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How to Bring Old Blog Posts Back to Life

bims_10.20If you’ve been maintaining a blog on your website, you have probably built up a pretty hefty archive of old blog posts. Even with the abundance of blog posts, studies reveal that fresh contents outrank older contents, both in terms of clicks and search engines.

Does it mean that you have to create more blog content? Not necessarily. You can reuse, repurpose and reinvent your blog posts. Here’s how to breathe new life into an older blog post.

Create a killer headline

Creating a title is easy, but if you really want to capture the attention of your target audience, then you need to make it compelling.

Take a look at the title of your most popular posts. Do you think it is good enough to compel people to read the rest of the article? Is there any way you can make it more appealing or relevant to the article? Now, go and create an attention-grabbing title.

Keep the content updated

The world is constantly changing. Some of the information you have offered in 2012 are now irrelevant or outdated.

Revisit old posts and delete any parts that are no longer relevant. Also, you might want to incorporate new information and brush up on what has changed in the industry. This is especially beneficial if you’ve seen continuous interest in a certain post.

Look for the evergreen content

If a certain blog post has garnered the attention of the public, then it’s definitely worth coming back to for a spruce up.

Marketers focus on creating evergreen content because it still has an appeal even after months or years after it was created. Consider modifying the original article instead of publishing a new article with the same content. Duplicate content on your website is a bad idea. Once you’ve made some adjustments, publish it as new.

Repurpose into a new format

There’s no reason to waste the time you spent creating those blog posts. You can repurpose the content and turn it into a slide presentation, ebook, podcast, infographic or a short video. Remember, not everyone chooses to consume information the same way.

 

 

 

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Reasons Why You Should Edit Old Posts on Your Blog

BIMS_10.13.15Editing your blog posts is probably one of the best advice that could be given to you, but very few of you will actually do it.

This week, we’ll give you a few reasons why you should edit old blog posts on your blog. Let’s go through them.

Ranking

Just like a news article that’s posted on a local news website, blog posts have dates on them. They become old news and fall from top results after a period of time. If you are looking to improve traffic to your site, this reason alone justifies your editing.

Polish writing

Bloggers don’t have the luxury of an editor to go over our writing, so we try to proof-read an article before publishing it. But as we try to revisit our old posts, we find that they are full of silly mistakes.

Typos are a big turn-off to anyone reading your article, but it’s hard to notice the typos and errors when you write a blog post yourself. Try to read your old posts with fresh eyes to make sure that it’s error-free.

Update content

Blog posts that are a year old or more may contain outdated information. It is important to keep all posts up-to-date and relevant. Otherwise, visitors may hit the close button and move on to other websites.

Updating old posts will not only turn a visitor into a subscriber, it also helps improve your site’s ranking. Be sure to update your content to match the latest facts and figures.

Add images

It is important to include images in your blog posts as it makes the post more attractive to most people. But sometimes, it is difficult to find the right image that aligns with the topic. You can change those images later on in case you find something more relevant.

More images are stored in your database as your blog gets older. This may slow down your site. We suggest that you resize the image to reduce the overall size of the post.

 

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Easy Ways to Expand Your Facebook Reach

BIMSFor many businesses, generating lead is one of the biggest advantages of creating and maintaining social presence. You create content that would pique the interest of your target audience and hope that it goes out to as many people as possible. Unfortunately, the days of posting and reaching all of your fans are gone.

The last year has brought many changes to social media. We’ve heard complaints from several businesses about the drop in organic reach for Facebook pages.

Using the right tactics will give you better results. Follow these tips to ensure that your posts can reach the audience you define.

Create awesome content

Like Google, Facebook puts a lot of emphasis on content quality and relevance. Being one of the biggest social network platforms, there’s a lot of competition out there. If you want to capture the attention of your target audience, then you need to provide them with killer content.

Higher engagement can increase your reach. The more people engage with your page, the more likely are they to see your posts. But if your content is not that interesting, you suffer the consequences of losing organic visibility.

Ask questions

One of the best ways to engage your followers is by asking them a question. Your goal is to start a conversation so be sure to start with an interesting question. Now that you got people to air their opinions, it is important to keep the conversation rolling.

Asking questions does not only help increase reach, it also provides answers to questions that may be crucial for your business’ marketing and sales.

Add call-to-action

Call-to-actions are a great way to get people to engage with your posts. Believe it or not, your audience tends to respond better when they are told what to do. However, most marketers and business owners fail to include a call-to action with their status updates.

Use better visuals

We’ve all heard the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. But it’s actually worth more than that in social media.

Videos and images often get more likes, shares and comments as compared to text-based status updates. ForCall  a more powerful post, consider placing your message along with the photo.

 

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Characteristics of a Great Content

office-594132_640There is a surplus of information on the internet today. In fact, about 2 million blog posts are published every day. Along with that, 70,000 hours of Youtube videos are uploaded and about 290 billion emails are sent on a daily basis. The problem is that most of these contents result in a waste of time, energy and resources.

How do you go about creating content that stands out and captures the attention of your target audience?

While there is no specific way in creating great content, there are a few characteristics that most successful content shares. Keep these things in mind when creating contents for your prospects and clients.

Relevant

When starting out with content marketing, most companies create contents that are centered on their products and services. While there is nothing wrong in wanting to showcase your products and services, you first have to focus on content that your customers care about.

Your content has to resonate with your prospects and existing clients. Otherwise, those contents will just get lost among all other noise.

Provides value

Writing great content is a choice. You can produce high quality content or you can take the easy path and produce junk.

People are searching for information that will educate them, inform them and he6lp them solve a problem. If your content is entertaining, informative and interesting enough, people will be happy to share your content. Add to that, it will get the attention of industry stakeholders and position your company as an educator or expert.

Original

Creating original content will get you great results. Google rewards sites with original, high quality content. On the other hand, it penalizes sites with duplicate content. Original content will help your site get more exposure and improve your site’s ranking.

Easily consumed            

When people use a search engine, they’re not just looking for answers – they want fast answers. In fact, one study revealed that 79% of web users scan contents rather than read them in detail.

Make your posts easier to read by keeping each paragraph short, preferably 3-4 sentences each. Bulleted lists are also very helpful. They are easily scannable and make it easier for users to find the information they need.

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Tips to Help You Generate More Leads from Your Website

public-domain-images-free-stock-photos-high-quality-resolution-downloads-public-domain-archive-14-1000x667A website is an essential business tool. Most businesses use it to generate leads. After all, nothing happens without a lead. No sales, no profit, no revenue, nothing! Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as throwing a “click here” button and watch as the leads start pouring in. In order to generate leads, you need to take a more strategic approach.

Here are some tips that will vault your online lead generation efforts into overdrive.

Get optimized

Undoubtedly, the best way to channel a flood of visitors to your website is to make sure that your site ranks in every search engine. People won’t visit your site if it’s on the 2nd or 3rd page of the search engine. With the competition getting tougher than ever, you need to work your best to achieve and maintain top search engine positions.

Make sure it’s mobile-friendly

Today, more and more people are using their mobile devices for online activities. In fact, studies indicate that mobile traffic accounts for at least one-third of the total web traffic. If you want more leads from your website, you need to make sure that people can access your site through their smart phones or tablet PCs.

Make your contact details visible

Don’t make visitors search for your contact information. Make sure that your phone number is clearly visible on every page. Some business owners make the mistake of thinking that potential customers prefer email as a means of communication. Survey reveals that 75% of client’s sales leads come in by phone.

Install a live chat feature

A lot of business owners think that live chat is only beneficial for retail businesses. But we believe that every business website can benefit from this tool.

Let’s take a restaurant as an example. Having a live chat feature is actually beneficial for this type of business since it helps facilitate reservation. Plus, it is very helpful for visitors, who have some questions or clarifications. We recommend businesses to assign an employee to answer customer queries during regular business hours. This simple step can produce significant results.

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Tips for Social Media Success

socialmedia_9.8Now that so many businesses are using social media to reach out to potential customers and drive more traffic to their site, it’s only a matter of time before they realize how difficult it is to succeed in social media marketing.

This blog post shows you how to achieve success with social media. Check out the tips below and start incorporating them into you social media strategy.

Choose the right platform

There are dozens of social media platforms across the web so feel free to explore which platforms are best for your business. Choose the platforms where your prospective customers most likely spend their time every day.

Deliver content consistently

One of the best ways to increase engagement and grow your following on social media is for you to be active. Keep in mind, though, that social media success requires more than the random postings about your great sale or latest products. Be sure to provide content that are valuable, interesting and relevant to your audience.

Post timely

Research shows that 92.4% of all retweets happen within an hour of posting. That means that the day and time your post has an effect on virality.

Do your research and determine the best days and times to post for your demographics and industry. Also, remember that there are different time zones for different places in the world. To ensure that people will be able to see your content, no matter the time zone, we suggest that you post more contents throughout the day.

Include pictures

“A picture is worth a thousand words”, they say. But it may be worth more in social media. Posts with pictures get more engagement as compared to those without pictures. In fact, research reveals that 44% of Facebook users are more likely to interact with brands if they include pictures in their posts.

Measure results

The only way to determine whether or not your efforts are successful is by measuring and analyzing the results. If you publish a blog, you want to see how many readers are subscribing, what posts they are reading, how many comments you’re receiving and how well your blog compares to others in the industry.

 

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Signs It’s Time to Outsource Your Online Marketing

BIMS_9.1As a business owner, you want to oversee every aspect of the business. But as the business grows, you will then realize that you can’t do everything on your own. You need to delegate tasks so you can focus on things you do best. Knowing when to hire people is an important part of building a successful business.

In this blog post, we’ll give you 4 reasons why you should outsource your online marketing. Read on and find out if it’s time for you invest in the services of offsite experts.

You don’t have the right skills

At some point in time, you’ll be facing certain challenges you can’t solve on your own. Rather than spending countless hours trying to come up with an effective marketing plan, it might be best to pay someone else to handle the marketing side of your business so you can focus on providing quality service to customers and make more money.

You’re not producing enough fresh content

If you want people to find your website, you need a steady supply of fresh, quality content. But if writing isn’t your forte and you find yourself putting off the task until a few hours before the deadline, why torture yourself? Let an online marketing agency do the work for you while you sit back and enjoy the results.

You’ve reached a plateau

You’ve seen some promising results in the past, but after a few months, you realized that you’re not getting promising results.  Keep in mind that it is a fast-changing environment and you need to keep up in order to succeed. Outsourcing will help you keep up with the rising demands of your marketing.

You seem to be running behind

This is common, especially for small business with only a handful of employees. Your business is growing fast and their workload is starting to become heavy. Eventually, you’ll find that all your projects get pushed against tight deadlines and you seem to be running behind on projects and campaigns, it may be time to consider bringing in a new team.

 

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Social Media Trends That Are Bad For Your Brand

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Social media marketing can be comparable to traditional media marketing. The only difference is that it is a lot faster. Trends waxes and wanes in hyper speed, going from cool to super lame in a matter of days or weeks. As a result, it is becoming more and more difficult to stay relevant.

Here’s a list of social media trends that can hurt your brand. Read on to find out which trend you should finally put to rest.

Facebook exclusive

Facebook may be one of the most popular social media channels today, but focusing your marketing efforts on Facebook is certainly not a good idea. Why? It’s because it has the most competition and advertising can be more expensive.

Focusing on one platform is like advertising on TV alone, and not using radio, print, billboards and any other channels to reach your audience.

Live blogging

During the SuperBowl event last year, a lot of people were active online, chatting and posting about the event as it happens. Some businesses took the opportunity to engage with their audience by posting something about the said event. If the brand is about sports, then this is justifiable. But if not, then there’s no sense talking about the SuperBowl.

Try focusing in topics that would be of interest to your target audience. They’re expecting you to provide them with content about specific topics, not some general world news.

Half-baked story

Social media is a great place to keep up with breaking news. We strongly advise that you check your facts first before sharing stories on your blog or business page. Do your research and make sure that the news is from a reliable source.

Sharing half-baked stories will affect your brand in a negative way. The last thing you want is for people to see you as an unreliable source.

Ignoring LinkedIn

If you’re not on LinkedIn, then you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities to get more branding for your business. LinkedIn is the best social media platform for business owners and executives to be in. Here, you can expand your network and meet people in the same industry.

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4 Things We All Need to Stop Doing on Social Media

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The growth of social media continues to expand. Facebook has over 1 billion users; while Twitter and Instagram has over 280 million and 200 million active users respectively.

Many of us flock to these popular social media sites to give and receive the latest scoop on pretty much everything. We all love to post different events in our lives to let everyone know what is going on, but some people gets overboard when it comes to using social media.

Whether you’re using social media for professional or personal use, here are 4 things you should stop doing.

Oversharing

You probably have a friend who updates their status every 15 minutes or so. It can get irritating sometimes, especially since your news feeds is full of their postings. We hate to break it to you, but no one wants to be that clued in about your life.

Using more hashtags than words

Hashtags are great for giving your campaigns their own special theme, finding and jumping into conversations and categorizing your posts, but piling on the hashtags just looks desperate. Please keep your hashtag usage in check.

Automated messages

It may seem like a good idea to send a thank you message to users who follow you, but I’m willing to bet that some people consider it as spam.

While there are some people who say that sending automated messages has helped grow their follower count, it may come off as detached, lazy and out of touch for some. Remember, genuineness wins when it comes to earning the trust of your target audience.

Adding people to groups without their permission

Groups are a great place to talk to people with the same interests as yours. Just because you created a group for golfers, doesn’t give you the right to add your golfer friends to the group without their permission. If you think some of your friends would be interested to be a part of the group, consider sending them a message and tell them what it’s all about.

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Strategies to Keep Your Business One Step Ahead of the Competition

bims_8.10Every business owner wants his business to stay ahead of the competition. But if you want to remain successful, a lot of things should be done and most of them are not particularly easy.

Here are some strategies that you can use to keep your business one step ahead of the competition.

Know your competitors

Entrepreneurs can enjoy great benefits by keeping track of their competitors. While we urge you to spy on your competitors, we discourage you from duplicating their ideas. Your goal is to see what they are offering and what their unique selling point is. Figure out a way to make it work for your business and use this knowledge to your advantage. If you want to stay ahead of the competition, you need to do it better than they did.

Build a relationship with your customers

You and your competitors will be competing for the same customers. Whoever wins will receive a bigger segment of the market.

It is easier to keep a customer than it is to acquire a new one. All it takes is a better offer from a competitor or a single negative experience. Show your customers how much you value them by interacting with them through social media and improving customer service.

Never stop innovating

In order to succeed in today’s quickly developing world, you need to change more often and sooner than you think. What might be working for you today might not be effective in the future.

Innovation is the key to sustaining your company. If you want to satisfy your target audience then you need to give them what they want. But most of the time, their wants and needs change. You need to be able to keep up with the demands of the people. Follow consumer trends and try to keep up with the developments in your sector.

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