Monthly Archives: October 2013

How to Blog Like a Pro – Or Just Hire One

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Setting up a blog is fairly straightforward, but most of those homemade blogs will have few readers. If you host a blog for hobbyists and feature posts on your model train collection or your pet hamsters, that’s probably fine. You’re doing it for the love of sharing information with like-minded people, and your blog will thrive in its niche as long as you maintain it. Business blogging, though, needs a professional look and feel that makes the most of your inbound marketing efforts while engaging readers enough to keep them coming back. Continue reading

Are Google Updates Killing Traditional SEO?

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Google’s Penguin, Panda and Hummingbird updates have put a tremendous squeeze on some types of SEO content. Heavily keyword-stuffed, back-linked and spun content that once rocketed to the top of the search engine’s results pages are now relegated to the hinterlands, relics of an age in which search engines were unsophisticated and black-hat SEO tactics flourished. The increasing pace of change and the severe penalties for using outmoded or questionable SEO techniques has led some industry outsiders to conclude that SEO specialists and even SEO itself are obsolescent if not obsolete. Continue reading

Do Content Writers Need to Be Experts?

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Experts in a field have a wealth of valuable information to share. An actor who has been in the business for decades can write volumes about creativity and pleasing an audience. The CEO who has built multiple successful businesses has more valuable information to impart than most graduate-level courses. Everyone from metal fabricators to musicians offers specialized knowledge that others are eager to discover. How, then, can a writer outside the field create rich, well-informed content about it and do justice to a specialized website?

In many cases, professional content writers do have a background in specialty fields. They may have worked in an accounting office or medical center in the past and now gravitate to articles about finance or health care. For others, writing is another phase of a career that has already spanned decades. The chef who chooses not to spend hours on the line with knives and fire still has plenty to teach as a food critic, culinary writer or restaurant content creator. Sometimes, writers have an educational background that suits them well for niche fields. Continue reading

What Does the Google Hummingbird Update Mean for SEO?

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From a user’s perspective, Google seems fairly static aside from the colorful and clever designs the search engine posts on its main page. Behind the scenes, though, its architects are constantly working to improve its functionality, weed out low-value sites and promote meaningful content. The search engine giant releases small updates frequently, but large changes are less common. For SEO analysts and writers, a major new Google update could mean the need to redesign or rewrite whole websites.

Toward the end of September, Google’s Matt Cutts announced the latest large revision, Google Hummingbird. The Google Panda and Penguin updates are still making an impact on SEO even years after their release. The spun content, keyword stuffing and low-value links these updates were designed to combat continue to be punished on Google’s search engine results pages. Will Hummingbird have a similar revolutionary effect? Not according to Google representative and senior VP of search, Amit Singhal. Continue reading

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