This is a guest post by Michael Chibuzor
Are you tired of optimizing your blog for search engines?
If Google search engine doesn’t exist in today’s marketing world, what would happen to your blog? Will you stand and watch your business go bankrupt?
I had to ask myself certain questions – being penalized by Panda & Penguin has changed my thoughts. It’s no longer a matter of quality content. A new digital world has begun.
Of course, there is no alternative to writing epic contents on your blog, but that’s for your audience who can appreciate it. You can’t really predict the almighty search engine (Google). Or can you?
It’d interest you to know that I still attract organic traffic from Google. But that can’t be compared to the community I’ve already built around my blog. I want to show you how you can grow your blog readership, engage with readers and make more money, without targeting any specific keyword.
- Decide what you truly want.
- Ditch quality content, focus on being relevant.
- Don’t let your blog hinder your business.
1. Decide what you truly want
Let’s assume you’re a social media blogger, and there are 100k people in your market. These are the people you’re targeting.
But can I tell you something? You’d fail if you pursue the 100k people at once. In fact, you don’t need thousands of people to grow a profitable blog. You just need few people who value and respect your opinions. So, work on engaging few targeted people – That’s how successful bloggers are made.
We’re surrounded by heaps of information in different subjects. We’ve the world at our fingertips and can read authority blogs whenever we want to. But if you really want to build engagement with your audience, you need to decide what you truly want. Is it reading other people’s blog or working on your blog?
Most bloggers don’t know what they want, that’s why they spend hours on social media networks, tweeting and sharing. Sure, there is a limit to what you can share and if you’re not careful, social media can destroy your blog. Write down your goals and stick to it, until you see them come to fruition.
2. Ditch quality content, focus on being relevant
Someone must have advised you to write quality contents, right?
Well, I know you might have questions for me. But I want you to realize that what we call quality content may not be just that. It has almost become a cliché and whenever I see bloggers talking about quality content, I’d simply ignore them.
There are millions of experts around the world. And the article topics you’ve in mind have already been addressed, maybe in a better way than you’re planning to write yours. Blog readers are not looking for quality content. What they’re after is relevant information that can change their lives and bring tangible results.
Most top industry blogs: mashable, techcrunch, gizmodo and other tech blogs don’t produce quality content as such. What they do mostly is to curate contents from other sources. They could share an infographic that has appeared at multiple sites, or even post a video from YouTube that wasn’t their own – that’s a duplicate content in Google’s eye.
But they don’t care about Google because; they’ve built a community with the target audience. Stop struggling to write quality contents. It doesn’t exist – just be relevant and your readers would appreciate your kindness and promote your blog through word of mouth and social love.
3. Don’t let your blog hinder your business.
Yes, you should serve your readers with relevant and valuable contents. But don’t let your blog hinder your growth. How do I mean?
It’s your responsibility to help your readers. But if you’re tired of Google and her rigorous updates that are unpredictable, you’ve to realize that on-page optimization won’t help your blog to grow. Even though your contents are truly helpful, no one is going to know about it until you step out and hone your power. “Your blog is by you, but not for you!”
When you update your blog on a daily basis, what difference does it make if no one is reading it? It’s time to ditch some of the advices about blogging and do something more powerful. I mean you should get active with blog networking.
Connect with successful bloggers and share some helpful guest posts with them. This way, you can steal their active readers and discipline them.
Start guest posting like a maniac. Do it from your heart. A lot of folks don’t know how to guest post – they link to their homepage without any provisions to capture email addresses of people who come to their sites. Unwise guest bloggers would continue to build links using anchor texts, thinking that their SEO ranking would skyrocket. How realistic is that?
Anchor link building actually was the best tip ever, but now we’re living in a new era. Anchor links doesn’t have any SEO juice as it used to. Growing your email list is the best step towards growing a powerful blog.
Grow your blog, quick tip!
The last piece of puzzle to attracting the right people to your blog is to comment on A-list blogs. You should subscribe to authority blogs like smartpassiveincome, copyblogger, thinktraffic, problogger etc. When a new post is published, you’ll be notified via email – be the first to leave a relevant comment and you’ll drive traffic easily.
It’s about being consistent. Whether you’re guest posting or commenting on A-list blogs to drive fresh readers to your blog, be consistent. Period!
That’s where success lies. Forget search engine optimization and all its hassles – you don’t really need to stuff keywords to attract traffic from Google. Focus on serving your target audience with helpful contents and you’ll grow a credible blog quickly. See you at the top!
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My name is Michael Chibuzor. I'm an author, a freelance writer and founder of content marketing up. Do you want to reach new audience and grow your business? Hire me to write for you. I specialize in ghostwriting, blog post writing, guest post writing and so on.
Great advice Stacy, but for me the jewel is ‘consistency.’ I believe it’s really important to devise your plan – whatever that may be – and then stick to it long enough to really give yourself a chance to see results. So often people are looking for lightening in a bottle, and it just doesn’t work that way … well, at least not for many.
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
July 6th, 2012 at 1:18 pm
Consistency is actually important, Herald. When we stick to a course without losing hope, we’d surely make headway at it. Thank you for being you with your comment. I’m grateful!
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… Content Marketing 101 – The Ultimate Guide To Attract Blog Readers And Profit
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This is very valuable information. I really appreciate your insight, Michael. You’re so correct that there is no such thing as quality content. The only content that matters is that which is relative to the needs of your readers. Readers are looking for information that they can connect with on a personal level; not so-called quality content. Also, I like your advice about commenting on A-list blogs to increase blog traffic. I will remember this. Thanks for sharing.
Anthony Thompson invites you to read… Self Manager – How to Put Some Whoop-Ass on Procrastination
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
July 6th, 2012 at 1:20 pm
Hey Anthony, good to have you read and comment on my post. I’m really glad you enjoyed my post. Quality content? Whoop!- I wonder who devised that.
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… Content Marketing 101 – The Ultimate Guide To Attract Blog Readers And Profit
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Human interest stories are always welcome. They always touch you. Remind you of somethings we are forgetting that we can be great only if we realise the inner us waiting to explode into the real us.Thanks for sharing this post!
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Hi Michael, great ideas, as always
Of course I agree with you, that we shouldn’t rely on one traffic source (especially SEO), but we also shhouldn’t avoid SEO – with a little effort we may get a lot of traffic.
Thanks for sharing.
Chris
Chris invites you to read… 35+ Traffic and SEO Tips & Articles From Bloggers
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
July 6th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
My good friend Chris. Thank you for reading my post. Of course not, we wouldn’t neglect SEO, but I don’t think we should focus entirely on it. Take good care of you Chris.
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… Content Marketing 101 – The Ultimate Guide To Attract Blog Readers And Profit
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Hi Michael, you do have a point here. A lot of bloggers say quality content but I guess relevant is a better word.
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Great guest post and I’m glad you touched on this; as algorithms continue to change one can’t just rely on search engines. Traffic NEEDS to be diversified and there are so many sources, some of which you touch upon. Some of the biggest include social networks (the ever-expanding list), and referrals from relevant pages.
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
July 6th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
I’m also glad you picked up gems from my post. Go and implement the tips to grow your business – See you at the top!
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… Content Marketing 101 – The Ultimate Guide To Attract Blog Readers And Profit
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I think the most helpful to me is your last comment about following the big guys and commenting there. That is what I am going to implement from this post. Thanks, Michael.
Amy Hagerup invites you to read… 5 Easy Steps to an All Natural Facial Treatment
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
July 6th, 2012 at 1:14 pm
You’re more than welcome Amy. Sure, you can implement the tip to your business. But don’t forget to share your experience with us.
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… Content Marketing 101 – The Ultimate Guide To Attract Blog Readers And Profit
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Really helpful tips, and it is actually what I had been searching for. I just want to get out of stuck, I feel so stressed because of my blog nowadays. I’ve just started my new blog, and I have heard so much about the importance of fresh content etc. But somehow I have lost my motivation, there are too many things to do with a blog. I unfortunately haven’t done anything like this before, so your useful tips could be very helpful for me. Thanks for sharing them!
Jana invites you to read… Zaha Hadid: Form in Bewegung
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
July 9th, 2012 at 2:33 am
Thank you for reading my post. I’m so glad I was able to help you get back on track. Stay gracious friend.
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… 6 Lies About Guest Posting That’s Killing Bloggers’ Creativity
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Michael, I had a blog for 1 year but I was not able to draw visitors and finally had to stop writing. I was too much worried about “quality” part rather than offering useful and relevant content. Thanks for your tips in the post, really helpful and to the point.
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Thanks for this. I think you are right that the game is changing and “quality content” can only rightly be judged by those reading it. That it why more and more I suspect that the social sharing of blog posts will need to influence search rankings. Google can find no better signals of a contents “quality” than by how often it is read and how often people choose to share it with their friends. Links will remain important for some time to come but their importance will be declining as Google seeks to replace them with more robust measures of a page’s quality. IMHO!
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
July 7th, 2012 at 5:33 am
It’s too easy for us to say “quality content” but do we really understand it? Isn’t it better we help people, even if our idea doesn’t sound original? I appreciate your comment Gary.
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… 6 Lies About Guest Posting That’s Killing Blogger’s Creativity
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Alex Reply:
July 18th, 2012 at 9:20 am
As long as there will be a way that search engines recognize spammy likes and spammy sharing (that can be obtained in large quantities for free), I agree to incorporate social sharing into search engines’ algorithms. Do you think people know better than computers what the quality is and how to judge it in the sea of information available on the internet?
Alex invites you to read… Well-Known Graphic Design Magazines
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Gary Reply:
July 19th, 2012 at 12:01 am
Yes, in terms of judging quality I do think humans will always be better than machines. Value is something attributed by humans, it has no “real” value to a machine. A machine can only guess its value to humans. Value relies on quality of the text itself but also relies on the context outside of that document (the position of the reader and the world around them) machines just will not be able to match humans on that front. As an example lets say someone writes great piece on “how to recover from a difficult relationship”. If I had just been involved in a difficult relationship and stumbled across that content I might deem it of high value because at that time I needed that content, and it helped. A machine will never have the context into which to place the content – it can only examine the document in a relative vacuum.
Gary invites you to read… The Advantages Of Sending Business Christmas Cards
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Alex Reply:
July 20th, 2012 at 2:12 am
Very true, like in the recent movie “Prometheus”, machines will never understand humans’ desires and feelings. They can only judge and work in a closed environment providing them data and information to digest. With relation to SEO it’s the same as search engines can only help to judge the quality of content, eg if it’s duplicate or how relevant it is. Thanks for your answer!
Alex invites you to read… Well-Known Graphic Design Magazines
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Well said Michael. I think you made your point quite clear. One that really caught my attention was the so called “quality content”. IMO, relevance is part of quality, if what you are writing about is not relevant and does not provide any useful information, then it lacks quality. Perhaps, most bloggers out there are using the term all wrong and does not go the extra mile of explaining what “quality” is all about. Improving user experience is quality, writing relevant and useful article is quality, displaying images that “tells a message” is quality, and it go on … Good stuff, as usual.
DiTesco invites you to read… What is SEO, and Who Cares?
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
July 7th, 2012 at 5:27 am
Good to have you here Ditesco. Yes, we’ve all been using “quality” to give excuses that doesn’t amount to anything. It’s high time we replace that term for a better blogging experience. Why don’t we just say, write helpful contents? Sounds better to me.
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… 6 Lies About Guest Posting That’s Killing Blogger’s Creativity
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I am tired of SEO and writing content all the day, is their any other good way to make online presence ? I want to leave blogging now.
Rajnish invites you to read… Benefits of Using Social Media For Business
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
July 9th, 2012 at 2:26 am
Take it easy Raj. The fact that SEO doesn’t work as it used to doesn’t mean you should quit. Blogging is a long-term goal. And you don’t have to write content all day. My best tip to you is that you should update your blog once or twice every week.
You can’t possibly meet up with daily routine. Take it slowly and look into social media as a great source for attracting readers. I hope this helps.
In all, “you can always quit so quit now?” (anonymous)
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… 6 Lies About Guest Posting That’s Killing Bloggers’ Creativity
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Hello Michael,
It’s such a great question you got there for blog writers. I myself didn’t know what I would do if I’d stop optimizing my site for search engines but thanks for your article. It gives me another idea on keeping your blog as alive as getting them indexed for search engines.
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
July 9th, 2012 at 10:11 am
Thank you Ryan for reading my post. Just go ahead and implement the tips – I wish you the very best.
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… 10 Reasons Why Your Blog Contents Don’t Attract Repeat Readers {Fix It Now}!
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Hey Michael,
I agree with everything that you share here accept not to write quality content. I think you have to not only write quality content but being consistent with that action is the main key. Writing content just to write we all know doesn’t work. But I know that you feel relevant content is more important but I think it goes hand in hand. Maybe this is yet another area that people see differently about but all I know is that to me, quality content is content I’ve been searching for that will benefit me. So it being relevant to what I’m searching for is the same thing.
I do agree with everything you’ve shared here. I don’t SEO every blog post so I write mostly for those who are looking for good quality content. I hope I’ve been consistent in that area.
Thank you Michael for your post, great job. Now I hope both you and Stacy enjoy your week.
~Adrienne
Adrienne invites you to read… Why Network Marketing Gets Such A Bad Rap
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
July 10th, 2012 at 12:16 pm
Oh no, I’m not saying you should scrap quality content. On the contrary, I’m saying we should define what quality mean and use that idea to write for our readers. Any blog post that helps someone is quality. But that term “quality” sound vague and doesn’t cut in. IMHO.
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… 10 Reasons Why Your Blog Contents Don’t Attract Repeat Readers {Fix It Now}!
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The important for blogger is consistency and disipline..if you want success be a blogger so never say “tired” word..sometimes you will be bore, when you feel it just get out from your desk and go recreation with your family or friends..It will help you to boost your performance for blog again
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Internet Marketing is a profession like any other but often gets dismissed as not being a “real job”. There are so many things you need to understand from page design to optimisation and then a host more things to boot. Thanks for your good post Michael.
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Thank you for sharing this very interesting article, i really enjoyed reading and learning from this information you have shown us.
Michelle invites you to read… Internet “Doomsday” Poses Little Threat
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The best thing you can do for SEO is to forget that search engines exist, forget that SEO exists. Of course you should keep the basic principles in mind, but think about it. SEO is needed because something is lacking on your website or in your content. If your website design/coding is done well (easy with WordPress for example) you only need to worry about writing useful content, which people will appreciate and share with others(building back-links). In this post it is called “relevant content” and it’s great advice.
Search engines will continue to reward people that write content useful for other people, not content tweaked for machines. Forget about search engines because they will keep changing, but people will always be out there looking for useful information. Indeed, we live in a new era. We live in an era of new eras.
Kiril Hristov invites you to read… Characteristics of Effective Advertising
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
July 10th, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Great advice Kiril. Forget that SEO exist and just focus on your readers. Powerful tip man!
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… 10 Reasons Why Your Blog Contents Don’t Attract Repeat Readers {Fix It Now}!
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completely agree, since a few of my sites were hit by penguin I have decided to stay true to my word and write useful content for my visitors, in reality thats always the best way. I think sometimes as SEO’s we get lost in whats really important and that is helping answer our visitors questions
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Great article! providing us this useful information on how to grow our blog without SEO is really a big help. I will surely follow all your advice and i hope many could read about this. Thanks for the tips and i’m looking forward to read more from you.
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If you are trying too hard to grow your blog through SEO, then you should find other ways to improve it that mutually does a lot on quality content as well as relevance. One thing that you could do is to grow a community on your blog. You can set up a forum where people can meet and greet each other and add value to your site.
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Hi Michael and Stacy,
I guess I’ve missed that post earlier this month. Great info and advice that is going a bit against the advice that we read online over and over.
However, I do agree with what you are saying here. What is quality content is what will help the reader. No doubt about it.
This post actually ring well with my last post.
Sylviane Nuccio invites you to read… Why Valuable Content Is Not enough To Attract Huge Traffic To Your Blog | 7 More Steps You Need To Take
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
July 20th, 2012 at 3:53 am
Thank you for making out time to read my post. Yes, if your content isn’t helpful, I don’t think it’s pass the quality score.
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… One Powerful Way To Double Your Blog’s Traffic Overnight
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Sometimes it may happen that we are fed up from our routine and work. Change is very necessary. It’s very important point that grow our blog without SEO. I must fellow your advice.
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
July 20th, 2012 at 3:59 am
Okay, I must visit your blog as well. Thanks for taking my advice. Your comment is truly helpful.
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… One Powerful Way To Double Your Blog’s Traffic Overnight
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This is an insightful post. Thanks for sharing this valuable info. SEO becomes monotonous sometimes and to take a break from it would be great. Nothing can replace quality content.
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I totally agree with Richa. There’s no worthy replacement for quality content. We sometimes forget that the website is directed for the users and not Google.
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Wow! You seem to have built a great community of bloggers here-judging from how i had to keep scrolling to leave a comment here
Nice tips. I have been reading a lot on this topic lately and you have presented some uber-cool info here. Thanks for your efforts.
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To grow your site without seo it is possible! Write good and unique content and you will be surprised how many uv you get from google. I try this method myself without make SEO(backlinks) and then i see only good results, so I agree with good content.
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Thank you Daniel – I’m so glad you liked my SEO tips. See you around!
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… 14 Content Marketing Tips You May Have Neglected Since 2011
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This has been a wake up call to a blogger like me. Indeed, what really matters is what you write about. Its what will get people to listen to you. Great share!
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I completely agree that quality is relative and does not necessarily translate to being informative. Relevance remains on top of my list when it comes to looking for information on various subjects I’m interested about. Thanks for the share!
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Hello Michael I have enjoyed a lot of your blog it tells us simply that when we tired of seo then we can move from it to our blogs and we can share very much information also there….thanks for sharing..
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A great share! SEO is everywhere, that people are actually tired of SEO exercises. This a very relevant as well as informative post in this direction. To grow the blog, the most significant requirement is the valuable content which can hit on the audience. Thanks for sharing this post.
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
August 20th, 2012 at 3:54 pm
Hey Aayna, I’m so glad you enjoyed reading my guest post. Thank you so much and keep coming back for some more.
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… 10 SEO Secrets To Dominate Google Firstpage With Content Marketing
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Quality content is often considered the common denominator in increasing blog rankings and I completely agree that this is a vague and understated definition of how we can entice more people to visit our sites. I personally think that in order for me to classify a post as one that is of excellent quality, it must have the ability to educate, inform and persuade me into thinking that it is something I see myself practicing. Thanks for the enlightenment.
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Michael Chibuzor Reply:
August 22nd, 2012 at 1:46 pm
You’ve a great comment right there. I want to appreciate you for reading my post and finding time to contribute. Thank you.
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… Top 5 SEO Twitter Tips for Better Search Ranking
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Hey Stacy,
Great post. I agree and disagree. I don’t think SEO is that hard really. A post can be fully optimized in under 15 minutes once you get in to the swing and whilst it isn’t necessary to do it for all your posts, SEO skills are a great skill to have.
But I agree that we should be consistent, blog often and also comment on authority and less authority blogs.
Thanks for the great info,
Tor Your Success,
Beth
Beth Hewitt invites you to read… How To SEO Your Blog?
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Consistency is key and it ultimately gives you the ability to lure your readers into complete engagement. When we update our blogs regularly and when we see to it that the content we share is relevant, solution-oriented and thought-provoking we can look forward to generating a good number of leads with minimal effort. Thanks for the salutary share.
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We need to be consistent – that’s the essence of blogging and attaining success.
Michael Chibuzor invites you to read… 100 Quick Ways To “Engage” Your Audience With Content Marketing
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The essence of networking cannot be over emphasized and this one great tip have picked up from your article today. I think while quality content is important-using diverse platform to market your brand is certainly more important
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Hi Stacey
I totally agree about what you are saying about the blogs all telling you the same thing write original quality content and they are all writing the same re hashed material that they and the other blogs have all wrote ten times each.
My amount of posts at the moment is quite small and I am trying to do what you are saying about writing about what the person on your site wants to read about. I have noticed my bounce rate coming down and the averidge time each visitor is spending on my site is going up so hopefully things are going in the right direction.
For great advice thanks lee
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