Anand Srinivasan says, “Digital PR and link-building is an evolving industry, so what worked a few years back may not necessarily work today. Last year, I wrote a piece, “7 Creative Link-Building Techniques To Improve Your Website SEO” where I detailed techniques such as building helpful tools for your industry, targeting journalists through Facebook ads and turning copyright violations into linking opportunities. Although many of these techniques remain applicable today, I recently queried entrepreneurs about the other strategies they’ve been using to build high-authority... [...]

Leslie Ye says, “For a salesperson, persuasion is the ultimate superpower. How often do you get a call from a prospect you’ve never spoken to before who says, “I love your service and it’s the perfect fit for my business. Where do I sign?” Probably not that often. That’s where persuasion comes in. Some deals are easier to close than others, but all sales conversations will involve some degree of persuasion — even if both salesperson and buyer know your offering is the best choice. It’s not easy — if persuasion were simple, far more than one-third of all salespeople... [...]

Myles Anderson says, “Is selling SEO services getting harder, or are SEOs just not that good at it? I ask this question this because I’ve recently had a number of conversations with SEOs — freelance and at agencies — and almost all complained about difficulties in pitching and converting SMBs. It’s well-documented that business owners get bombarded with calls and emails from SEOs trying to convince them that they need their services and that they can deliver the moon-on-a-stick. From our 2014 SMB internet marketing survey, we found that 35 percent of SMBs are contacted every day by... [...]

Ashley Friedlein says, “Ah, the death of digital… More than two years ago I wrote about the many ‘deaths’ of digital marketing and it felt like a tired topic then. But still this is a hot topic, even if it has often metastised into full blown ‘digital transformation’. Mark Ritson confirmed last year that the death of digital was upon us and duly consigns digital marketing to hell in this great presentation from Marketing Week Live. And yet. And yet. And yet the appetite for ‘digital’ is as rampant as ever. And yet the skills and roles in most acute demand are digital. And... [...]

David Leonhardt says, “You work hard to get traffic to your website. You pay for advertising. You optimize for the search engines. You work it on social media. And it pays off! Traffic comes. People arrive. They look at what you have to offer. And — they hesitate. It takes just a moment’s hesitation to create doubt. In that moment, you can lose a customer. They find you — but do they trust you? In the real world, people do business face to face. They meet the waitress, the sales clerk, the serviceman. They make a judgment call instinctively as to whether they like you, whether... [...]

Jawad Khan says, “With so many brands, entrepreneurs and professionals publishing video content on different online platforms, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call 2016 the year of video marketing. Seventy-two hours of unique video content is uploaded every minute on YouTube, while Facebook users are watching more than 100 million hours of video content every day. According to Break Media, online video ad spending will reach $5.4 billion by the end of 2016. All this hype, of course, is not without concrete evidence. Forrester reports that including video in emails leads to a staggering... [...]

Brian Carroll says, “When the business strategy isn’t linked with sales and marketing, the result is that marketers and sellers end up working harder, not smarter. This has a multi-billion dollar impact. Most companies struggle with this according to the Frank Cespedes, author, and Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School: “Selling [or marketing,] no matter how clever and creative, can’t generate good financial returns unless it’s connected to strategy.” I met Frank while we both spoke at an event in Santiago, Chile. We had a memorable time sharing ideas and research. I thought... [...]

With the new Origin Builder WordPress plugin, creating a beautiful blog post, even with rich media, is as simple as dragging and dropping content you want to include onto your page, then adding text and publishing. Origin Builder is a new blog post builder that was just released by Precious Ngwu He has created a video to show you how easy it is. Watch it here: Origin Builder Video You will get a lot more engagement from your audience if you include visual content besides your text. The eye-catching visual media will attract your audience to your websites and with this new tool, you can create these... [...]

Aleh Barysevich says, “In our fast-paced, digital world, few things help small businesses the way a local search engine optimization (SEO) strategy can. Search engines keep getting smarter, but that doesn’t mean SEO is no longer necessary. Your business will lose out to competitors if you’re not working to keep it in the public eye. Although all SEO hinges on great content and a responsive website, local SEO has its own practices and requirements that influence how you rank locally. There are literally hundreds of local SEO ranking factors to consider, but what I’ve detailed... [...]

Quinn Whissen says, “Every day, sometimes multiple times a day, I find myself editing content. I comment on, add to, subtract from, redline, revise or rephrase sections of my team’s articles. Google Doc “Suggest Mode” and Word “Track Changes” are my jam. I’m a true content editing fiend. That’s why I created this cheat sheet guide for content formatting. So that you, your team, your freelancers or anyone who creates content for your organization can digest these guidelines easily and start using them right away. Like the title of this article says, we’re about to get really... [...]