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The Internet Marketer’s Guide to Content Curation

December 13, 2019 • Uncategorized • 17

We’ve all heard about how important it is to create high quality content to rank in the SERPs, but one aspect of marketing that is often overlooked is content curation. Both can be equally valuable and provide results that could catapult your website to the top of the rankings.

These tips will help you get started.

Curation can help to build trust

Unlike content creation, curation is about finding and sharing content that your readers will find valuable. By curating you are essentially endorsing other organizations. This way you can support products and services that resonate with you and your audience.

Building trust with your audience should not be understated. People will only buy products or services from organizations that they can trust. Endorsing others is a great way to show people that you’re free-thinking and happy to support viable businesses within your field.

Curation gives you access to better content

It’s often difficult to create content that is at the top of its game, be it due to lack of time or lack of knowledge. However, there will almost always be something out there worth sharing, giving both your website and the author a mutually beneficial platform to build upon.

For example, some topics require a large amount of research and time, such as in the law sector where it’s hugely important to ensure information is up to date with the latest legislation. A lawyer SEO expert may develop content on their website that you cannot develop yourself; therefore, curating could be a more viable option than creation.

Curation can help you acquire more links

Link building is still one of the most powerful elements of online marketing. While Google doesn’t place as much emphasis on it as they used to, it’s still one of the most effective ways to boost your rankings.

Content creators will feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when other people curate their content. This can lead to social media shares, reciprocal endorsements, and backlinks. Not only can this boost social media engagement and rankings in the SERPs, it can also expose your website to a much wider audience – people who would have otherwise not found your website.

Curation provides fresh content

Google does not regard ethically curated content as duplicate content. While duplicate content is frequently penalized for plagiarism, properly curated content is rewarded. Providing you get permission, link to your sources and clearly establish that you are sharing (or improving upon) existing content, there is no danger.

Fresh content is extremely powerful and one of the many things Google looks at when ranking a website. While quality will always beat quantity, it’s important that you show search engine bots that you’re website is active and up-to-date. Depending on the nature of your business, this could simply mean updating your blog once per month. Curated content can help you keep on track when you either haven’t had time to develop your own content, or are struggling to find topics within your niche.

Curation is NOT plagiarism

There is a world of difference between curation and plagiarism. When you curate, you gain permission from the author and credit your sources – it is your responsibility to ensure that your readers understand that you didn’t create the content yourself.

There is no cheating the internet. Plagiarism is not tolerated by the SERPs. Even if you have a short term rankings boost from using other people’s content, Google will eventually find out. Search engine algorithms are extremely complex and getting more and more adept at catching thieves. Businesses have been known to lose rankings or even get de-listed completely for such offenses.

Curation is one of many tools marketers use to gain higher rankings and brand recognition. While it provides numerous benefits, it should never replace content creation altogether – it should simply be used as a supplement. As a rule of thumb, when you’re planning on curating content always ask yourself the following: would I feel proud to have created this and will my readers appreciate it? If the answer to these questions is a resounding “yes”, then get started!
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5 Easy Ways To Improve Your Site Speed

December 12, 2019 • SEO 101 • 26
Site speed is one of the most overlooked aspects of converting visitors into buyers and ranking highly in the SERPs. 57% of visitors leave a site if it takes more than three seconds to load. This means that having a fast site is not only essential for ranking well, but also for increasing sales.

Let’s take a look at a few methods that will help you improve your site speed.

1 – Choose the Right Hosting Service

When it comes to hosting, most site owners choose shared hosting as it is generally the cheapest option. While it’s often enough at the start, you’ll likely need to upgrade your hosting as soon as you start getting more traffic.

Choose a hosting service that offers high bandwidth and faster speed. Services like A2 hosting offer 20X faster website hosting than the average provider. You can refer to the A2 hosting reviews here.

A2 hosting also allows users to have flexibility in server locations. This is extremely helpful for websites that are spread across the globe or are region-specific.

2 – Minimize HTTP Requests

An HTTP request is made every time a browser tries to fetch a file, page or image from a web server. Therefore, the more components you have on your site, the longer it takes for the page to load completely. You can check the number of HTTP requests your site makes using Hubspot’s Website Grader.

Follow these steps to reduce the number of HTTP requests:
- Combine CSS/JS files: Combining your CSS files into one larger file (same for JS) can help you reduce the page load time. You may need your developers to help to combine the files.
- Remove unnecessary images: Consider removing images that aren’t contributing much value to your site.
- Set asynchronous loading: This is applicable if your website is written in JavaScript. Asynchronous loading enables browsers to render multiple page elements at the same time.
You may not notice a change in page speed immediately, but it will help you in the long run.

3 – Leverage CDNs

CDNs (Content Delivery Network) spreads your content across multiple locations throughout the globe. CDNs then deliver the website and its components from the closest server.

With a CDN, pages load faster than they would if the browser were making requests to a server located geographically far away. CDNs also reduce bandwidth costs through caching and other optimizations. Depending on your requirements and budget, you can choose a CDN provider.

4 – Enable Compression

Enabling compression can reduce your page’s size, thereby increasing the loading speed. You can use software like Gzip to compress files. Gzip locates strings of similar code in your text and files (CSS and HTML), and then temporarily replaces them to make the files smaller.

Also, high-quality images can impact your page’s loading time. Use tools like JPEGMini to compress the images while maintaining quality. Make sure all your images are below 150KB.

5 – Enable Browser Caching

When a user visits your website, browser caching will store site resources in the browser cache (temporarily). Therefore, enabling browser caching will improve your site speed.

This means that the next time a user visits your site, their browser can load the page without having to send HTTP requests to the server. When the user visits another page on your website, your logo and CSS files do not need to be loaded again.

If your site is dynamic, reduce the expiration time of the cache file. If you tell the browser to cache the previous version of the CSS, then your site (updated) might appear broken to some users.

Final Thoughts

Improving your site speed is one of the best ways to boost your site’s ranking in the SERPs and increase conversion rate. So, in short: ensure that you choose the right hosting service, try to reduce the number of HTTP requests, enable browser caching, compress your stored files, and use a CDN to reduce the loading time.
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8 Essential Skills Every Digital Marketer Should Have

December 11, 2019 • SEO 101 • 26

Digital marketing is one of the most prosperous professions of the 21st century. Over 80% of Americans make an online purchase once a month, and these numbers are growing each year. If you’re interested in becoming a digital marketer, there has never been a better time to get started.

Here are 8 skills that will help you kickstart your career in digital marketing.

1- Learn SEO

One of the important parts of every digital marketing campaign is search engine optimization. There are several blogs that you can read to enhance your skills in SEO. Some of the best ones in the industry are Moz, Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Land, Seo Sandwitch and the QuickSprout blog.

2- Get a Degree

A college education is not always required to pursue a career in digital marketing. However, it’s always advantageous to earn a degree in marketing as it will open up more doors and give you the ability to apply for positions that require a degree.

You can pursue a traditional degree from a two or four year college by attending classes on campus (you can explore some options here). Or, if you’re already working full-time, you might want to consider pursuing an online marketing degree. Online degrees are often more affordable than traditional degree programs so it’s a great way to earn a degree at a fraction of the cost, and at your own pace. Just make sure you’re finding a reputable and accredited university for any online program you may be considering.

3- Become a Sales Ninja

Most digital marketers work as freelancers. Therefore, it is important for you to become a sales ninja. Selling starts with asking the right questions from your clients. You need to set some goals and follow a process. Measure each and every step, determine your USP and sell to the right person.

You can opt for a sales source from Coursera offered by Hubspot.

4- Improve Your Social Media Skills

Digital marketing is all about influence, and one of the best ways to measure your influence is via social media. Create accounts on every popular social media channel: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest. Network with people and grow your following by sharing stuff that your target audience wants to learn about.

You can take courses like Introduction to social media by Brain Peter or What is Social by Coursera to master your skills on social media.

5- Learn Visual Storytelling

Storytelling is the art of sharing stories online. In the virtual world, stories sell instead of sales pitches. As an online marketer, you need to keep this fact in mind.

Content marketing and storytelling are two of the most essential aspects of digital marketing. No matter what channel you are using to promote your client’s services, you’ll need to apply storytelling for audience engagement.

6- Develop Analytical Abilities

Anything that is not measured, can’t be improved. As a digital marketer, you need to work with a lot of data. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console should be your first port of call.

You’ll need to learn how to analyze data and suggest steps to positively affect the overall ROI of a campaign. This is critical to success, as every good internet marketer should have excellent analytical and forecasting abilities.

7- Practice Patience

You can’t build Rome in a day, the same applies to digital marketing. You need to practice patience because the campaigns you work won’t yield positive results in a day.

Online marketing is all about running campaigns, waiting for results, applying new strategies, rerunning the campaigns, and again measuring the impact of the changes. Without ample patience, you won’t be able to succeed in the field of online marketing.

8- Don’t Stop Learning

Google makes changes to its algorithm almost every day. If you don’t remain updated of the new features being added to social platforms, or the new updates launched by Google, your competitors will win. As a digital marketer, you really can’t stop learning.

Wrapping Up

The future is bright for digital marketing candidates. With the right strategies and mindset, there’s no reason why you can’t dominate the field and create a prosperous future. These 8 skills are a great starting point and will get you on the right track from the beginning.
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5 Reasons Why Reviews Are Important For SEO

November 30, 2019 • SEO 101 • 45
Reviews are an integral part of the marketing process. They are extremely effective when you need to influence people to decide whether or not to transact with your business. But they also have the potential to boost your search rankings significantly. Moz estimates that reviews make up 11% of the criteria according to which Google ranks your website.

Let’s dig a little bit deeper…

1. Google Gets New Content to Crawl

Customers who leave reviews (regardless of whether they’re good or bad) are your best content creators. When crawling your website, Google considers these posts to be new and unique content.

Moreover, the reviews are more likely to contain keywords related to your business, industry, or products/services. This not only provides Google with clearer information about who your website is relevant to or what your business is all about, but also influences the ranking of your website.

Reviews can even fill the content gap that may exist in your website or product description, allowing searchers and search engine crawlers to better understand your product and increase your online visibility.

Reviews can also improve your chances of ranking higher on your target keywords – without needing to spend too much time optimizing your website specifically for those keywords. It also increases click-through-rate (another important SEO factor), because your content will be all the more likely to address the intent of people searching for it.

2. Reviews Help Improve Your Site’s User Experience

Google looks at literally hundreds of factors to figure out whether or not your website is relevant to searchers’ queries. It also uses those signals to know how the user experience was.

Positive reviews have the potential to inform Google that your site, products and business are of high quality – and that your pages do indeed offer the valuable information that searchers are looking for. It also tells Google that your business is trustworthy and legit, and that future potential customers can interact with you without any fear.

You may have noticed that Google results sometimes surface websites with lots of user-generated content (UGC) and reviews, despite having difficult navigation and bad interface towards the top of results. While this doesn’t make the user interface and navigation any less important, it does demonstrate the ranking power of quality reviews. It all comes down to offering great user experience in terms of your product or service, if not a good website.

Put effort into offering great service to your customers and ask them to leave a positive review. You’re likely to see yourself jumping towards the top of the SERPs.

3. Great Reviews Increase CTR from Search

As mentioned above, great reviews influence people into taking action. Reviews are the online form of word-of-mouth marketing. While your competitors focus on enhancing their websites’ navigation, interface, and content, take your business one step ahead by tapping into reviews.

In this Neil Patel review from Young Upstarts, the author explains why this trusted marketing thought leader believes that publishing consistent positive reviews has contributed so much to the success of his digital marketing agency, NP Digital.

Collecting as many reviews as possible for each product and integrating rich snippets on your website will transform your listings in the SERPs. This will not only allow you to display multiple similar products as results to a single search query but it will also display any reviews you have collected beneath your listing. Often, Google will display the average star ratings as a visual rich snippet, too.

This increases the likelihood of people clicking. If a high number of audience members are referred to your website through search results, Google assumes you’re the right one to go to for those queries. As a result, you will see an uplift in your website’s rankings.

4. Responding to Reviews Boosts Your Brand Authority

Responding to both positive and negative reviews can help you build trust with your customers as well as search engines and improve brand authority. It lets customers feel that their opinion is valued.

Even Google recommends responding to reviews. According to this Google My Business Help Page, companies should “Interact with customers by responding to reviews that they leave about your business. Responding to reviews shows that you value your customers and the feedback that they leave about your business.”

This statement is then followed by “High-quality, positive reviews from your customers will improve your business’s visibility and increase the likelihood that a potential customer will visit your location.”

Moreover, it gives you a chance to respond and put a positive spin on negative reviews.

Other benefits of responding to reviews from an SEO point of view are:
1. An opportunity to add more keywords for Google to crawl
2. Regularly interacting with customers could signal you care about your customers, a positive factor about your business
3. Can improve your overall review positioning
4. Allows Google to understand your business better
5. Reviews Lift Traffic and Time on Page

As mentioned above, reviews influence click-through-rate which means an increase in traffic. Besides, 63% of customers are more likely to purchase from a website that has user reviews.

Since reviews give searchers a better idea of what they can expect from your business, they are more likely to spend more time browsing your site to find more reasons to get converted. This will result in an increase in the average time spent on your website, which in turn, will reduce the bounce rate.

Google considers both of these factors when ranking sites.

Reviews are especially important for local businesses. They can influence up to 10% of the ranking, and more than 50% of consumers will select a local business if it has positive reviews.

Final Thoughts

SEO is constantly changing, and you must always have a strategy to stay one step ahead of your competitors. No matter if you offer products or services, reviews are very important. They can influence your rankings and online visibility.

Make sure you reply to your customers’ reviews – both positive and negative. Using your target keywords while replying can also help you enhance your website’s rankings.
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10 Hosted Email Services That Run in the Cloud

November 24, 2019 • Featured • 63

Okay, I have used so many email solutions over the years, some bad, some just really bad and then others that really work as you aspect them too.

When you run a business, there’s no avoiding email, be it a small freelance business to any large corporation. There’s a lot of it and this means you need to have plenty of storage for it. Not only that, but you want secure hosted email, so you know that all of that important data is safe. The key is to use hosted email services. I’ve listed 10 of the best to help you narrow down which one to try out.

What are hosted email services?

There are three main options for email services – shared web and email hosting, self-hosted email and third party email hosting. Email hosting by a special company is the best option for businesses as you can avoid slowing down your website, have more control over the features you pay for and ensure all data is stored securely. They also offer a range of state of the art security features, spam filters and collaboration tools.

Best cloud email hosting

There are plenty of companies that offer this kind of service and here are 10 of the best and why they are worth considering for your business email needs.

Office 365

If you use Microsoft’s Office 365 for services such as Word or Excel, then you will also get access to the cloud email hosting as part of the comprehensive package. This allows you to do the basics of sending and receiving emails, have custom domain addresses and also includes comprehensive security and spam services.

G Suite

G Suite from Google is one of the top options for hosted mail. The subscription service includes a range of Google’s products and means you can easily redirect a domain email to a Google inbox to use alongside free Gmail accounts you may have. The plans also include enhanced storage, calendar, contacts and a range of collaboration features.

Zoho Workspace

Zoho offers a great range of features alongside their hosted email services that are a little different to other providers. You can stream messages as well as send traditional emails, there are collaborative inboxes for a whole team and a range of features accessible through the app for speed.

Rackspace

If you want something that is a simple hosted email service, then Rackspace may be the perfect option. They offer two options, email hosting or hosted exchange with the core service offering the basics of email – calendar, contacts and various inboxes. The other option includes shared calendars, archive tools and extended features.

DuoCircle

DuoCircle offer a budget-friendly, simple way to get the email services you need with their mail host services. It automatically includes advanced anti-virus features, phishing guards and anti-spam filtering while remaining cost effective and easy to use. They make use of the popular Amazon Web Services S3 to ensure all emails are safe and secure.

Fasthosts

Fasthosts is another budget friendly option for hosted email that starts from five accounts with small inboxes and scales up as you need it to avoid paying for more storage than you need. They also offer a larger inbox option via the Outlook web app and even provide a free domain for 12 months.

Liquid Web

Liquid Web offer managed and dedicated server packages but also offer a cost-effective option for email. Their basic plan provides a good range of features and lets you import contacts from Gmail and Outlook. There’s a flat fee to start with then small increases for each mailbox you need. There’s also a plus plan for more advanced features.

Greatmail

Greatmail offers two main options with the standard plan with a price per inbox (although there is a minimum of 15 inboxes you can order) and a more advanced plan for additional features such as shared calendars and contacts. It works with POP or IMAP protocols and automatically syncs with apps and desktop versions.

FastMail

FastMail is another simple and straightforward email service that allows you to use the features you need without causing confusion with lots of things you don’t. it has advanced quick filters and ways to program or archive messages as well as a range of collaborative features for teams. You can also customise storage options for employees depending on their use and needs.

MailHostingService

Mailhostingservice.com offer a streamlined messaging service alongside the standard email features that allows you to easily communicate with your team. It includes a range of junk and spam settings to ensure the inbox remains safe and as free of junk as possible while using Amazon’s web Services S3 to store all of the data.

Choosing a provider

There are loads of options when it comes to email hosting services on the cloud. You can follow the trend micro hosted email security and choose a smaller, more dedicated provider or stick with a big name like Microsoft or Google. Whatever you choose, make sure you get the right balance of features for the price.
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