You have the marketing of your blog to consider. You also have a few contracts on the side, for search engine optimization (SEO) of client sites. This is great! You are a success!
But, while you are serving everyone else’s needs, you sometimes do not have enough time to address your own blog. When you do, the content does not seem to rise to the same level as that of the content that you may be helping your clients to obtain and publish.
Possible Solutions to Your Problem
Oh, there are many solutions that you could incorporate into your blogging process and content production process. However, which one is right for you?
For example, you could hire writers and create a writing staff for your blog. But, you could also hire other positions, like a technology person for your WordPress site, and maybe you have already done this in both cases, as well as other roles to support your SEO blog.
The challenges are that either you are paying less and receiving lower quality, or you are paying through the nose.
If you have unlimited funding, hiring a staff of qualified individuals may be the best option. Of course, that includes paying them a sufficient salary (don’t be stingy, if you want quality). If you want the quality of your content marketing to remain at a high-quality level, then the amount you pay for it is also going to reflect that.
You also want to include the content marketing aspect of ensuring that that same writing staff is mentioning you on other blogs, including articles that sing your praises, throughout the internet, bringing that traffic back to your site. That is one of the reasons that you would not want to be stingy on who you hire (or how much you pay them).
Expanding on our “Ideas List”
It also helps if ideas flood your mind and you are inspired by your own expertise, for example, as an SEO Expert.
In November (2016), we shared tips on how to prove that you are an SEO Expert. This included the SEO and Advanced SEO courses offered by Simplilearn.
However, not all of us can depend on the genius of our minds to flow out ideas at incredible speeds, let alone to convert those ideas into content and then promoting it, etc. So, we need another idea, in addition to our ingenious ideas (or hiring staff to do it for us).
MyBlogU >> Practically Writing the Content For You!
Originally, I set out to have this article mostly about RSS and RSS applications and services. What I found is that I cannot seem to write any article about developing content without singing the praises of MyBlogU (and no, no one is paying me to say this — It is my personal/professional opinion!).
MyBlogU, developed and owned by your very own Ann Smarty, is a magnificent platform. It is a place where you can share tips and ideas with other writers, helping to develop that article idea list that we talk about further in this article. But, more than that, it is a place where you can collect interview responses from experts.
You have all seen them, right? The round-up articles? The articles cover a topic and include tips and responses from multiple experts in the field. Here is an example, on the seochat.com domain, using MyBlogU >> How Infographics Can Improve Your SEO!
Well, MyBlogU.com helps you to put that together, making the work almost non-existent because Ann’s site does it for you!
So, while MyBlogU may not fit in the list of RSS applications, we cannot deny its rightful place under the topic of creating mind-blowing content for your site. If you haven’t already checked it out, bookmark it now so that you can be sure to visit the site later. You’ll be glad you did!
The Simple, Yet Flexible Solution of RSS
One favorite method to get fresh ideas for the content for your site is to access an RSS from one of your favorite SEO sites. Examples of those sites, related to an SEO blog, may include this site (SEOchat.com), searchenginepeople.com, searchengineland.com, as well as searchenginejournal.com (to name a few).
RSS feeds for the domains mentioned above:
SearchEnginePeople.com Feed
SearchEngineLand.com Feed
SearchEngineJournal.com Feed
In some cases, including those sites listed above, the RSS Feed (or just “feed”) is located by clicking on the RSS symbol, shown in the image, above, to the left of the Twitter bird.
However, there are cases where the site has a built-in feed, and you have to find it using a manual method. There are site owners who have feeds and do not necessarily know it or use it. Fortunately, there are methods you can use to find those RSS feeds manually.
It isn’t guaranteed that you will find it. If a feed doesn’t exist, you are not going to locate the feed. However, there are other options, even if it means that you bookmark the site and visit it frequently (not ideal, but an option nonetheless).
Some Introductory Discussion about RSS
Oh, let’s take a sidebar and differentiate between two RSS topics. First, there is the act of reading an RSS feed of another site or blog. That is what is most important for this article.
However, while we are on the topic of RSS feeds, it might not be a bad idea to ensure that you have yours set up for your site, encouraging others to use your incredible content as their idea-inspiration tool. So, we have included some information to help you in that area (under the Sidebar in this article).
To give some perspective, to help orient us to the two different aspects of RSS, let’s mention a couple of Google apps that you may have heard of in the past. One is the Google Reader, which is no longer available. That is the ability to read the RSS feed and the one that most directly relates to this article.
The other is the application that converts your feed (that already exists if you use WordPress for your blog) into a feed that others can read. This is not directly related, but the highly recommended so that others can subscribe to your feed.
What Is RSS?
Not sure about this whole RSS thing and what it is? Here is an exceptional article on the subject of RSS. Also, it mentions a free option of FeedBurner. Amy (the writer) does an excellent job of explaining why some of us are concerned about using FeedBurner. I don’t intend to be biased here, but she states it very well in her article. Still, FeedBurner, assuming it is still around when you read this, is a free (or at least was) option and worth considering if your budget is really tight.
Remember, FeedBurner is the “sidebar topic” of getting your site ready for others to use it to inspire them.
Even though RSS was quite popular a few years ago, it has not gone away. Oh yes, there was quite a bit of popularity during the Google Reader days (hey, I used Google Reader faithfully), but there are still ways to get a similar experience.
Some of the options that we recommend, for reading feeds, are free and others are not. Most of the options that I have found have been reasonably priced. This is helpful for our pocketbooks.
Ok, let’s get on with the explanation of how to use RSS services. That way, all of this babble makes more sense! Before we do that, let’s cover the sidebar. As we mentioned, it is about getting your site in a position where others can subscribe to it. This is our sidebar, and then we will continue with the methods for reading feeds so that you can inspire those ideas (the main gist of this article).
Sidebar: Using an RSS Service for YOUR Site Feed
My favorite RSS service is FeedBlitz, who offers a reasonably priced service, but oh so many options.
Some of the options available in FeedBlitz include:
email subscriptions for your site (automated);
email marketing for your business;
consolidation of things like autoresponders, list management, eCommerce, etc.;
integration with social media marketing options.
I couldn’t have said it better than the way Brian Clark puts it, here (from the feedblitz.com site):
Reading Method 1: Using RSS-Based Systems
Here is an example of one of the articles obtained from using seo.alltop.com:
A fresh perspective on SEO for B2B companies (from seo.alltop.com using RSS feeds).
Interestingly, Alltop.com also uses an RSS service. In Alltop’s case, the RSS service is feedpress.com. That isn’t something that you have to know (fortunately) to visit their site. Remember, this is a case of mentioning a site that uses RSS feeds to compile a list of reading material for you, automatically. You don’t have to do anything to set up an RSS feed for it because the service did it for you! You just read what Alltop produces for you.
The key thing to remember here is that there are sites out there who are already compiling/aggregating content sources for you, so you do not have to do it yourself. Alltop is just one example, and we specifically mentioned their SEO topic aid.
Method 2: Manually Reading Site Feeds with an App (Hosted or Downloaded)
RSS Feeds, in their raw form, are not naturally easy to read. However, on the positive side, we have come a long way, so quite a few reader options are available, and in many cases, your OS (i.e. Windows 10, Apple, etc.) has a built-in process of leading you to the available options.
When you read the RSS, it is the readable version and not the RSS in its raw form. Doesn’t make sense? That’s ok because these days, that is generally taken care of for you so you don’t have to get techie.
There are two different ways that you can manually read RSS feeds with an app. It could be a web app (called a hosted solution), like feedly.com. It could also be an application, like RSSOwl (available for multiple OSs, including Windows) or NetNewsWire for Mac (shown below).
If a feed is not available (or even when it is), another option is to use your browser to subscribe to a site. It may not officially be an RSS solution, but who cares what we call it as long as it gets the job done, right?
One thing that is helpful, regardless of what method you use to READ any feed, is understanding the setup. Understanding how to set it up to be conducive to your needs is a requirement for effectiveness. Here is a tutorial for Feedly, but you could adapt the steps to other methods, as well.
Let’s Put it All Together Into a Simple Step-by-Step How-To Listing
Determine how you are going to record your content ideas (i.e. Notepad, Spreadsheet, or even as drafts in your WordPress blog).
Determine which method you are going to use to obtain these ideas (i.e. your feed reading choice).
Now, go through your chosen feeds (from Step #2) and be inspired in a way that helps you create ideas for the content for your site. Obviously, don’t copy, but allow yourself to think freely and to see what is popular (i.e. comments / social shares). In this way, you can see what your SEO target audience is looking to read AND get ideas for your site. Add the ideas to your list (created in Step #1).
When it is time, write the content, or have it written, based on your idea list from this method.
The final step is to promote it. Check out this OnPoint Internet Marketing article about backlinks to find some unique promotional tips. To your advantage, it is not your norm, but instead, tips that will get your mind-blowing content to the audience that will likely share it for you!
Conclusion
It sounds simple enough (and actually is simple), but experience says that this method helps. Sometimes, I find that coming up with the ideas for the articles is 50% of the work and the writing is the easy part.
Granted, I don’t expect that everyone is like me, but I am pretty sure that getting an idea list going, using methods like the RSS reading method, will help you to gain the success of producing content that your audience cannot resist.
Gather your content ideas list, write it, promote it. Sit back and enjoy your success. The post How to Fill Your SEO Blog With Mind-Blowing Content appeared first on SEO Chat.
Source: SEO Chat
Link: How to Fill Your SEO Blog With Mind-Blowing Content
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