Archives for April 2021

5 Link Building Tactics To Drop In 2021

April 26, 2021 by Delan Cooper Leave a Comment

A recent study which was conducted by a prominent SEO training company sought to analyze over 11.8 million search results to determine which factors contributed to first-page search engine rankings. The results that they found were astonishing. Upon analyzing content, page speed, and backlinks of the search results, their data demonstrated that the link authority of a site was directly related to higher rankings.

They also showed that the #1 result within a search result, had an average of 3.4 more backlinks than websites that were in positions 2-5. They also came to the conclusion that backlinks had a more profound impact on rankings, more so than any other kind of ranking factor. Unfortunately, the reality of the fact is that many people conduct effective link-building practices that end up costing them an abundance of money as well as to inadvertently hurt their search rankings. Therefore, in the post, we’re going to take a closer look at some expensive mistakes people make that you should avoid in 2021.

Purchasing Links

Selling or buying links can hurt your site in the search results. Search engine crawlers are continuously updated and have been getting smarter at determining if a given site purchased links from another source. In addition to that, some search engines have insider systems as to which people can report blackhat links that are sold by PBN networks and other directories.

Failing To Remove Toxic Links

Some search engines have released updates that were designed to enhance their search results by deranking web pages which have ‘toxic backlinks’. Toxic backlinks can be best described as being irrelevant or unnatural links that can harm the rankings of a website. As such, search engines have been releasing updates that penalize sites that feature an abundance of toxic links or sites that have bad backlink profiles. Fortunately, there are several tools available that you can utilize to analyze the relevance and quality of your backlink. At the end of the day, if you want to increase your search rankings, you need to take a closer look at your backlink profile and remove toxic links.

Focusing On Building Do-Follow Links Only

One of the biggest mistakes some people have been making is that they either focus on either no-follow links or do-follow links. Most experts would agree that focusing on one kind of link is ineffective SEO link building. And, some search engines may penalize you for partaking in such a practice. As such, if you guest post in an effort to build quality do-follow links, use the comment section to build no-follow links as well. By doing this, you’ll have a mixture of no-follow and do-follow links, and avoid the possibility of being penalized by a search engine for focusing on one kind of link.

Building Links Too Fast

Most link-building services would agree that there’s no special rule to go by when it comes to how fast you should be building links for your site. For instance, if you establish hundreds of links to your website on the first day you release it, you’ll get penalized by the search engine. Some of the most influential SEO experts in the industry have said that getting a high DA link is better than getting an abundance of links from low DA sites. Meaning, when it comes to building links, it’s important to remember that quality plays a more critical role than quantity. So, as opposed to building 40 links from a low da site, you should focus on getting 5 links from a relevant authority site.

Low-Quality Content

Some people use URL builder Google to track their campaigns but fail to focus on quality content. Low-quality content is one of the primary reasons why some people are unable to get backlinks naturally. Look at it this way, if you aren’t providing content that’s worth linking to, why should a search engine improve your ranking? By allocating more time and resources to creating quality content that generates buzz and social shares, you’ll naturally get backlinks from other sites.

Knowing the right steps to create a link-building campaign is important. BUT, knowing the specifics oN certain practices that you need to avoid is equally important as well. Therefore, it’s important that you become more aware of practices that you should avoid which only cost you money and add little to no value.

Author Bio
Delan Cooper is a writer with years of experience in marketing communication. He enjoys meeting new people and reading more books to get inspired for his own book. Connect with him on Twitter.

Improve Your Career Prospects With These Essential Hints

April 23, 2021 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Carving out a successful career path for yourself is one of the best ways of enhancing your prospects for the future. Many of usd have no idea what we want to do with our lives, while others have our professional futures all mapped out! But either way, it’s vital to have some good prospects to help you get the best outcome from your career path.

Link

When looking at the best employment prospects, you need to consider how to improve your chances of success, and this means taking action to improve qualifications, enhance your skill set, and generally make yourself a candidate or freelancer that people find it impossible to ignore. Get a load of some of these epic hints that will help improve your career prospects moving forward.

Work on the Way You Present Yourself

There are a lot of things to keep in mind when you are trying to improve the way you present yourself. And this can cover anything from your demeanour, to the way you dress, to the approach you take to your job. This is something you need to think about as a great way of helping you boost your career prospects. Try to reinvent yourself and change your mental approach to work and life in general. Presenting yourself as a professional, dedicated and enthusiastic individual is so important for leaving a positive impression on current or potential employers. This is one of the best ways of being able to boost your prospects and set you in good standing in the future.

Brush up on Etiquette and Be More Professional

Making sure you brush up on and improve upon business etiquette is one of the best ways of being able to improve career ideas and prospects. This is something that can have a massive impact on success you may encounter in your career trajectory. For instance, consider the fact that safe truck drivers earn more statistically, and this comes with financial benefits and incentives. This is an excellent example of how being more professional and understanding company etiquette can be a hugely positive thing. Think about how you can implement this in your career, and this could be something as simple as working more overtime and doing things by the book, to the letter as much as possible.

Transform Your Resume

Transforming your resume and creating something that is captivating, compelling, and showcases all of your strengths in a business sense. There are so many great ways of being able to transform your resume, and leveraging LinkedIn to help you craft an epic resume is one of the best things you can do to help transform this. You are going to need to do as much as you can to present the strongest and most impressive resume possible, and this is something that can make a monumental difference to your resume moving forward.

Taking decisive action to help you improve your career prospects is essential for personal and professional fulfilment. You can use some of the ideas above, as well as your own strategies to try to give yourself an edge, and set you on the path to fulfilling your career ambitions moving forward.

Coming Out On Top In The Crazy Business Of Commoditization

April 22, 2021 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Commoditization happens when market standards become so high that price, rather than quality, becomes the key differentiator. This trend can be seen in everything from smartphone development through to IT maintenance, accounting, and beyond, and, for the people working within those industries, the C-word is a cause for a whole load of lost sleep.

After all, if you’re continually having to undermine your competition from a pricing standpoint, it’s all too easy to let the ball slip, or to skimp on costs to secure that all-important contract. But, even where commoditization is concerned, these mistakes can be costly and will, ultimately, see you falling under an already fast business current.

As such, anyone working within a commoditized sector needs to consider, not how they can cut costs (at least, not solely,) but rather how they can make themselves a valuable commodity regardless. The main thing to note here is that in true ‘if you can’t beat them style,’ it isn’t possible to overcome commoditization that’s already happened. But, you can still differentiate in the following ways.

Justify your price points

At its heart, commoditization is about competitive pricing but, within reason, it is possible to continue charging more than your competitors. Consider Apple, for instance, whose iPhones cost at least double most others, and who are still largely taking the smartphone market by storm. Why? Because they justify those costs with cutting-edge technology, continual advancements, and quality that their customers can trust. By doing the same, specifically with a focus on proving why you’re charging more than others, you might just find that you can keep appealing to the right audience without having to compromise on quality at all.

Image Source: CC0 License

Customer value proposition (CVP)

Customer value propositions largely still concern pricing, but they take that focus even further. Notably, a CVP is a customer-specific proposition that tailors the most valuable product packages to each client’s needs, thus providing the differentiation that even a generally valuable offering can’t buy you. It may be, for instance, that managed service providers find it useful to position themselves uniquely within existing teams. Or, accountants may find CVP is easier to come by in large organizations with the addition of further offerings, such as tax planning certification as offered by Universal Accounting. Either way; companies need to think about what their clients want, and how they alone can fill that gap and prove that they’re doing so.

Exceptional CX

Image Source: CC0 License

Ultimately, markets become commoditized because they’re at the top of their game, providing guaranteed quality and, for the most part, guaranteed value. As such, distinguishers at the top are often about the details, and what detail is more important in business than customer experience? You certainly won’t be able to retain a decent client base if word gets around that you’re difficult to get hold of or generally poor mannered on this front. Instead, you should work to make yourself as accessible as possible for every client on your books, offering exceptional customer service, and even checking in proactively to ensure satisfaction, and ultimately differentiation, at all times.

How To Make The Most Of Your Office Space After The Pandemic

April 16, 2021 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Photo by Nastuh Abootalebi on Unsplash

One of the lasting legacies of the COVID-19 pandemic will be its effect on working patterns. Many companies were forced to adopt remote working rapidly, and many came to realize that it had immense benefits for their business.

Now that we’re coming towards a turning point in the pandemic, many businesses are seriously considering which model of working they are going to adopt. Will it be business as usual? Fully remote? Or something in between?

If you decide to go for a hybrid or remote model, it’s going to have an impact on your physical office space. There are a few options you could consider for the future of your office.

Sell It

If you’re moving to a remote working pattern and own your building, then you could save a lot of money by selling it or letting it out. Many businesses are getting rid of their real estate now or downsizing. Not only could you be making money from the sale, but saving in business rates and running costs.

There are still options if you want to bring teams together. You can hire a venue or somewhere with cool meeting rooms when you need to. It will still cost a lot less.

Turn It Into A Co-Working Space

There has been an explosion in co-working spaces over the past 10 years. People often assume that remote working means that people are at home all day, doing their work from the sofa or spare room. Many people choose to work at a co-working space because they can’t work at home, or because they don’t want to.

Co-working spaces offer flexible desk space and facilities for people to come and work. Some people pay for a desk they can work at every day, others pay by the hour and use it as and when they need it.

Another great advantage of co-working is getting to meet other professionals from different industries.

By turning your extra office space into a co-working area, you’re making money from the space while also providing a very important service.

Create Amazing Office Spaces

If you’re planning on letting employees work from home more, or recruit from further afield, you will still need space. But this gives you an opportunity to reconfigure that space and turn it into something truly amazing. Rather than having workstations and cubicles packed in tightly. You can free up space for more useful and enjoyable activities. You could put in a gym, chill-out room, or expand the kitchen facilities. It’s a great way to create an exciting space for those people who are in the office at any given time. If you’re not sure what to do with your free space, then ask your employees. They are sure to give you some great ideas.

Key Takeaways

Whether the change to your business working patterns has been welcomed, or reluctantly offered in order to keep employees, it does bring with it a lot of exciting opportunities when it comes to office space.

Tips for Planning Your Business Marketing Strategy for 2021

April 16, 2021 by Contributed Post Leave a Comment

Image Credit

The COVID-19 pandemic made it challenging for small businesses to seek several creative ways to survive the mess. A 2020 study suggested that they experienced a 52% drop in revenues which saw many of them barely treading water. While 2021 already seems to present a positive outlook compared to last year, it wouldn’t do your business any good to go without an effective digital marketing strategy. This strategic planning guide should help position your company in the market, stand out from the expanding competition, and grow your brand.

Get social

With numerous individuals isolated at home, social media use has significantly increased in the last few months. Many people are left scrambling for various ways to stay connected with family, friends, and colleagues. However, the surge in social media use is likely to continue even post-pandemic, offering an excellent opportunity for businesses to exploit the higher views and visibility provided by social media platforms. Investing in social commerce and building a good relationship with social media influencers enhances your digital marketing strategies for immediate results.

Focus on video marketing

In the current digitally-driven environment, eye-catching video content is enough to create the most engagement and audience reach. According to statistics, good video content causes the average website user to spend 88% more time on a site. Although more than 50% of consumers prefer to see more video content from their endorsed brands, only 32% intend to spend on video marketing.

Creating engaging content will require more time and skill, but you don’t have to be the best content producer out there to earn views and engagements. You’ll be surprised what a short, visually appealing video can do for your engagement numbers.

Expand your website marketing effort

Your online business presence is non-existent if your company doesn’t have a website. You’ll need to dig deeper and enhance your website to promote your online presence for a small entity. Many companies are currently investing in growing their online connections, which is why you’ll need the best search engine optimization agencies to stay on top of the competition. A good SEO agency will help you analyze your traffic and engagements while recognizing website areas you can maximize for business and sales growth.

Explore print marketing opportunities

As essential as digital marketing is, it’s not enough to focus entirely on it, as there are other businesses still utilizing conventional methods like print marketing. Several studies have indicated that many small businesses use other traditional marketing plans such as posters, flyers, and banners. You can use creative print ads to augment your online strategies to reach more local audiences. Offering a card may seem old school, but it’s excellent for growing your business and client confidence.

Every year there are new digital marketing trends and strategy modification. It’s essential to develop and continuously adjust to remain successful in the current challenging and competitive business climate. These tips should push your digital marketing strategies in 2021.