Instagram Stories Can Now Have Interactive Polls

Instagram has added a new feature to Stories which will let users ask questions and have their audience vote on the answer.

To use the new feature you simply go through the process of adding to your Story as you normally would. Then tap on the icon at the top to add a sticker and look for the “POLL” option.

From there you can design the poll however you like. The poll’s question, answers, and placement on the photo can all be customized.

Once the Story with the poll has been published, both you and your followers will be able to see the results in real-time.

Users can see which poll option is in the lead immediately after voting, and will be able to check back on the story to see updated results.

You can check on your own poll results the same way you check to see who has viewed your Story — swipe up from the bottom of the screen.

In addition, Instagram will not only let account owners see who has voted on a poll but also which option they chose.

Just like any other Story, those with polls will still expire after 24 hours. So make sure to grab your results before they disappear.

Other New Features

Instagram rolled out two other new features with its latest update.

A new color picker will let you use an eyedropper tool to select colors within the photo. This will help with adding text and drawings using colors that compliment the photo.

Another new feature, exclusive to iOS, is designed to assist users with placing text and stickers. It can help with keeping these elements centered, and there’s also a snap-to-grid component that will snap stickers or text back to horizontal position after being rotated.

These other new features are optional, of course. If you wanted to place your text upside down and diagonal, for example, you’re still free to do that.

First read thias here  —>  https://www.searchenginejournal.com/instagram-stories-can-now-interactive-polls/217205/

Check us out here as well  —> https://www.instagram.com/seobizmarketing/

Share YouTube Videos With iMessage Contacts Without Leaving the App

YouTube for iOS has been updated with iMessage support, which will let users watch and chat about videos without leaving the app.

After tapping on the share button in the YouTube app, there is now an option to share via iMessage.

Once iMessage is selected, choose the desired recipient and begin your shared video watching experience.

The video can be watched in partial view alongside a chat window, or the video can be enlarged to watch in full screen.

Alternatively, YouTube videos can also be shared from the iMessage app. Tap on the apps icon at the bottom of the screen, then select YouTube.

A list of recently watched videos will be automatically populated, which makes it easier to share something you just watched. If you prefer, you can also search for the name of the video you want to share.

YouTube’s iMessage app will give users the opportunity to preview a video before sharing, so you can make sure you don’t send the wrong one accidentally.

After the video has been shared it can be watched directly within the iMessage app.

Usually bitter rivals, it’s interesting to see Apple and Google working together on something that helps to enhance the use of each other’s services. Will we see more of this in the future?

 

Brevard Soe and Marketing First read this her  —< https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-content-marketing-strategies/215383/

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How to Marry Your SEO & Content Marketing Strategies

How to Marry Your SEO & Content Marketing Strategies  as

As a digital marketing consultant, I often come across companies where content marketing and SEO strategies don’t go hand in hand like they should.

What’s even more shocking is when I come across companies where their SEO and content marketing strategies are in conflict with each other.

You’ve probably seen it yourself.

This is old style thinking that needs to die.

SEO & Content Marketing Work Best Together

Here are two truth bombs – especially when it comes to extremely competitive niches:

Creating high-quality content alone doesn’t work.
SEO alone isn’t enough.
If you were to do a Google search for [content marketing], what sites do you see?

Content Marketing Institute
Forbes
Copyblogger
Wikipedia
Moz
What do all these sites have in common?

They have built an incredible amount of trust among online users and website owners. As a result, these sites have gained top rankings and attracted tons of links.

It’s going to be one heck of a challenge to outrank them, no matter how great your content is.

And that’s why every time you want to publish a new article, not only do you need to keep in mind what’s really trending now and what answers your target audience is looking for. But you also need to consider what kind of posts have the highest chance to acquire more links and find the right type of keywords.

This post will show you exactly how to find the right keywords that will give you a competitive advantage and help you figure out how many inbound links your article needs to acquire to appear on the first page of Google.

Step 1: Evaluate Your Current Situation in Google

Find what kind of keywords have already been bringing you traffic and conversions. Such search queries can be found in your Google Analytics account if you have connected it with your Google Search Console account.

 

ut there’s one little problem. Google Analytics, even after being connected with Google Search Console, won’t show you which keywords have converted. Unfortunately, Google only allows you to access this data for your landing pages.

And that’s where tools like SEMrush, SpyFu, SERPstat, or Ahrefs come into play. These tools will provide you with this missing puzzle of this data.

The aforementioned tools let you see for which keywords a particular URL appears in Google. They also show you how far from the top of Google your site is for a particular keyword. You’ll see this update displayed right next to the keyword.

For example, here’s a screenshot from SEMrush that shows all search queries one of my previous articles, How to Build a Content Marketing Strategy That Works in 5 Steps, was ranking for in Google:

To the right of each keyword, you can see the position this keyword currently has and its search volume.

Step 2: Find Related Keywords

Now you need to find keywords that are similar to those you discovered during Step 1.

Let’s say, it turned out that keywords related to content marketing strategy brought you the most conversions. So it’s a good idea to create more content using keywords related to that subject.

Why?

Because those keywords mirror your audience’s search behavior the most. These keywords also have the highest potential to bring you more paying clients.

There are several ways to find these keywords. One thing you can do is to simply check Google’s Autocomplete. You can look for autocomplete suggestions either manually, or using tools like AnswerThePublic.com. (A fun fact: guessing what kind of autocompletes made it to the top of Google has become a legit Family Feud-style game.)

Before you start brainstorming a title for your next piece of content, you need to know what subject resonates the most with your target audience. That’s when Answer The Public comes in.

The Answer the Public website is a tool that helps you discover what people are searching for in Google’s autocomplete. It has built a database from myriads of searches and it will predict what you’re going to ask, based on the data that’s already been put in.
The more variations of keywords you try, the more content ideas you’ll get. The results are demonstrated based on the variations used to build them, and can be downloaded as an image like the one shown below:

You should also look at Keywordtool.io. This tool scrapes Google Autosuggest and gives you the search volume for each keyword you entered. This tool can save hours of your time because you need to know the search volume for every keyword in order to estimate how many users this keyword can potentially bring on board.

Another tool you can try is the SEMrush Keyword Magic tool. It automatically provides you with the most important information about a keyword, factoring in metrics such as:

CPC and volume (basic, but much-needed).
Keyword difficulty.
Competition level.
SERP features.
Exact and broad keyword matches (grouping keywords by the most frequently appearing words in phrases that include your search term or phrase).
This tool quickly gathers the data you need and offers a much wider range of analysis for both single keywords and groups of keywords. I spend less time doing monotonous work and can concentrate on something more complex.

Step 3: Check the Competition Level in SERPs

Now that you have the list of keywords that are related to your most profitable search queries, it’s time to choose the keywords (e.g., topics for your future articles) that will let you rank higher in Google.

For a quick check, you can use SEMrush Keyword Difficulty tool. It tells you how difficult will it be for you to promote based on the domain’s visibility in organic search results.

There’s one problem with this tool, though: it doesn’t consider the number of referring domains for the website or a page URL you’re trying to look up. So you’ll also need to spend some quality time with Excel.

Follow this quick and simple process to make this process hassle-free:

Start by collecting the list of domains and pages (URLs) that currently rank in Google for the list of keywords that you’ve selected during the previous step. To speed things up, use a tool like SEMrush that allows you to export such list of domains and pages.

The same action of finding and exporting domains and URLs can be performed in Ahrefs Site Explorer:

SpyFu has the same functionality:

The results show you the ranking difficulty for the keyword you entered, along with the explanation of how many keywords are in the title and in the URL, the number of monthly clicks, and search results. The green and red arrows displayed on the left from the URL show whether a particular page’s ranking has gone up or down.

After you collect all domains and URLs, you need to check the number of referring domains for each of them. This can be done with tools like Ahrefs or the Majestic Bulk Backlink Checker that allows you to analyze multiple links at once.

Finally, you can get a good understanding of what kind of keywords have more or less competition not only based on the number of searchers they have, but also based on the real situation in SERPs.

From this moment on, you know how many referring domains each of your content pieces need to receive in order to rank high in Google. You’ll be able to tell the number of referring domains by looking at how many links have already been acquired by other pages that currently rank well in Google.

Also, you can estimate the number of visitors you’ll attract on a monthly basis and calculate the conversions you will potentially earn because you researched more keywords related to your most profitable ones.

Conclusion

Outranking websites with a high level of trustworthiness and credibility is no easy task. But who says you have to do that?

Work with what you already have. Analyze which of your current keywords have been bringing you traffic and increasing your sales. Look for keywords related to those keywords.

Evaluate the performance of your site’s URLs to see exactly how many referring domains each of your pages needs to have to stay visible in the search results. Elaborate on the topics that your target audience takes the most interest in.

Take advantage of marketing tools to help you leverage the results of hard work you’re putting while doing other types of research for your online marketing strategy. And always be wary of your competition.

Play smart by taking small steps and using keywords that will realistically get you to the top of Google.

First Read this here  https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-content-marketing-strategies/215383/

 

 

6 Ways to Hype Your Backlink Profile With Crawl Data

 

 Links aren’t dead. Yet.

Google has been giving mixed messages about the importance of backlinks, but we all know links are still a key signal search engines use to determine the importance of webpages.

While it is up for debate whether you should pro-actively engage in link building activities (as opposed to more general brand building activities that lead to links, social shares, etc.), monitoring and optimizing the existing backlinks pointing to your site is a must.

Let’s look at a few practical ways that you can combine crawl data and backlink data to understand the pages on your site that are receiving backlinks and actions you take to fully exploit their value.

Adding Crawl Data Into the Mix

While backlink tools are highly valuable for keeping on top of your site’s link profile, you can take your link monitoring and optimization to the next level by combining their data with the crawl data you get from a platform like DeepCrawl.

To take advantage of this killer combination, simply export your pages with backlinks data from your link monitoring tools as a CSV, then start a trial with DeepCrawl and upload your exported link data in the second stage of the crawl setup. If you are exporting link data from Majestic, Ahrefs or Moz you won’t even need to reformat the CSV as part of the upload process.

After running a crawl, you can utilize a number of reports in DeepCrawl that will enhance your link data by providing insights about the target pages. You can then go one step further by adding Google Analytics and Search Console data into your crawls to assess the value of your pages with backlinks by seeing if the target pages are driving impressions in search and traffic to your site.

Let’s take a look through a few specific examples of how you can combine link and crawl data.

1. Broken Pages With Backlinks

What can you identify?

Using the Broken Pages With Backlinks Report you can find pages with backlinks that return 4xx or 5xx errors.

Why is it an issue?

You want to avoid having backlinks pointing to broken pages because this means any link equity gained from these links will be lost. Such instances will also result in poor user experience as visitors will land on a broken page rather than a relevant one.

What action can you take?

You can either look to restore the page to a 200 status or set up a 301 to redirect to another relevant page. With the latter you will need to make sure the redirected page makes sense in context of a user clicking on a link and landing on a relevant page.

2. Non-indexable Pages With Backlinks

What can you identify?

Non-indexable Pages with Backlinks is another key report, which will allow you to identify pages that return a 200 response but that aren’t indexable, which could be due to the page having a noindex tag or a canonical pointing to another page.

Why is it an issue?

A page with backlinks that isn’t indexable in search engines can pass link equity to other pages, but this may be less effective than allowing the page to rank in search results.

What action can you take?

With these pages you will need to decide if you want that page and its content to be discoverable by search engines. If you do want the page to be indexed, then you will need to find out why the page isn’t indexable and rectify this (e.g. removing the noindex tag or changing to a self-referencing canonical). If you don’t want the page indexed in search you can try reaching out to the linking domain and asking them to change the link to another relevant page on your site.

3. Redirecting URL With Backlinks

What can you identify?

Sites change over time. It is possible you may change the URL architecture of your site and implement 301 redirects to send search engines and users from the old version of your URL to the new one. Redirecting URLs with Backlinks will flag externally linked pages that redirect to another page.

Why is it an issue?

This isn’t necessarily an issue because Google confirmed PageRank isn’t lost from 301 redirects.

What action can you take?

While backlinks to a redirecting page might not be an issue, you should review these redirecting pages to make sure the redirection target is relevant to the source page and anchor text of the link, and makes sense in terms of experience for user.

4. Orphaned Pages With Backlinks

What can you identify?

At DeepCrawl, we define orphaned pages as ones that do not have any internal links on pages found in the web crawl.

Why is it an issue?

Orphaned pages are still working and may be driving traffic and link equity into the site, but are often forgotten about and may be out of date, or a poor user experience. Normally, you aim to obtain backlinks pointing towards important and unique pages that you want shown in search.

What action can you take?

Orphaned pages with backlinks should be reviewed on a page-by-page basis. If the page is providing value to your users then you should add internal links to this page. This will help Google understand how the previously orphaned page relates to others on your site.

Alternatively, you can redirect the orphaned page to a more relevant one which you want to receive link equity and that provides value to users.

5. Disallowed URLs With Backlinks

What can you identify?

Disallowed URLs with Backlinks will highlight pages with backlinks that are disallowed as specified in your robots.txt file.

Why is it an issue?

Pages in this report are a problem because the link equity cannot be passed to the target page or to any of the pages it links to as Google has been instructed not to crawl the target URL.

What action can you take?

With disallowed pages with backlinks, you will need to consider allowing the page to be crawled by removing it from the robots.txt in order to allow other pages benefit from the link equity from the backlinks.

6. Meta Nofollow Pages With Backlinks

What can you identify?

In the Meta Nofollow with Backlinks report, DeepCrawl will identify pages with a meta nofollow tag that have backlinks pointing to them.

Why is it an issue?

Having a meta nofollow on a page has the effect of saying that there are no links on the page and will mean that the link equity from backlinks doesn’t spread to any of the pages linked from the target page.

What action can you take?

With any nofollowed pages with backlinks you should consider if a nofollow tag is really necessary and consider removing it so that the link equity can be passed through to the rest of your site.

Get Started With DeepCrawl

Hopefully, this post has given you some ideas about what you should be looking for when monitoring and maintaining your link profile to maximize link equity to your site. To start combining link and crawl data, get started with a free two-week trial account with DeepCrawl and get crawling!

This was read by Brevard Seo here first —https://www.searchenginejournal.com/6-ways-hype-backlink-profile-crawl-data/215925/

 

The Dos and Don’ts for Announcing You’re Looking for Guest Bloggers

There are plenty of articles out there that cover the dos and don’ts of guest blogging, how to craft the perfect pitch for your dream outlet, and the traffic benefits that guest bloggers can have on your website. But what about seeking out guest writers? What’s the best way to announce that your blog is open for guest bloggers and to entice them into submitting their original content? While the rules will vary depending on the type of blog you have and the content you’re looking for, if you’re planning on creating some specs to get started here are the dos and don’ts to keep in mind.

Do… Create clear guidelines for structure and tone.

What are you really looking for in a guest post? This is about so much more than writing an article for the sake of getting it published and backlinked on another website. Be clear upfront about the kind of content your audience enjoys reading about and how successful posts are structured, whether that means writing in a bullet format or taking a long-form approach. Additionally, share how the tone of the post should be conveyed. Should it be conversational or do you prefer a more serious approach? All of this matters when writing the final draft of the article so it’s important to establish these guidelines from the start.

Do… Be specific about submission format.

There are a few ways you can go about doing this. You can create a landing page that allows the potential guest writer to submit their article directly to the team from the page. Or, you can encourage guest posters to email you directly (through a generic submission email) with their post. Be sure to specify how you want the guest article to be included. Consider format first, including whether the post should be submitted as a Google Doc or Word Document, and then the method for sending it in. Some options can include submitting the guest post as a PDF attachment, via a Dropbox link, or copied and pasted directly into the email. Attachments in the last few years have turned into a dicey area where spam content can easily be submitted, so it’s important to follow the rules exactly.

Don’t… Ask for images to be included with submissions.

This is a controversial statement to make, but through personal experience I have found it is a better idea to source your own images. Create accounts with stock image sites like Getty Images or iStockPhoto or seek out free high quality photos from communities like Pixabay or Unsplash. It’s always better to err on the side of caution in this department, even if the writer claims that they have permission to use the image attached, and all of these sites have fantastic, credited images that can accompany any blog post regardless of its topic.

Do… Request more information about the author.

What makes this writer credible? You don’t need them to share with you their life’s story, but interested guest bloggers should submit a bit of background information in their bio or byline that states who they are, what they do, and what makes them a fit to blog with you. Bonus points for any guest writers that can also include links to their existing published content so you can get a feel for their writing style and areas of expertise.

Don’t… Guarantee an immediate response.

It’s entirely possible that you might not be able to get to the guest post the second it has been submitted, so make a note on your landing page or within your guidelines about what the follow-up process for post submissions might look like.

Don’t… Sell yourself.

If you would like to endlessly talk about how awesome your business is, you can create your own blog for those kinds of posts. When you’re posting on another blog, this is your opportunity to share your expertise and ideas. Be respectful and understanding about that.

Do… Cast a (fairly) wide net for your search.

Now that you know you’re looking for guest writers, you’ll want to share the news so as to bring in as many potential contributors as possible. Make the announcement via your social media handles, Facebook groups you’re a member of, your company newsletter, and even by sharing the news with trusted partners of your business or influential bloggers you already work alongside. Make sure that the writers you do get in touch with are the same ones you build a rapport with — and you might even be able to reciprocate by blogging with them as well later on!

First read here — > http://www.socialmediatoday.com/smt-influencer/dos-and-donts-announcing-youre-looking-guest-bloggers

7 Easy and Free Ways to Get More Traffic That You Should Be Using (But Aren’t)

We all want our content to reach more people, and to also live on, and keep bringing visitors to our site long after we’ve published it. Most brands do the basics, they publish a blog and cross-promote articles on social media. Some brands take it further, by publishing directly on social platforms like LinkedIn’s publishing platform or connecting their blog to Facebook Instant Articles. Companies who are serious about driving leads and winning customers online have adopted an inbound marketing strategy that drives traffic, captures leads, and moves those leads down their funnel using lead magnets and calls-to-action on their website, and blog.

We’ve found, however, that most companies aren’t using some of the best content promotion techniques available to them, even though they’re free. We think they’re so valuable, that we add these sites, tools, and strategies to the content strategy we create for all of our clients.

In this post, we’ll share seven easy and free ways to get more traffic.

1. Add Links to Social Bookmarking Sites

You should look to promote all your content on social bookmarking sites.

Bookmarking sites like Reddit and Digg, and StumbleUpon are used by many as one of their primary sources of news, information, and opinion. Adding links to these sites give you access to those audiences.

At the start of 2105, StumbleUpon was the fourth best traffic generating social networking site, behind Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. As you know, mileage will vary (we get 4-7% of our traffic from StumbleUpon alone).

t’s not 20%, but it’s not bad either, especially considering that social bookmarking sites are totally free.

2. Add Calls-to-Action to Links You Share

Tools like Snip.ly enable you to add calls-to-action to every link you share.

The ways these tools work is simple – you paste in a link and the tool shortens the link and displays a call-to-action anytime someone clicks it.

Link sharing CTAs are great for promoting lead magnets with every piece of content you share – be it your content, or curated material. They’re also great for promoting events and getting sign-ups.

Different tools have free and paid options which provide additional features, like custom branding, analytics, and promotion options.

We use Snip.ly, but there are many similar tools to choose from including:

Snip.ly
Replug
CliClap
Smol
Insighter
Backly
When reviewing the tools, be sure to check out how many clicks and conversions you get at each price point (or for free), and if the tools integrate with CRM and email automation software if you plan to use them to collect sign-ups.

3. Add Banner Calls-to-Action to Your Website

Simple website banner ads can be compelling and are usually easy to add to your website.
If you’re doing inbound marketing right, you should have calls-to-action on each page of your site related to the content on each page. Website banners stand out because they’re at the top of the page – they’re the first thing visitors see. They also stand out because they are consistent across your entire site, making them an omnipresent advertisement on all of your pages.

You can use website banners the same way as link based calls-to-action, but they can be particularly nice for driving sign-ups or your event.

GoAnimate has a good article where they compare the 6 Best, Free Banner Making Tools.

4. Use Pinned Posts on Social Media Networks

Pinned posts are a great way to promote content on your social channels. The great thing about pinning a post is that it stays at the top of your page’s feed until you unpin it. That means, whenever anyone visits your page or profile, it’s the first post they’ll see.
Dhariana Lozano wrote a great article on how to pin posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. We recommend keeping your latest blog post, content offer, or event as a pinned post.

5. Make Your Social Media Page Banners Calls-to-Actions

Another way you can leverage your social media channels for some free promotion is to change the page banner of your social media profiles into a CTA graphic. This lets everyone know about your latest offer or event.

Facebook is especially well-suited to this because you can use their call-to-action buttons to link to the landing page related to what you’re advertising. All you need to do is design a banner that describes your offer and points to the button on your page.

Not all page banners are as well suited to this as Facebook, but you can usually find a way to utilize the banner to promote your latest offer or event.

If you’re using pinned posts, you can combine the two and have your banner point to the pinned post that has a better description, and a link to the relevant landing page.

6. Answer Questions on Social Q&A Sites

Another set of promotional sites which are worth looking into are social question and answer sites like Quora, Yahoo Answers.

How do you use a Q&A site to drive traffic? Simple, use the blog posts you’re already creating to answer questions posted on the site. Every time you publish a new post, search for related questions. Answer those questions and link back to the relevant blog post for additional information.
This can often be done in as little as 30 minutes after publishing a post, and from that point, the traffic will start streaming in.

Wishpond wrote an article about how they use Quora to generate traffic, and the numbers are startling.

7. Have Employees Share Content on Their Social Channels

One thing every marketer and business is trying to do on social media is get more reach. Employees can provide built in reach.

Encourage employees to share your latest articles, content offers, and news about upcoming events on their personal social channels. Employees are often eager to talk about the exciting things their company is doing, and this gives them the opportunity to do just that. Every employee that shares your content will be extending your reach to a new group people.

Brevard Seo Read this first here –>http://www.socialmediatoday.com/smt-influencer/7-easy-and-free-ways-get-more-traffic-you-should-be-using-arent

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