blog round-up

There were a lot of great posts floating around for me to share with you this week. Note that “this week” might be “last week” as far as actual post dates…I can sometimes be a bit behind. Nevertheless, the info is still worth sharing.

Here they are, in no particular order.

First, there’s “The Two Most Powerful Words in the World of Content Marketing Right Now.” In my post 19 Things Customers Want to See on a Contractor’s Blog I referenced a Copyblogger post that talked about this particular blogger’s decision to share information about his prices.

The “Two Most Powerful Words” post actually talks about how he did it. It’s an easy method that you can copy for your own blog or website.

Next, there’s “Does Review Velocity or Recency Influence Local Business Ranking?”

I’ll warn you that this post is a bit “deep in the weeds.” However, it had some awesome insights about Google Carousel and how reviews are factoring into local rankings. If you’re getting most of your reviews on sites like Yelp there’s no reason to worry–Google may well be factoring those signals into your Google+ Local ranking even if people aren’t reviewing you on Google. It turns out that few people do, simply because Google requires customers to fill out a profile first.

“Should You Do Link Building to Your G+ Page for Local,” is another impressive in-depth post from Mike Blumenthal. The answer seems to be a resounding “no.” Send those backlinks to your own website and blog instead.

However, Mike did stress the need to build up your presence on G+ social media. The G+ social media platform started out very slow when Google first unveiled it, but it’s certainly gotten a lot more powerful.

“WordPress Trackbacks and Pingbacks: How to Use this for SEO & Traffic” was the post that taught me something new this week. I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know those things were anything other than strange, random spam until I read this post. I’m sure Travis knew, but I never thought to ask him. I will definitely be taking a closer look at both of these things in the future.

Why? Because according to Traffic Cafe, they actually provide you with a powerful way to continue the conversation you’re having with other bloggers.

“How to Turn Drab Blog Posts into Sparkling Content” was another good one. Confession time: I really struggle with blog post headlines.

When I’m writing a sales letter or something they come naturally to me, but I have to work myself into that mode. In blog post mode I tend to be thinking about “let’s teach and share information,” and unless I specifically remember to reach for my copy of Headline Hacks I usually wind up in a bit of trouble.

However, Henneke’s post gave me a couple of new things to try and think about, and maybe it will do the same for you.

Finally, there’s “How We Increased Organic Blog Traffic by 203.5% in Less than 3 Months — And You Can Too.” This was a guest post on Pro Blogger written by Kristina Allen. It was an absolutely fantastic post that explains the role of keyword research in blogging about 1000 times better than I ever could, with the bonus that her post will help you generate a lot more topics for your blog. Be sure to check it out.

Speaking of guest posts, I got an opportunity to do one over at The Blogging Painters. Thank you Chris Haught for giving me the opportunity to share “How to Make Local Search Work for You and Your Service Area.” It gave me a chance to share what contractors should do about the fact that Google+ Local doesn’t always make things easy for people who have service areas instead of a location that customers can come to visit.

To wrap this up, I’d like to issue a big open invitation. If you’ve got a great internet marketing post to share go right ahead and add it in the comments section. I’d love to see it!