) $599 worth with a life-time Live! Plan subscription. SEO tools
Special thanks to the contest media partner: My Blog Guest. MyBlogGuest.com is the free guest post exchange community where users meet to exchange guest posts and network.
What are the rules?
- Register for a user account with SEM Group so you can submit your post for review. Please fill out all of your profile information and if you don’t have a Gravatar please get one. You may have up to 3 links in your bio.
- You must submit your post by September 2nd 2010
- Your article must be original content, and it must be written by you.
- On the day your post is published, you must write a post on your blog about the contest that contains a link to the official contest post and links to all of the sponsors. A You can get the code to link to all of the sponsors here
$200. Prize Sponsors
Daniel McGonagle Link Building
BestTravelWebsites.com Best Travel Sites
ArrangeYourVacation.com Vacation Rentals $150 Prize Sponsors
$100 Prize Sponsors
Alisa Bowman Marriage Advice
Hesham Zebida Thesis Skins
Gerald Weber Houston SEO
Toni J Young Network Marketing Training
Quillcards Distinctive Ecards by Quillcards
Ghostwriter Dad Ghostwriting services
$50 Prize Sponsors
Whitney Segura Whitney Segura's Internet Marketing Blog
James Brown James Brown
Raxa Design Houston web design
Eric Brantner Freelance Copywriter
The Servant Media Houston Business Development
Ana Hoffman, Traffic Generation Cafe Increasing Targeted Website Traffic
The Lane Real Estate Team Kennewick Homes
Other prizes: Non-Cash Sponsors
Hostgator.com 1 year Business Hosting plan. Includes toll free phone number and SSL $179.40 value Business Web Hosting
David Harry A full years membership at SEO Dojo, a value of $250.SEO Training Dojo
Link-Assistant.Com SEO PowerSuite Enterprise (max. functionality license) $599 worth with a life-time Live! Plan subscription. SEO tools
Special thanks to the contest media partner: My Blog Guest. MyBlogGuest.com is the free guest post exchange community where users meet to exchange guest posts and network.
- You can be either a sponsor for the contest or you can compete in the contest. Unfortunately you can’t do both.
If you have already published a guest post here in the past there is no need to register. If this is the case and you aren’t sure about your login just send me an email and I’ll let you know your login credentials.
Post Guidelines
- Guest posts must be at least 450 words, not to exceed 1000 words.
- You may have as many links as you wish in the body of the content. However, please limit links to your projects or websites to your bio. Absolutely no affiliate links allowed.
- Your bio must have a Gravatar. Please use a picture of yourself and not a logo.
- Keep your post relevant to the overall theme of this blog. SEO, link building, internet marketing, pay per click, social media, blogging tips are all acceptable topics.
How to win
- Write a post about the contest to help spread the word in the blogosphere. Your post (contest submission) will be judged First on quality of the content and style of the post.
- Add Sponsors links to your post using the correct anchor text and make sure the links are do-follow. This is extremely important and your post won’t be eligible to win if you haven’t fulfilled this requirement. The sponsors are the ones making the cash prizes possible, so show them some link love.
- A high value is placed on the number of and quality of comments received on your guest post. Also, be sure to interact with and respond to your commentators. This will help you win! Ambiguous and/or spammy comments will not help you.
- Spread the word about your post through all your social media channels: Twitter, Facebook, Sphinn, etc. A high value will be placed on number of Tweets and overall social media promotion.
Keep in mind, the sooner you submit your post the more time you’ll have to promote it. So the early bird gets the worm!
Also feel free to use the donkey image in your post. You can get the code here
Also feel free to upload the image to your server if you like.
IF you have any questions feel free to contact me. Also you can contact me on Skype, I’m searchengineguy.
Let the blogging begin! Woot!
Position Yourself As An Expert With Guest Blogging
Whenever we talk about guest blogging, the conversation usually focuses on the link building benefits of guest blogging. And while this is certainly one of the best reasons to guest post, I’ve personally found that the increased exposure and the ability to position yourself as an expert in your niche are the most profitable effects of guest blogging.
Let me explain.
I’ve been fortunate enough to guest post on several popular marketing blogs throughout the internet. At first, the only reason I was doing this was to get quality back links to my website. But as time went on, I started realizing that I was getting far more from my guest blogging efforts than some good link juice.
Suddenly, I was getting contacted by readers of my guest posts who were interested in becoming clients. I was also getting contacted by other bloggers who wanted me to contribute a post to their blog as well.
But I’m not the only one this happens to. Even in the comments of the post I linked to earlier, Ann Smarty admits
“The most recognition, client work, business contacts came from guest posts. I think I owe my whole marketing career to just a few awesome pieces I posted elsewhere.”
Why does this happen when you guest post? For a few reasons:
- You’re reaching a new audience—No matter how much effort you put into growing your own blog, any time you guest post, you’ll be reaching some new people. Guest blogging is a great tool for building your network. To get the most from your guest blogging efforts, make sure to respond to all comments left on your post. And don’t just respond with a “Thanks for leaving a comment.” Instead, take the time to push the conversation forward by truly engaging with the commenter. This helps you build relationships with this new audience.
- Guest blogging positions you as an expert—Being seen as a thought leader in your industry certainly has its advantages. As an expert, you’ll attract the top-shelf clients who are willing to pay more to get the services of an industry leader. You’ll also have an easier time earning the trust of new customers, a challenge for all online businesses.
- Guest posts act as an endorsement from the other blogger—Think about it. If another blogger allows you to write a post on his or her blog, that’s their way of saying “I endorse this blogger, and I think he has something of value to share with the community.” It’s like whenever a President endorses someone running for Congress. The endorsement builds your credibility and name recognition.
Tips for Guest Blogging Success
- submit your best content. This is your one chance to make a good impression on a new audience.
- Interact in the comments to build relationships
- Always look for guest blogging opportunities, even outside of your niche
- Use MyBlogGuest to find the latest guest blogging opportunities
Do you guest blog on a regular basis? How has it helped you? Share your experiences by leaving a comment.
Why Guest Blogging Is An Ideal Link Building Strategy
As a search marketer I have long been looking for an ideal link building model: where everyone’s happy, Google can ban you for selling or buying your link authority, quality wins over quantity and there’s no room for manipulation (note: as a marketer I am well aware of the fact that there’s nothing perfect under the sun. But I wanted something at least better than what we have now).
Currently, the most popular (and the easiest) link building method is still paying for a link (paid reviews, paid editorials, sponsorships, etc). Still, two main reasons why I try to avoid link buying includes:
- Paid links are almost impossible to camouflage: a website selling links has obviously sold quite a few of them, so it is very likely to be flagged for selling links. By buying several links here and there, you are much likely creating a pattern and Google most probably already knows you are doing that (so this is either non-effective or even dangerous);
- The affect from paid link campaigns is somewhat lopsided: you are only paying money for possible ranking increase. A paid link is unlikely to promote your brand or generate you some good, targeted traffic.