Small Business Link Building – DIY Tactics to Try Today

While most small business owners understand the value of link building, the overwhelming majority do nothing about it. Even if they hire others to tackle the job on their behalf, they themselves tend to make no effort whatsoever to contribute to the cause. Which is a shame, given the way in which strong backlinks have a multi-pronged beneficial effect on the business they point to.

Of course, most business owners would argue that they a) do not have the time to get involved in link building and/or b) lack the expertise necessary. In reality however, there are various simple yet incredibly effective approaches to make a real difference starting right now.

So rather than just sitting back and wondering whether you could and should be doing more, here’s how to give yourlink building efforts a boost starting today:

1 – Why Not Ask?

First of all, chances are that whatever niche you’re in, there are literally thousands of businesses just like you that are gagging for good-quality links. As such, why not make the first move and simply ask them outright if they are interested in a link exchange? Worst case scenario, they say no and you try elsewhere. Best case scenario, you get seriously powerful and invaluable links free of charge. Send an e-mail, make a telephone call or even go visit them in person. There’s absolutely nothing to lose by trying and if you don’t ask, you’ll never know.

2 - Complementary Products and Services

Take a moment to think about the products and services you sell. Now, take another moment to think about the kinds of products and services that complement what you yourself have to offer. You run a taxi service, how about a car wash or motor spares shop? You sell toys for kids, how about children’s clothing or kidder theme parks? Think not about your rivals, but those that offer something within the same niche that you and they alike could send business between. Once again, you need only pick up the phone and ask.

3 - Use Infographics

Never underestimate the power of infographics when it comes to link building. And for two very good reasons as well – the first of which being that research has shown that infographics are exponentially more likely to be read, shared and to generate links than most other types of content. Not only this, but you can create (or have created) one outstanding infographic and have it published a thousand times over, without search engine spiders picking up so much a word of duplicate text. If you aren’t already working with infographics, it’s high time you started.

4 – Contests and Competitions
Last up, there’s one very slightly sneaky approach to link building and traffic-generating that’s more than worth exploring. In a nutshell, you run some sort of competition on your website, but instead of creating a competition page, you add the info to an existing product page or even your home page. You list your contest in competition directories, you ask as many sources as you like to feature it and in doing so, you get a ton of high quality backlinks to the permanent pages of your website. And just as long as you make sure that the competition itself is legit and relevant, you aren’t breaking so much as a single rule of any kind!

RIP, Intrusive Interstitials - Webpage Popups: Time of Death, January 10, 2017

If you’re the kind of web user that practically screams with frustration every time screen-covering popups appear…well, you’re certainly in good company. And as you probably know, it is even more infuriating when the same kinds of annoyances appear on a smartphone screen. You’d quite like to get rid of them, you do your best to hit the ‘X’ in the corner and you instead hit the popup itself and are whisked away.

Seriously…it doesn’t get much more frustrating.

Which is precisely why this will probably turn out to be one obituary that doesn’t exactly fill you with a sense of grief. Quite to the contrary in fact, as Google has announced that as of the beginning of next year, it is officially declaring war on ‘intrusive interstitials’ as far as mobile websites are concerned. The long and short of it being that just a few months from now, any websites continuing to bombard mobile visitors with these annoying interferences will face the wrath of the powers that be. Namely, a hefty punishment and the potential to plummet well and truly down the rankings.

Specifically, the time of death for intrusive interstitials has been pre-set for January 10, 2017, which is the date these penalties will start being handed out. In terms of why they have decided to turn their attention to these kinds of tactics, the statement from Google said that they “can be problematic on mobile devices where screens are often smaller.”

Something of an understatement, as those with devices boasting screens with less than 5 inches of real estate will know.

Now, if you have entered into something of a panic wondering whether or not you yourself will be in Google’s bad books, they’ve clarified things quite comprehensively. They’ve made it clear that “pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly” and have mapped out the rules as follows:

Pop-ups that cover the primary content of a web page the moment the visitor arrives.

Pop-ups that cover the primary content of a web page when the visitor moves from one internal page to another.

Standalone pop-ups that force the visitor to interact with them, before the page’s content can be accessed.

Still struggling to grasp it? No problem – here’s the diagram Google published to illustrate what not to do:

As for the kinds of interstitials that will still be permitted without punishment, Google gave the following guidelines:

Pop-ups that are necessary for legal reasons, such as those that inform about cookies, check the age of the user and so on.

Those that ask for login credentials to access the site or its content.

Pop-ups of a size that can be easily closed and do not cover the primary content of the page.

And here’s the diagram outlining how things should/can be done:

Technically speaking, it shouldn’t be an enormous undertaking to ensure that any mobile pop-ups you currently use abide by the new rules by the time they go live. In any case, those who don’t get their ships in order by January face the kinds of heavy penalties that may take some time to recover from.

Why Your SEO Strategy Has Hit a Brick Wall

Having invested heavily in an SEO strategy, the very last thing you want to see is a sudden slump. All seemed to be going as planned, only for your website to drop in the SERP rankings for no apparent reason.

Of course there is a reason why this happened – it’s simply a case of identifying the cause and addressing it. Easier said than done? It certainly can be, though if you’re guilty of any of the following crimes against SEO, you’ll most likely have your answer as to why you’ve hit a brick wall:

1 – Too Much Keyword Focus

First of all, it’s crucially important to acknowledge that we have well and truly entered the age of the natural language search. These days, consumers in growing numbers are speaking or typing extensive search sentences into their chosen engines, as opposed to just using one or two keywords. As such, the kind of keyword focus that would have struck gold in years gone by is slowly but surely becoming obsolete.

2. Dancing Around Google’s Every Move

One of the most critical mistakes any business or marketer can make is that of continually adjusting their approach to SEO, in accordance with Google’s latest algorithm updates. Why? Well, quite simply because if you are focusing on what matters, you will automatically satisfy everything Google is looking for. The SEO rulebook will always change, but only as a means by which to highlight and promote sites of quality. Which means that if you focus on quality, you’re future-ready.

3. Website Alterations

Never forget that each and every change you make to your website can have an impact on its SEO prowess. Even in the case of changes implemented to vastly improve the overall user experience, there’s still every chance you’ll experience a slide in the rankings. Which is precisely why it is a good idea to consult with the experts, before going ahead with any overhauls.

4. Content Stagnation

Just because your website ranked extremely well last week doesn’t mean the same will be true this week, if you are unwilling to regularly and routinely refresh its content. Even if your evergreen content is top-notch, it will quickly go stagnant in an SEO capacity and needs to be complemented with regular additions.

5. Bum Links

The same also goes for both the links you present on your website and the backlinks pointing your way. If your own links become invalid, it’s bad news. If you lose a quality backlink, even worse news. It’s crucial to carry out regular link audits to check on the health and relevance of both, in order to keep your SEO strategy on the straight and narrow.

6. Fierce Competition

Last but not least, it’s also worth bearing in mind that it may in fact be nothing that you yourself have done wrong, but rather what your rivals are doing better. If you are not continually stepping up your game when it comes to new-generation SEO, it is inevitable that you will be overtaken by the competition

8 Rather Revealing Social Media Marketing Statistics

Regardless of whether you yourself are personally active on social media, you are probably aware of its power and potential in a business setting. Which makes it all the more surprising that a striking proportion of businesses are still making little to no effort whatsoever to capitalise on social media. With no less than a third of the entire global population now actively using at least one social platform, never in history has there been a marketing tool with such extraordinary reach.

So with this in mind, what follows is a quick overview of 8 social Media Marketing statistics that could (and perhaps should) prompt a change in your current marketing policies:

1. First of all, a recent study carried out by Pew Research found that no less than 76% of Internet users now regularly use at least one social media service. What’s more, heavy and routine social media use is no longer confined to millennials – every single age group has grown over the past five years.

2. On a global basis, there are now somewhere in the region of 1.98 billion mobile social media users. Considering the fact that the total global population of social media users is around 2.3 billion, this clearly illustrates the importance of focusing on mobile. After all, mobile is the access method of choice for no less than 85% of social media users.

3. According to MediaPost, the average amount of time every Internet user is spending interacting with social media is increasing all the time. In fact, people are now spending an average of 109 minutes – or 7% of their entire day – using their chosen social media platforms. That’s 7% of every single day, 365 days a year.

4. And in terms of time spent online, the folks at comScore report that one in every five online minutes is now spent using social media. Which means that for every hour the average web user spends online, a solid 12 minute are spent using social media platforms.

5. By the year 2020, the vast majority of businesses will be spending somewhere in the region of 25% of their entire marketing budgets on social media. That’s according to a recent CMO Survey, which found that even those businesses that are already investing heavily in social media intend to up the stakes enormously going forward.

6. In terms of communication, millennials are much happier to get in touch with businesses via social media than by any other conventional means of contact. Which technically is nothing but a good thing from a business perspective as communicating via social media really couldn’t be easier.

7. Despite the fact that more than 80% of professional marketers say that they understand the power and importance of social media, the majority remain entirely unaware of how to fully capitalise on it. Reluctance to outsource or involve third-party professionals is one of the biggest of all roadblocks when it comes to social media marketing.

8. Last but not least, while so many businesses continue to regard Twitter as something of a one-way communication channel, research has shown that almost three-quarters (72%) of consumers expect a response to their customer service tweets in less than 60 minutes.