Blogging Archives - Peter Lang: Helping You Grow Through Marketing Mastery

21Jul 2013 by Peter Lang No Comments

A Simple, Down-to-Earth SEO Strategy

Today we'll discuss a sensible, down-to-earth search engine optimization (SEO) strategy for your site by optimizing your content for organic search results. SEO for Pages and Blog Posts When we use the term "optimize" we mean refine and target the content around a focused message and make sure that the page a whole aligns with the one or two keywords that you're using to be discovered through organic search. For any given page or post we will assume you've already optimized your meta title, keywords, and description for the one to two keywords. If you haven't, make sure to do that first. Let me give you some specific steps to optimize your on page content: Keep your content relatively short and a consistent length, keep it over 250 words and…

26Feb 2013 by Peter Lang No Comments

7 things all top bloggers do

Blogging

The world of a top blogger is a small and independent world. You have to make decisions for yourself: figure out how to create content you're passionate about, how to write, how to act, speak, present yourself, take initiative, bundle your creative efforts, and build and engage a community. Great bloggers are like great athletes - simply do the basics very well. The 7 must dos for all bloggers Brainstorming - Spending time professionally planning and creating original content. Qualification - Spend your time talking to the wrong people... it doesn't matter how wonderful you present your blog it will not be a great blog. Presentation - Your blog design, media and content needs to be at the highest level your reader expect. Handling Objections - When left with comments…

09Jan 2013 by Peter Lang No Comments

The lure of social media

Blogging, Facebook

Everyday we are approached by businesses about using social media marketing / digital marketing to promote their business online. They're lured in by social media's access to people as if it were a shallow pond full of fish. The dialog starts - We want to use Facebook to drive people to our business. We have a website and a Facebook. Let's dive into this request in greater detail. Conversion The promotion this business is requesting is based upon conversion. Taking a social media user and converting them into a customer. Sadly, businesses don't understand that the correlation between a Facebook post and direct in-person transaction is rather low, nearly zero. To convert anyone online at a return worth the investment requires interaction of the personal and human kind. Business conversions…

15Oct 2012 by Peter Lang No Comments

Social Media for Small Businesses: 12 Things You Must Do

Blogging, Business, Social Media

This post is directed to small business owners who've heard their business needs to have a social media presence and want to get started today. After reading this post you will certainly be able to take the actions that will greatly help your company. But, take these 12 actions with this warning: WARNING: Social Media/ Digital Media is very powerful. It can both help and hurt your value proposition. Though I believe these are necessary in today's business environment many of you may need additional help to complete these actions at a level that adds value and represents your brand positively. Here are 12 things your small business must do. Your business must… Have a website. Lets start with the overwhelmingly obvious. If you own a small business and don't have a website you're committing business suicide. This doesn't mean you should throw…

24Sep 2012 by Peter Lang No Comments

Write an “Ultimate Guide” to Something

Blogging, Business, Marketing

Today, I'd like to talk about a very powerful piece of content. The "Ultimate Guide" is a lengthy yet effective tool if you're interested in driving search engine traffic to your site. This content is not only informative but is also a blog post formula that is proven to work. "Ultimate Guide" Here are a few reasons why “Ultimate Guides” work: 1. They get links, comments, traffic, and shares: Ultimate guides are useful, valuable content that people appreciate. Commonly, whether your blog is large or small, ultimate guide to something will be popular. An “Ultimate Guide” I wrote about Facebook Timeline was a very popular post on our Tricks Facebook blog; with over 10,000 views and 163+ likes. 2. They teach from A to Z: An “Ultimate Guide” is usually…

14Sep 2012 by Peter Lang No Comments

Weekend blog posts: Good or bad idea?

Blogging, Social Media

If you explore my rss reader you'd discover: A) that I'm an avid blog reader and B) that most blog post activity is exclusively from Monday to Friday. Few articles are posted on weekends which obviously leaves the reading options a bit on the low side. Being a blogger myself, I found that posting on weekends, when the content saturation is low, had a positive effect on the impact of those weekend posts. It's important as a content creator to keep in mind that your audience is online at different times with different expectations. Different audience on weekends Much like web traffic in the corporate world, everyone thinks "business" Monday - Wednesday and there is drop off as people begin thinking about the weekend. It's these business-oriented readers who are…

16Aug 2012 by Peter Lang No Comments

Sharing Our Pacific Coast Highway Road Trip

Blogging, Photography

Over three days we drove and explored California's renowned Highway 1, stopping to take photographs and recording the entire drive from San Francisco to Santa Monica. This leisurely drive turned adventurous after passing the coastal cities of Santa Cruz, Monterey and Carmel. Every part of this exhilarating drive offered interesting sites; from a 1,000-foot climb into the coastal redwood forest to the narrow shoulders and sharp drop-offs of the gripping mountainside roads. We covered our experience over on Stylishlyme.com through photo blog posst, which are linked at the bottom. The culmination of our Pacific Coast Highway road trip is our video. I hope you enjoy this video as much as we enjoyed making it for you so please let me know what you think in the comments! Promotion of our…

04Jul 2012 by Peter Lang 5 Comments

Inspired – Street and Fashion Photography

Blogging, Photography

In recent years I've focused on developing my eye for composition and increasing my knowledge of technical skills in photography, specifically fashion and street photography. Desire This visual interest in photography was sparked as if a preexisting flame inside of me found inspiration during my time in Paris. Living in this compact, cosmopolitan and imperial city with such a strong claim to fashion and street photography helped form my desire to first understand buildings and people then how the two constructed imagery used in French magazines, books and photos. Discovery I set out to discover the relationship with street photography and with the fashion that created an aesthetics to each photograph. But I am interested, too, in street photography's evolution to blogging. From Henri Cartier-Bresson's early work with "life reportage"…

19Jun 2012 by Peter Lang 6 Comments

Is One Blog Enough?

Blogging, Social Media

We have many writers asking, "I have multiple interests, what will I blog about?” This is a common question when our company is hired to set up a blog. Many people have a topic of interest, whereas others know they want a blog but not sure of the topic. Take-away Like magazines, some blogs contain a variety of information about a broad subject. Other blogs are very succinct and only include articles about one specific topic. When setting up a blog, some experts say a blog should be topic specific and named appropriately by including the “topic” in the name of the blog. That sounds all well and good, however if the name of our blog is overly descriptive, we could limit ourselves with regard to what we feel we…

13Mar 2012 by Peter Lang No Comments

Guest posting – Awesome Blogging Tips

Blogging

Guest blogging is a strong tactic when building your network and exposure. Geo targeted blog outreach will change your online path for the better. Before you get started guest posting it's important to include a few simple things in your guest post requests. Guest Blogging Requests Items to include: Make sure to have a few examples of posts you've written. The best practice is to have sample writing in the topic you're interested in pitching. If you don't have any writing specific to that niche you can send the potential blog any writing as long as it positively shows your ability. Suggest a few titles or topics for your guest post. You should include an author box below your post so visitors to your blog can see your social…