by  R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network

In recent years, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has experienced a slow, but steady transition from focusing on simply optimizing websites for search engines to the actual user experience. It's a good trend, honestly, because search engine rankings are certainly not everything. What good is a search engine ranking if people click through to your site and don't bother to read your content?

Of course, you're not only looking to get visitors to read content. You're hopefully looking to convert some into subscribers. This is why it's so important to have the very best searcher experience possible.


Understand How Your Audience Finds Your Website

The best way to know how to get visitors to your sites is by understanding the many different ways that potential readers and subscribers will find your website. These days, you have social media accounting for a great deal of website referral traffic. This is why it has become so paramount to have a Facebook fan page and a Twitter profile (at the very least) to get your message out there. 

By seeing what sort of people regularly follow your blog on Facebook and Twitter, you get more of an idea of what sort of content they are looking for. Knowing your audience is a key part of any SEO strategy. Ranking on the first page of Google search results for some high search volume keywords is great, but not if those aren’t the keywords that your target audience uses to find solutions to their problems.


The Importance of Having Your Own Domain for SEO and Brand Authority

Back when I started in SEO around 2010, many people, even small businesses, commonly used free Wordpress blogs. While it's okay to have your blog on a free platform, especially now in 2020, it's far better to put it on your own domain. Many web-hosts allow people to install Wordpress for free on their own websites, and it’s easy enough to import an existing free WordPress site - if you already had one.

There’s also Weebly who offers free to extremely reasonably priced web hosting with one of the best do-it-yourself website builders out there.  Wix and Squarespace also have free options which you can later upgrade. While you can certainly get organic traffic with a free website - thanks to the authority of the wordpress, weebly, wixsite, etc. domains -  it’s not often going to get you to rank for the same quality of keywords you really want to optimize for in the long run.

Having your own domain not only helps your authority with search engines, but it also makes you look better to users. If you have a company blog that’s not on your own domain, it might make people wonder why you couldn’t integrate it into your existing domain. 

In 2020, offering the best user experience means having your own domain, because literally anyone with an internet connection and an email account can create a free website! Showing that you’re willing to at least in a domain name is always a good idea.


What is Relevant Content for Both Your Users and Search Engines?

In the old days, all you had to do was post content regularly – at the very least once per week - around the keywords you wanted to be found for in search. But, it’s not just about writing and sharing content that people want. You want to make sure that your incoming search traffic – and social media traffic – is really getting what they’re looking for.

So, what do you post to your blog? You need to make your site more relevant in the eyes (or rather, to the spiders) of search engines. But you also need to make it more relevant in the eyes of those who may end up clicking on your website link in the search engine results pages.

The first part is easy: Do you answer their questions and/or do you fulfill their needs? Here's the part that isn't quite so easy: how do you make them feel? It's a proven fact that if you make people feel better by easing their concerns or solving a nagging problem that they may have, they're a lot more likely to remember you for that. Emotional value is everything for human beings. Since 99% of your readers will likely be human beings, that’s who you have to write for.


Keyword Strategies are Important, But They Are Only the Beginning

Obviously, keyword strategies are still incredibly important. But, you have to constantly build content on your website not only surrounding these keywords, but establishing a presence of authority and trust around them. You need to become a trustworthy personality who is knowledgeable about your site’s subjects. This is known as becoming a "thought leader."

You may not think of yourself as a thought leader in your chosen field, but you may be surprised how much you can be once you start answering the questions that you may get every day on your blog. It may sound simple, but if there's a need, and you fulfill that need, you might just find that a blog post a day keeps the searchers coming your way. Even if you can't blog every day, it's important to at least remain consistent, and keep an open dialogue with your audience.

Yes, it’s important to have a keyword strategy to fall back on. After all, that’s what helps you write a catchy title tag and meta description that’s also keyword-rich. But, when you get people to click through from Google, social media, or elsewhere, you want them to read all the way through AND get people to want to read more.


Being Consistent with Your Content is Key, But It's OK to Switch Things Up

While it’s important to be consistent in the type of content that you post to your website, if your strategy isn’t working, be sure to switch things up. You don’t want to look like a robot – even when things are working, switch things up for variety. People love surprises. 

Even a successful website will introduce a guest blogger or take a very new direction for a day or two just to offer some new perspective. Recycling old content by taking a completely different angle does this well. It’s fine to repurpose and recycle content, and people will appreciate your innovativeness often without really realizing it.

The purpose of any website is to provide information, advice and assistance to those people who are interested in what you have to share. Every site should strive to eventually build a community. You want people from all walks of life and many different fields and industries who can share common interests and experiences around your content. 

Building community around your content, both on social media and in comments, makes it clear to searchers and social media surfers that you are doing your best to offer a great user experience. Content creation doesn't always have to be cut and dry, and most of the time, you simply can't be. You've got to be there for people. It's the only way to win the minds (and hopefully the hearts) of your potential fans. 

So, while throwing bait for the search engine spiders to crawl is great, in the end it’s all about serving up a great user experience. Google especially likes content that’s shared often on social media. But, most importantly, search engines most appreciate sites that don’t create quick bounces from search queries. Keep people on your website by providing a great user experience and you will be rewarded!

The Internet is an amazing place. It has become a very easy place to publish your thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Web writing and blogging have allowed many writers who never even thought of being writers an opportunity. Online, it's possible to have your work read and appreciated with little more than a domain name.

Of course, when writing online, it's helpful to have a basic knowledge of how to be found on the search engines, too. With a bit of social media savvy and some plain old luck, there are some seriously successful bloggers and web writers out there. But, of course, even then, there are plenty of good, solid writers who just need that extra bit of help to get seen.

There are plenty of bloggers and web writers that could use the assistance of a writer advocate. There are certainly plenty of social media influencers that can help a writer's work get seen. But, outside of said social media circles, there isn't much organization for web writer advocacy.

Isn’t a web writer advocate a social media influencer? The two are not mutually exclusive, for sure. Social media is an incredible tool when used correctly and the right people happen to be following you. But there’s more to it than that.

There’s also that pesky SEO element. It can both work fantastically and fail miserably depending on how search optimization is approached. A web writer advocate would certainly be of help in both the ways of SEO and social media.

But writer advocacy at its core is even more basic than that. As it is with advocacy for any cause, a good writer advocate supports, recommends, and even pleads for the sake of good writers everywhere. All it takes is guest posting for the right outlet or finding a client who is seeking out a specific niche.

The best way for a web writer to achieve long-lasting success is to discover a winning formula for a self-hosted website. A web writer advocate is someone who has those connections,. Plus, an advocate must have the desire to help other writers find that sometimes very elusive success.

But, the most important job of a web writer advocate is to be a champion for that writer’s unique voice. Sometimes, writers are full of raw talent and they just haven’t quite yet found their true voices. The last thing you want to do is make all writers sound the same.

People want to read personalities now more than ever. It makes the writing more interesting and more relate-able. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with being a more technical writer - that’s fine, too. But a writer advocate should be looking out to preserve what makes a given writer unique. Fine tune a writer's tools; don't look to replace them.

A web writer advocate can serve a similar purpose to a traditional literary agent, seeking out potential investors in content. But web writer advocates should push writers more towards self-sufficiency. Having great clients is wonderful and having them be the bread and butter of a writing career works for many people. But having a home base, a self-hosted website, should be the goal of every serious writer, both those that write offline or on the web.

A self-hosted website allows a web writer to publish other work that isn’t for clients. Plus, it allows writers to have a home for any other non-exclusive content that may not be otherwise accessible. A web writer advocate should always push for writers to be able to manage their online presence. It’s not that hard to do and is well worth the effort.

So as a web writer advocate, I urge all you web writers out there to build your own brand and never give up. There is always an audience for your writing out there, no matter what your expert topics may be. Whether you consider yourself a niche writer, a blogger, an article writer, or any other sort of online writer, find yourself an advocate. We writers are all in this together. Let’s band together and work towards making our web writing a sustainable, fun, and fulfilling career.

There's no better time of year to write about cooking than Thanksgiving in the United States. As you'll learn from the Google Correlate normalized search activity chart, even Christmas consistently gets a quarter to half the traffic that Thanksgiving time does for cooking. So this holiday season what searches are foodies looking for? Let's turn to our trusty Google Correlate tool to find out!

Slow roasting is the #1 correlation for cooking, right ahead of convection oven cooking. Almondine dishes, also known as amandine around the world, are a big winner by this measure. For those unfamiliar with Almondine dishes, they are dishes garnished with almonds, and according to Wikipedia, usually cooked with butter and seasonings, then sprinkled with whole or flaked, toasted almonds. Roasting garlic and garlic mashed potato searches are big hits, as well. One of the most surprising searches to me is "how to fold napkins." There are so many ways to, apparently, and people are always looking for new and exciting ways to fold their napkins...

Let's see how these keywords hold up when run through Google Keyword Planner (free Adwords account required) for volume. There are some interesting surprises.

Garlic mashed potatoes blows away the competition with nearly 50,000 monthly average searches. Cheese recipes are right behind with nearly 10,000 monthly searches, and roasting garlic is around 8,000 a month. "How to fold napkins" is indeed a high volume search. "Green beans almondine" and "Southern macaroni and cheese" are the other dishes that are big winners.

Writing this has made me quite hungry. Have any recipes that you'd like to share?

In the past, Google Correlate has been a tool that I've used as more of a fun exercise to show some goofy search trends. Some of the search terms that correlate well with one another seem downright laughable, and I've probably had a bit too much fun with it. However, Correlate has some serious uses as well. One of the primary advantages of a tool like this is that you can actually learn a lot about what searchers for your expert topics may be looking for. Taking advantage of this information can broaden your pool of potential content idea. This time, we're taking a look at one of the most universal topics out there, parenting.

Will what Google Correlate shows us be mostly common-sense? Or are we going to need some deeper analysis to truly understand what we're seeing?

First off, I'll point about a couple of strange terms, namely "production" and "soils." My best guess at the first one is "breast milk production." But with "soils," digging a bit deeper (pun not intended), I found that it could be referring to geological soils - as a parent material. Not digging much deeper into that (again, sorry,) we get into the interesting topics.

First and foremost, "public education" is clearly the hot topic for parenting. There are also many searches about disabilities and disorders in children. Young children, in particular, get a lot of attention, as well as adolescents. The rest are pretty self-explanatory.

Using this information, this would seem to be a pretty good list of parenting-related topics, in order based on the correlations:

• Public Education
• Children with Disabilities
• Governmental Programs for Parents
• Birth Defects
• Parenting Young Children
• Social Workers
• Parent Advocacy / Parent Advocates
  
• Trends in Parenting
  
• How Substance Abuse Affects Children
• Children with Disorders
• Juvenile Justice
• Children and Nutrition
• Self-Esteem and Children
• Adolescent Parenting
• Parenting Standards
• Information for Parents

This normalized search chart is particularly interesting:

It seems that the very worst times to post parenting content is the last week of the year, when the normalized search traffic is the lowest. It's also a lot lower than you might expect during the summer months. It's highest in February and March and again in late October, November, and early December. Also note the crazy spike in 2012 for parenting. If anyone knows the significance of this early May 2012 spike and the one shortly before it in February, please let me know.

Let's see if the monthly correlations dig up any other interesting terms we should be aware of:

A couple things pop up that appear to be noise. "A business plan" would seem to refer to advice on making a business plan for a parenting center, of which there are a number of sources already. "A press" likely refers to Parenting Press, a firm that publishes skill-building books for children, parents, and teachers. Another interesting one is Kellogg, the very well-known cereal brand. One that doesn't show up on the other list that also definitely could use attention is "cancer prevention."

From this additional info, we could add these topics:

• Parenting Pamphlets
  
• Nutrition Education for Children
  
• Preventing Cancer in Children

Just from these correlations, you see how many potential topics emerge. Doing a bit further keyword research will tell you which ones are best for overall search traffic, specific phrases to target, and for display ad relevance purposes.

Any other topics that you'd like me to analyze using the Google Correlate tool? Let me know and I'll be happy to look into it.

One of my favorite things about siteprice.org is the sheer amount of information that it gives you in determining the value of a site. First off, we get the basic info, including the page title, meta description, domain age and hosting provider. Plus, we get the keywords currently driving the most traffic to the site.

The site visibility section includes Google pagerank and how many pages on that domain are currently indexed by Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Obviously, the more pages you have, the better. The Pagerank shows how much Google “likes” your site, also the higher, the better. A low pagerank suggests that Google’s algorithms aren’t especially fond of your site for whatever reason. This is not the end of the world, but that’s a whole different article.

The other big things here are Alexa Rank and Website Speed. Alexa is known as the best website tracking tool in the world. It's responsible for the traffic estimates for most, if not all, website worth valuations. In this case, it’s the lower, the better. Also, website speed is important, too. Since MLB Trade Rumors likes to display all its current posts on the main page, this can slow it down. I’ve never found it particularly slow, but from a machine’s point of view it is.

The Social Media Visibility shows how many shares the home page of the site has. Obviously, this is good info, but it doesn’t account for the many shares of individual pieces of content within the site. In this case, MLB Trade Rumors does quite well on Twitter and reasonably well on Facebook.

The backlinks section seems odd. The tracker couldn’t detect Google’s backlinks and Yahoo and Bing have an oddly small number. I’ll go with Alexa’s number of 1,282 here. Backlinks to your site are obviously a good thing if they’re from legitimate places. If I were MLB Trade Rumors, though, I’d find out why those other backlinks are so low. It’s probably hurting the valuation a bit here, as I’m sure that total external backlinks number can’t be 0.

Of course, why do these websites exist? They make revenue! Alexa estimates have MLB Trade Rumors receiving about 100,000 unique visitors a day, with almost 150,000 page views. Again, this is probably only including the homepage, not including the individual posts within the site. Also, the average time on site is almost 4 minutes, which is very good. People are almost always stopping to read it.

In this case, siteworth.org is estimating revenue based on having 3 Google AdSense ads on the homepage. I guarantee that this site makes far more than $300 a day in ad revenue. Even so $9,000 a month and $105,000 a year isn’t too shabby. But as the site has more than 3 ads on its homepage, that estimate is extremely conservative.

Siteworth.org also displays the top 10 competitors for a given site. However, the numbers should be taken with a grain of salt as many of them are outdated. While these estimations aren’t perfect, they give you an idea of what a successful site looks like.


What is a Piece of Content Really Worth?

We’ve come to the conclusion that MLB Trade Rumors' net website worth is based upon homepage traffic alone. But it does factor in how large the website is, using metrics such as Google Index. What would MLB Trade Rumors look like if you split it into stocks? Well, let’s go with an average of the Indexes to determine just how many pieces of content are on the site. In this case, that’s 56,900. So we can imagine that MLB Trade Rumors has almost 57,000 “shares” of content on the site. Divide the $344K estimate by 57,000, and you get a “share price” of about $6 USD.

By the metrics of siteworth.org, each article would be worth approximately $6 on average. As I’ve already mentioned, that number is probably extremely conservative. Still, it’s a good baseline, especially considering how niche this content is and how much of it is extremely time-sensitive - being news.

Now while I don’t expect there to be a stock market where websites are selling shares to become a thing anytime soon, this is a good exercise to understand how the market values websites. You can try this exercise with your own websites, and granted your numbers most likely won’t be anywhere near this. What this exercise can really tell you is giving you a market estimate of what your site really can be worth if it’s monetized properly. Also keep in mind that affiliate revenue is not at all estimated in this price due to the uncertain nature of most affiliate programs - their earnings tend to be all over the place and very hard to estimate.


Would a Content Stock Market Work?

The idea of a stock market is for third-parties to invest in an asset in order to potentially reap the rewards later. While I don’t really expect, and wouldn’t necessarily want, content website owners to be selling stock in their properties, the idea is a fascinating thought experiment. Perhaps there could be a program similar to Patreon, which allows fans of content producers to “subscribe” for a monthly fee with various levels of benefits. Content producers could offer “stock” to fans of their website and offer similar “dividends” or benefits to them depending on investment level. It could be a purely virtual thing simply to work as a promotion engine or perhaps even have a real money component to it.

Whatever the case, I firmly believe in content creators retaining their rights to their work as they see fit. I don’t like the idea of trading content sites like public companies so much, however, I do think that to a point it’s fine, especially for niche content creators, to have interested “investors” who help shape the content being created. I think for some people that would really help, as I have seen happen with many content creators, especially YouTubers, on Patreon. Getting feedback from invested consumers seems like an awesome idea, and Patreon is already making that work to a great extent.

All you would need for a program like this to work is an algorithm like siteworth.org to give you an idea of the “market value” of your content. No one is seeing your actual revenue, of course, but having a publicly available number is highly important. There are algorithms you could use for YouTube and other content publishing sites, too. The overall idea here is to give interested investors a chance to support their favorite creators and have a say in what’s done. Of course, the creator doesn’t have to listen necessarily, and therefore gives people free reign to invest and pull out whenever they feel like. There’s real profit to be earned from it, too, though properly managing could make for quite an interesting feat.


Your Content is Your Retirement Plan

I like to think of content you create as an investment in your future. The money that you make from it can make you a living, but if not, you can instead save the money towards a retirement plan. Honestly, the thought experiment surrounding a content stock market is highly provocative to me. However, it’s very important not to lose sight of the fact that owning your own content can be the best long-term investment you can ever make in yourself.

Think about all of the authors and entertainers that can live off of royalties from work that they’ve done in the past. It’s no different for online content providers. Every post you ever make, whether it’s an article, photo, video, or anything else, is an investment in your future. How you decide to monetize that content is up to you. If you can get invested parties willing to give you upfront payment or royalties for the rights to publish your work, and this does actually happen, that’s even better. But I have never been fond of the idea of surrendering your works’ rights - unless, of course, it’s millions of dollars and will change your life forever. For most of us, we’ve been durdling along making pennies a day in AdSense just writing and creating content because we love it. But there’s so much more potential for content, and a lot more money to be made if we realize that our content is far more valuable than that. We have to love and nurture our content, which is what has made big content sites so successful.

If you think of your content as shares in an investment portfolio, whether there is ever a real-life or virtual realization of that idea, you will most likely see that it’s a lot more valuable than you initially might have thought. A website is only worth what you put into it: sweat equity plus a bit of luck.


Food for Discussion

How do you view your content? How much do you think your content is worth? Do you think you could retire on the money invested from your content’s revenue earnings? And do you think that selling “shares” of your content portals is a good or bad idea? I’d love to hear your responses to any and/or all of these questions.

Two of the most popular social media platforms today are Facebook and LinkedIn. You're likely already on the former, and perhaps on the latter. Both are great ways to connect with your business partners and current clients. You can even connect with industry experts and potential clients. But, there are pros and cons to marketing on one or both platforms. Let's focus on what sort of audience you receive on each platform. This way, you can decide how and when to best use Facebook and LinkedIn.


Benefits of Facebook

Facebook Fan Pages are likable by pretty much everyone. This means many times that a good number of your potential likes will not be potential clients. It's easy to have a bunch of family and friends like your company page for the sake that it's your company. Honestly, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. You never know who your family and friends could connect you to. Still, a great percentage of your likes will either be out of your service area or never actually need your particular expertise. Others may simply "like" your page through a Facebook suggestion.

One benefit of Facebook is that anyone who has something to say can post it on your Fan Page, if you allow it.  Facebook is without a doubt the most public forum outside of a blog and your own website. It's easy to promote Facebook fan pages, especially when you choose a custom URL for your business page immediately (i.e. facebook.com/yourbusinessname). If you're looking for a place to start in social media, then Facebook is a great place to start. Keep in mind, many of your likes are rarely going to interact. When you do get interaction, take full advantage of it. Let them know you appreciate their feedback and commentary, at the least.


Pros & Cons of LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a professional network that is most useful for B2B (business-to-business) professionals.  Yet, it is definitely good to have a LinkedIn profile for yourself no matter what business you're in. If you have a business page on LinkedIn, it's a good idea to make sure that you can claim it. Also, if you're looking to develop business connections on LinkedIn, you can create a LinkedIn group. Inviting your clients, colleagues, and business partners to this group is a good idea. It's a great way to share relevant industry info and keep in touch.

LinkedIn business pages are good for sharing relevant news items and company updates. They also allow you to ask your followers questions. Yet, not everyone has access to them. They're more restrictive than Facebook fan pages. So unless you know you have a target audience on LinkedIn, it's best to perhaps focus on Facebook. It's a great idea for you and your colleagues to interact with what clients you do have on there, however. You can get ideas from them about what sort of content they're looking for. Facebook is better for public interaction. LinkedIn is much more private, focusing on specific niches.

However, Linkedin articles are open to the public. They are just like blog posts,except that you get a built-in audience with Linkedin. Just be sure to not be overly promotional, although you can link back to your website or related post. They actually don't mind you re-posting your own content, either, as long as it's a complete post. So, in this way, Linkedin is pretty good. Although you can do something similar with Facebook notes, Linkedin articles are typically going to get a ton more attention.

If you're into B2B, you'll definitely want to focus on LinkedIn while poking around on Facebook. If you're more B2C (business-to-consumer) oriented, you'll probably want to focus on Facebook. Either way, see what type of presence you can create on LinkedIn, as well. It can't hurt.

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Need help building up your social networks, finding relevant content to share, and crafting posts that engage your audience? Let us know what you need. We can help!

Impressions are everything. When it comes to any sort of business, it doesn't matter what kind of field you're in. It's also more than being found online. The best way to succeed in any business is to leave good impressions. One of the best ways to do that is to not only be a professional with what you do, but be the best kind possible.

Whether it's exceeding expectations or offering value in some unique way, you need to make the best impression possible. The last thing people really want is to be just another customer. This is why under-promising and over-delivering is often said to be the best way to provide excellent customer service. It's simply true.

As a writer, I always try and look at an assignment as an opportunity to enrich people's lives in some way. This isn't always easy, of course. Many clients expect people to simply mill through articles and barely reach assigned word counts. Often times, however, I'll be given a topic that I simply cannot write within the specified number of words. I'll often write an extra 100 words or so, which is typically fine in Web writing. That can be a problem in print. But my Web clients always appreciate that I write what I actually can rather than just what I was expected to do.

Of course, it takes more than writing extra words to add value. Over the years, I've made an active effort to reduce fluff in my work. It's a bad habit some article writers get into, especially when trying to write a ton of articles. In the past,  that's partly why I can be so picky with taking assignments at times. If I can't find some new or quick and concise way to write about a topic, it's simply hard for me to write. That's a common issue, so it's what I decided to take on as a challenge. Solving challenges like that make you better at your craft. It also makes you a special kind of professional.

You can have the greatest website and the best offers to draw people into doing business with you. But it's going where most others won't go or doing the best job possible that leaves the best impression. That's what makes you the best kind of pro.

Do you want a career on someone else's terms or on your own terms? I'm sure everyone reading these would choose the latter. However, when most of us on a job search, it seems like we have to often settle for something more on someone else's terms.

It seems when many companies are seeking so-called "career-oriented" individuals, they're actually looking for someone who's “plug and play.” Many businesses just want free agents with measurable skills which are list-able on a resume. Many job descriptions seem to use the term career-oriented to get applicants excited. But, the best people I think companies should look to hire are a different sort of oriented.

You have to take risks to be highly successful. There are businesses famous for hiring risk-taking individuals who have had some successes. Others buy start-ups from upstart entrepreneurs for great sums of money or stock options. But, of course, most people don't have the next big thing always ready to purchase. Still, many businesses seem reluctant to hire individuals focused on success through risk taking and bending the rules. They seem even more reluctant to hire struggling or failed entrepreneurs, even if the talent they’re looking for is there. They want to "play it safe."

There may be reason for that. A lot of companies are too well aware of the high numbers of individuals in the market for any job they can find. I know this from personal experience. I've moonlighted as a research recruiter in the past. Many people who appear over-qualified for a position just by their resume sometimes greatly exaggerate. Sadly, a lot of individuals who are actually qualified companies don't hire. They want some specific skill or knowledge that they won't bother to train, even if the applicant is capable of learning them.

Even more sadly, some individuals want something to tide them over until they can find something “better.” And what company wants to hire someone, only to have them leave? Sometimes there are seemingly highly-qualified individuals who are only looking for some job to have for a certain period of time in order to re-qualify for unemployment benefits. While there aren’t a ton of people out there trying to game the system like that, they do exist. Character is everything in hiring, and that’s what companies should be hiring for.

Unfortunately, due to the high volume of unemployed people, so many individuals are in the career of temp jobs. So many companies will simply take anyone desperate through a staffing firm and hope someone sticks. Even then, these positions end up with very high turnover rates because the pay is too low to keep the Temps motivated. Or more often, the company is being too picky and making unrealistic expectations of what they'll find elsewhere. That’s why you end up with so many seasonal jobs. Companies seem to be becoming increasingly reluctant to hire full-time employees, unless absolutely necessary, for certain positions.

Most of the best individuals that I would call career-oriented are people in jobs that don't pay them what they're worth. Or they are freelancers that are in heavy competition with one another. This would also include entrepreneurs who have had solid success but are looking for something more stable. There's also finding highly motivated and trainable kids out of school. but most companies today prefer experience over trainable types. Experience is always preferred, of course. But it’s even more true now.

What do you think it means to be career-oriented? Is it some HR jargon that means sticking to one career position? A lot of what I have seen advertised as career positions aren't too appealing to me, especially if you want to be financially independent. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Nowadays, people are spitting out content left and right. A lot of it is written hastily and being pushed out all over social media. It seems to becoming the trend towards posting something to your website every single day just to stay relevant and in front of people. While being prolific can be a good thing, it becomes rather tiresome to see the same old topics being written about over and over again.

While repetition of subject matter restated somewhat differently can be used strategically in marketing, it's important that you are posting quality content on a regular basis. If that can't be every day, then you will need to adjust your content plan somewhat. It's still possible. You just need to be careful.

The last thing you want to happen is having to go buy an article cheaply to fill a hole on your content marketing calendar. You shouldn't let these holes happen, although they can. This is why it's so important to work ahead. Having a content calendar is something some people do in order to know what topics are most relevant at certain times of the year. This is a great idea, because if you realize you're stuck for something, you can redress older content and update it to make new posts based off of them.

I probably don't need to talk about finding your keywords and writing content around them. That's a tired and old strategy that rarely works anymore except in the most niche areas. Really, it's all about just writing content, seeing what works, and writing more around those topics. That's what writing has always been about in the first place: understanding your audience and writing for them.

There is one way to keep your content fresh that is fairly easy, as well: curation posts. This is when you find great content around the web and write some commentary about it in a post. Of course, these posts can get outdated if that material is no longer around. However, when you're stuck for a post, these can be quite helpful. Just be sure that you link to major reputable websites that figure to be around for a long time. Also, don't focus on doing these compilation posts too often. You want to have plenty of fresh, original content in the pipeline. But having posts like these to fill in gaps can be very useful.

So the real trick here is to not overdo anything. Really, you only need 300-500 word articles most of the time. Sure, if a topic is deserving of 1000 words or more, go for it. But more often than not, if an idea is worth that many words, it's very likely you could split that topic into two or even three articles. Then you just come at the topic from different angles, focusing on different elements of that topic.

If you find that certain articles inter-relate to each other, you should always include links in them to one another. Linking to another one of your own articles within the text of another of your articles is known as deep-linking. Not only does this help your site architecture, but it also makes your information that much more valuable to your readers. And, of course, who doesn't want to keep visitors on their sites longer?

What I'm saying is that you don't have to publish a white paper every week. There are plenty of questions out there that need to be answer in every field. As I've written time and time again, your audience will always have questions. So, it's your job to provide content that offers up answers. If you don't have the answers, then offer suggestions on how best to proceed.

People like to see that other people are thinking the same things they are. Making those sorts of connections is the way to truly create great content, not just maintaining well-oiled content machines. Focus on the human need, not scientifically or methodically, but organically. Your audience and future fans will thank you for it.

Photo credit: Flickr User Sean MacEntee, via Creative Commons License v2.0

In content marketing, a constant and steady stream of content for incoming visitors is the number one thing to have. Good content interests the search engines, who are constantly crawling for good and solid new content. But, it also works for bringing repeat human visitors to your site.

If you get visitors from organic search, social media, or direct traffic, and you provide good content, it's possible that they will return looking for more. One possible way to continuously have new content is to draw from a reservoir of off-line content or older online content. It can then be redressed and updated to serve a new purpose.

Reusing content, though, can be a tricky business.  If you have offline content that you yourself own, it’s fine to repurpose. However, not all old content is fantastic, as some of it is likely not “evergreen” or is time-sensitive. If it's concerning a topic people would still be interested in, then it’s a matter of seeing if it’s something people even still search. Using free keyword tools is especially helpful for this. Be sure to avoid filling up your site with too much stuff that doesn’t interest today's searchers.

Still, whether you run a business or are just running your own website, reusing old content is definitely worth investigating. Perhaps, you had something published in hard-copy years ago. Or, you have something that was once online somewhere, but it hasn’t been posted anywhere for a long time. These are great candidates for content that can be repurposed. As long as you still have rights to it, and give proper credit to others who may still have rights to it, you’re most likely safe.

Just be careful. Some online content publishers, even if your work no longer appears on their site, still will legally retain exclusive rights for online publishing of your work. If it’s in print, ask the editor or publisher know that you plan to repurpose it. Often, as long as you attribute where and when it was, you should probably be fine. They'll likely only ask for a link back to the publication's or publishers website, if they still exist.

It’s amazing how many works I've found in my own collection of digital documents that had the potential to be repurposed. Some were old journal entries that I’ve polished and posted because the topic was interesting and thought-provoking. I've had old grade school and college papers that discuss topics and review certain things that still garner interest today. They were never seen by anyone but my teachers, so why not give them a new audience? Surprisingly, a lot of my old school essays are well-written enough to need little polishing.

Content to reuse can be found in the oddest places! Even if it’s not a topic that will get much search engine traffic, as long as it’s relevant to your blog or website, it's likely worth posting. If it's interesting and something that over time will get traffic to trickle in. Worst case scenario, as long as you make sure your rights issues are resolved, it will get no views. It was going to gather digital dust sitting in a folder on some storage media anyway.

If you dig around a bit, you’d be surprised what might be worth putting online. You never know who might be interested in that topic, find your post, then become a life-long fan of your work! Content you never knew could get you found may be lurking in your files somewhere!

by Richard Rowell; Co-owner of Brand Shamans & Write W.A.V.E. Media

When EBay decided to make it hard for trading card sellers to use stock photos for their listings, it became apparent that I needed a scanner. I had one awhile ago, a big, bulky Epson scanner that scanned with great quality, but had its own software and had its own power cord! I had to leave it upstairs and plug my laptop into it because it was too big and bulky to keep at my computer downstairs. So I gave that one away and purchased this little USB Canon scanner.

I've always been a fan of Canon products, and the CanoScan LiDE110 is fantastic. Not only does it not have its own power cord, but it's plug and play! The only real complaint I have about it is that the software that it comes with is lousy. Fortunately, good old Windows Fax and Scan is fine for the photo quality scans I need for listing items on EBay and Listia, and Paint is good enough for my sketches. Best of all, this scanner literally sits right atop my computer and is extremely light and portable with fairly good scan quality even on the lower settings. It's all that I need.

I'd give this product a 9/10, mostly because I wish it came with better software. At the time, it was only $49 on Amazon. At that price, you could never find a better quality stand-alone scanner for a better price! Unfortunately, the price on this model has skyrocketed to around $90-100. Still, it's a great product, even at that price point. There is a less expensive model, the LiDE120, which is actually the #2 selling Document Scanner on Amazon (as of this writing) in between two $400 scanners!

If you want super high quality photo scans, this might not be your product. But if you're just someone who needs a simple scanner like I do for casual projects and listing photos, this is an amazing value.

by  R.A. Rowell; Co-Owner of Intent-sive Nature & the Brand Shamans network

When you're looking to create content for your website, there are many ways to go. Many website owners don't want to write everything themselves. Of course, there's nothing wrong with having a group blog or having regular guest bloggers. However, the most important thing about blogging is to be personal and consistent with your brand.

In the past, many SEO and branding experts said it was imperative that you or your direct partners be the primary writers for your blog. But, the one major reason that actually keeps many bloggers from writing on a regular basis is not being sure what to write or how to write it for their intended audience. Enter the ghostwriters. Many websites have consistent ghostwriters who write most or all of the content for a website owner. What are the benefits and drawbacks to having ghost writers for your blog?



Ghostwriters and SEO


As you know, ghostwriters are nothing new. It's a pretty old profession. They're also nothing new for SEO. In fact, getting someone to get your ideas and messages across that is a great writer and also good at creating content relevant to both your audience and the search engine algorithms is fantastic. It's just very important that you find someone that can both write and can make you look good at the same time.

However, the last thing you want to happen is someone who's really only blogging for you for the sake of getting exposure for themselves. While it's okay to have a guest post or two every once in a while, it's good to keep the blog subjects in house as much as possible. Even if you have to go outside to get it written, you want as many ideas as possible to come from you or someone within your organization. 

Also, if you do hire a ghostwriter to write blog posts for you, it’s best to find content writers that know something about your industry or niche. While it’s not a requirement, having someone writing articles that has expert topics related to your website will help you get better content in the end. While a long-time professional writer or expert copywriter can write something that sounds good, experience with your related topics will be better for building authority with your audience.



How Often Should You Use Ghost Writers?


Where do you draw the line between writing everything in your own words versus hiring an outside freelance writer to write for you? There are plenty of people out there happy to write two or three articles a week for you, for a price. While many of these people are often perfectly good writers and have good reputations, you need to keep in mind that you don't want to put the future of your blog or business necessarily in the hands of content creators. 

There is a compromise you can make if you want your blog posts with your own name on them to still somewhat come from you. You can hire ghostwriters who take your raw ideas and polish them up into a finished piece. A web content writer who can take your general thoughts and make them SEO-friendly, readable, and relevant to your audience can be a great asset.

Hiring somebody to write an article for you as a blog contributor when you're really stuck is fine. But, if you’re hiring a freelancer as a ghostwriter, and you want to keep the writing style of your articles consistent, you’ll want to find one writer that you trust. Yes, outside bloggers known in your industry can provide some credibility. But, you need to put your names on it, too. It needs to be someone within the blog ownership itself that blogs the most, even if that person has someone ghostwriting for them.


So, it's not a bad idea to have a ghostwriter working for you. But, if you need one consistently, you want it to be someone consistent. Just make sure that your own voice is heard and that your content is useful and searchable. There are ghostwriters that are excellent at this. But still, nothing is better than just putting your own thoughts out there and letting someone tweak it for you.


Need a ghostwriter for your blog or website? See how the Brand Shamans can help you createcustom content for your website or blog!

For many years, SEO experts would tell you that the Yahoo! Web Directory was one of the best backlinks you can possibly have for your business. For a $299 a year, it was yours. Well, that will be no longer. Yahoo! announced in late September 2014 that the very directory that founded the company’s very existence will be closing after 20 years. Search Engine Land had a great piece about the Yahoo! Directory's closing.

For years, a backlink from Yahoo for $299 a year was worth the investment. It was something you could write off as a business expense on your tax return. It could also get a stray click-through or two here and there. Also, because of the fact that the directory had existed since 1994, it continued to be a fairly valuable link depending on the category that you chose - especially if you were in a particular niche. There was a time that it may have well been worth the money if you could afford to have it as a part of your SEO budget. Those times have now ended.

Is the Alive Web Directory Worth It for SEO?

There are still other directories out there, of course. For example, there is the Alive Web Directory. They have several listing options, most of which are far less expensive on a per-year basis. However, they also have an option that costs $299.95 for a permanent featured listing, which can get you visibility with 5 additional deep links. Another option is $209.95 for a permanent regular listing that will get somewhat less visibility (be listed under the Featured Listings) with only 3 additional deep links.

Alive Web Directory also has several more listing options. For example, you can get a permanent featured listing without the additional deep links for $224.95 and a regular permanent listing for only $149.95. I would suggest, however, that those additional deep links could help depending on the situation and what you're trying to get those particular links to rank for. In any case, it cost a lot less than Yahoo Web Directory did. It will be interesting to see how the pricing structure changes now that the “king” of directories is gone.

Best of the Web and SEO

Another option is Best of the Web. This one is a little more familiar to me than Alive Web Directory, as I've personally used it to post free business listings for past employers on their local directory side. It costs a one-time fee of $149.95 to submit your site for the directory, and $199.95 to submit for their directory plus a local listing. They also now have a lifetime listing for a one-time fee of $299.95. This directory gets a lot more traffic, as far as I know, than either the Yahoo or Alive Web Directory because their directory listings have popped up all over Google and Bing.

The only thing that is a bit scary about Best of the Web (BOTW) is that the submission fee is non-refundable. If for whatever reason the moderator doesn't feel that your site is worthy of being listed (unusual, but possible) that money is gone. Just keep that in mind. But, most likely as long as your site looks good and is useful to visitors, you should be fine. It’s obviously to cut down on spam submissions and deter people whose sites aren’t top quality which would waste the time of their editors.

Overall Benefits of Online Directories for SEO

If you’re going to use directories, you definitely want to first go for the permanent listings rather than the yearly recurring listings. The permanent directory listings are far less expensive now than they were, but of course, even Alive Web Directory and Best of the Web aren't ever going to have the same SEO value as Yahoo!

Of course, there are many other more niche-related directories out there. Some are even free. Whenever you are submitting your website link to an online directory, be sure they are reputable directories that you think people would actually use. There are plenty of spammy ones out there happy to take your money with little return value.

If a directory doesn’t look like a site you would use yourself to find something, then don’t think about getting a listing there. The click-throughs from any directories are gravy. But the backlinks themselves from more trusted directories, no matter how many clicks you get from there, can provide you with authority in the search engines for those categories.

Of course, there are a lot of places where you can get a free link just by sending an email or submitting to a free directory. While these are often “no-follow” links that don’t really provide direct engine optimization value, they’re still worth at least submitting in order to get your website more mentions, which can help you indirectly.

The major issue with online directories is the question of how much longer they will actually remain relevant in the eyes of search engine relevance. If you have a brick-and-mortar business, they do give a sense of permanence to your brand related to certain keywords that the search engines still appreciate. If you have a blog, then it’s perhaps better to focus on being listed on authority sites in your niches than to bother investing in a directory listing. But if you have the budget to do so, it’s something to consider, especially if that listing is found among other highly relevant links to your niche or field.

If there are any online directories you are currently listed in, or are thinking of being listed in, feel free to contact our online marketing experts about them. We can check them out and can let you know our thoughts on how useful those directories are for your SEO efforts and if they’re worth your hard-earned money.

A better option for you and your website may be a sponsored guest post. With a quality article written about a topic you're passionate about and quality backlinks for much less than the cost of a directory listing, you can reap far greater SEO benefits than a basic directory listing. If you're interested, contact the SEO experts at Brand Shamans today!

Photo credit: Pixabay, Public Domain