Better Business Blog

12 Timeless Link Building Tips for Business Blogs

Link Building for Business Blogs Doesn't Need to Be Risky

As a key component of a hub and spoke online marketing strategy, blogs can be very effective for social media network engagement, online PR, customer service, and as search engine optimization assets. While there are numerous cases studies of business blogs (I like to think Online Marketing Blog is one) providing tremendous value, blogs are simply software tools and what you get out of them is in proportion to how well you know how to use them.  One of the common areas of lost opportunity with business blogs is link building.

Despite Panda, Penguin and maybe someday “Zebra?”, updates from Google to further filter out what constitutes useful content and links on the web, links will always be valuable for attracting traffic.  Some online marketers chase exploits, tricks or shortcuts only to get spanked by a black and white named-animal update from Google.  Why not spend that creativity on something of value and competitive advantage that withstands the advancing filters applied by search engines?

Here are a few timeless tips for building natural links that will attract and engage customers to your business blog:

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5 Ways to Turn Twitter into Your Most Powerful Social Media Tool http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/05/01/5-ways-to-turn-twitter-into-your-most-powerful-social-media-tool/

Three Requirements as Marketers, Agencies and Publishers Converge

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Communications, the publisher of BtoB Magazine, announced the creation of CrainsSocial, a new marketing services group offering social media solutions to marketers. This is one more introduction in a long line of changes that are blurring traditional roles in the marketing landscape.

Not only are the trends towards digital, social, mobile and content changing the B2B marketing landscape, the roles of agencies, publishers and marketers in that landscape are blurring as well.

As these lines move, the role marketers need to take is shifting as well. Here are three of the key changes marketers need to make. Please share your additions in the comments below.

1. Own It

More than ever, you need to own and enforce your overall strategy. Without traditional AORs as a natural lead for agency coordination and integration (AOR relationships dropped from 50% of companies to 15% in the last decade), you need to take on this role directly. Every provider will look to push the boundaries of your brand and marketing guidelines. You must ensure these pushes are coordinated and moving in the same direction.

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Small Business in a Tizzy Over Big Google Changes?

The latest Google shakeup, called the Penguin update, has some online small business owners scratching their heads. The purpose, experts say, is to punish over-optimization, but what does the change really mean in practice and what specifically does it mean for your business? Don’t panic! We’ve rounded up some of the best resources on the Web to help you understand things better.

Inside Penguin

From the horse’s mouth. Want to know what’s really behind the new changes at Google? Why not start with a post from Google’s Matt Cutts about what’s going on from the search engine’s perspective. Google Webmaster Central Blog

Overview of the latest update. So, what is the latest Google update all about? What does it mean, why do you need to be concerned about it and what will it ultimately mean to you? Read a detailed look at the changes in store. Business2Community

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Top 10 Highly-Desired Skills You Can Teach Yourself

On countless occasions, you've likely said to yourself "I wish I knew how to do ______." Then, of course, life got in the way and you put it off until you could find the time. Maybe you wanted to become fluent in a language, learn a new instrument, start performing your house repairs, or a master a myriad of other skills. With the vast amount of knowledge online, you're now your only excuse. Here are the top ten most highly desired skills that you can teach yourself—and should.

10. Repair Just About Anything

Sure, you don't need to repair anything anymore. You can just pay someone else to do it. But where's the ingenuity in that? Plus, who wants to waste a bunch of money on simple tasks you can handle on your own? If you've adopted the DIY spirit, learning to repair your own stuff is one of the easiest and more rewarding skills you can acquire. It's especially fruitful because as you learn new things, you can put them to use right away. So how do you teach yourself? We've outlined tons of repairs you can learn on your own to get you started, but if you're looking for something specific there is no shortage of how-to videos available on YouTube and VideoJug. There will be occasions when you do need to call a professional, as you're not going to be a master repairman (or woman) instantly, but do remember that there is an opportunity when things break: you can learn how to fix them.

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7 Easy Ways to Speed Up Your Business Computers

 

Few activities are more frustrating than staring at your old computer, helplessly willing it to move faster. In business, and especially when it comes to small businesses, a slow computer will not help your bottom line. Equally draining are the costs of constant visits from IT consultants and technicians.

While age is a commonly cited cause of slow PC performance, there are usually additional reasons. Many users have no idea that their computers are bogged down with unneeded applications, adware, cookies, and massive amounts of background processes. Left unaddressed, these issues hinder PC performance, decrease productivity, and increase the amount of time spent dealing with IT problems. So what can be done? Here are seven things.

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20 Interesting Facts, Figures and Statistics Revealed by Facebook

Facebook is about to raise $5 billion from investors.

When you are ask for that amount of money then you need to produce some reliable evidence and facts and figures about the current state of play that are accurate.

So Facebook has recently revealed the latest statistics about its business in its S1 Filing for its upcoming IPO.

Facebook doesn’t appear to be struggling for cash as it has recently paid Instagram $1 billion to purchase its mobile photo app business and Microsoft $550 million  for 650 patents (that it recently bought off Yahoo)

In a knowledge economy that rewards innovators, patents are becoming increasingly valuable to protect your intellectual properties from potential imitators.

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3 Simple Ways to Get People to Listen to You

 

I just spent the week with three of my Proteus colleagues, teaching management and leadership skills to a group of 60 smart, dedicated professional women through a program called Rising Leaders.  One of the core management skills we taught them (this was the group’s choice) was listening. I was thrilled they chose this skill. I dedicated the entire first chapter of Growing Great Employees to listening; I believe it’s foundational to success for both managers and leaders.

During the program, which we conduct twice yearly, I offer 30-minute individual mini-coaching sessions to the participants.  One of the women I spoke with told me that, though she had found the listening segment dramatically useful, she also wanted to know how to get people to listen to her.

I suspect a lot of people have that question, so – here you go:

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5 Tips for Great Content Curation

You’ve heard the buzz word — curation — being thrown around like it’s a gadget we all know how to work. In reality, good content curation isn’t as simple as pushing a share button. It’s actually a combination of finding great content and following some simple best practices on how to successfully share that content.

If you’re a curator looking for some boundaries in what feels like the Wild West, here are five best practices to consider.

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5 Ways Small Business Can Attract Big Clients

Winning business from the Fortune 500 is a great way to put your company on the map.

Tackle unsexy jobs that big companies find inconvenient or, if they face high labor costs, unprofitable to manage. At Standard Functional Foods Group in Nashville, CEO Jimmy Spradley (right) attracts food conglomerates by offering to make new or smaller brands of foods like granola bars, helping clients avoid small production runs. By consolidating orders from multiple firms, he's built a profitable business and expects sales of $150 million this year.

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http://money.cnn.com//galleries/2012/smallbusiness/1204/gallery.winning-customers.fortune/index.html

How to Create and Grow Your Influence on a Global Social Web

We are living in a world where influence is migrating from offline to online.

The ability to influence is also moving from local to global. Its reach is also transitioning to mobile devices.

Reputation and influence can now be gained faster and reach further than in any other time in history.

One definition of Influence is “the capacity to have an effect on the character, development or behavior of someone or something”

To be truly successful you must have the ability and power to influence.

Mass Media was the Platform

The development and popularity of movies and mass media over the past century has provided people such as politicians, business people and movie stars the platforms for creating and sustaining influence.

But we are still used to the traditional paradigms and ideas of influence. In the past it was vital to enrol at the “right” school or university, attend the right networking events or cocktail parties or belong to the right golf club

These are still important but the power of online influence and new media is starting to make itself felt as the social web shares ideas and content globally in real time.

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12 Essential Tools for the Content Marketer

 

One of the questions marketers get asked most often starts like this. “I think I get content marketing, but what kind of content works best?” The short answer is that there are at least twelve types of content you can utilize as part of any content marketing plan.

In this case, the focus is on content that can extend your brand’s reach, beyond your website or blog. There’s no single type that works best for all companies. In fact, diversification and having a portfolio of content you can pull from is key. Here are the twelve types of content to focus on, and how they can be used.

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15 Big Little Things You Can Do in 15 Minutes

 

After 15 years of yo-yoing up 15 pounds and down 15 pounds, I finally realized that the long, slow, low-impact exercise routines I’d been suffering through weren’t working. I needed something different—dramatically different—and I found it: CrossFit. CrossFit is an intense strength and conditioning class that drives you to work at your maximum intensity for the minimum amount of time needed to get your workout for the day done. How long is that? On average, about 15 minutes. Most of the folks in my class are firefighters and police officers, which means that I, as a humble management coach and corporate trainer, am at the bottom of the heap when it comes to physical fitness, emotional resilience, and overall heroism. Nevertheless, I am doing the same workout, scaled to my ability level, as our finest and bravest. And in six weeks of 15-minute workouts, I have dropped a size, increased my strength, and, most important, radically changed my perspective on efficiency.

CrossFit started me thinking: What other things could I—and my coaching clients—do more effectively in short bursts of 15 minutes rather than dragging them out over time, or even not making time for them at all? Where in our work and lives does our no-sweat approach cost us productivity, a competitive edge, and even our ability to renew and recover?

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10 Ways to Improve Landing Page Conversions http://spinsucks.com/marketing/10-ways-to-improve-landing-page-conversions/

The 7 Pillars of Connecting With Absolutely Anyone

 

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” - Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

I don’t care what your goals, industry or interests are, there’s no getting around it: Personal relationships run the world. But why is it that some people seem to build instant rapport with most anyone they come across, while others are left with a network of one?

Over the past few years, I’ve conducted a study of exactly what sets these people apart. Turns out, the results are more simple, and more powerful, than you’d think. And they led me to interactions and connections with world-class CEOs, best-selling authors, professional athletes and other seemingly untouchable folks, including Tony Robbins and Warren Buffett.

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5 Simple Tools That Make Email Suck Less

The very first email was sent in 1971. In the four decades since, these electronic messages have forever changed the way we communicate. Today, we're an email-dependent society, preferring to pound away a quick response on a smartphone rather than picking up the device to make a call. While we might openly complain about adding quantity to our inbox, there's a trend among my business colleagues of leaving voicemail messages that promptly explain that email is the best way to reach them.

The inbox, for many, is not only an invaluable communications tool but also a burgeoning to-do list. There have been many attempts to better the email experience, but for now the inbox shows no signs of extinction. What we do have access to is a growing number of smart add-ons and plug-ins that can improve your email work flow. Here are some of the most useful.

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When It Comes to Networking, Farmers Will Always Beat Hunters

Has a complete stranger ever solicited you for a referral or business? I call this “premature solicitation.”

I’ve been its victim many times. I was recently speaking at a networking event, and before my presentation, a man came up to me and said, “Hi, it is a real pleasure to meet you. I understand you know Richard Branson. I offer specialized marketing services and I am sure his Virgin enterprises could benefit from what I provide. Could you please introduce me to him so that I can show him how this would assist his companies?”

Here’s what was going on inside my head: “Are you completely insane? I’m going to introduce you, someone I don’t know and don’t have any relationship with, to Sir Richard, whom I’ve only met a few times, so that you can proceed to attempt to sell him a product or service that I don’t know anything about and haven’t used myself? Yeah, right. That’s never going to happen.”

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10 Questions to Ask Customers to Boost Your Sales http://www.openforum.com/articles/10-questions-to-ask-customers-to-boost-your-sales

5 Ways to Build a Solid Email Marketing List

Email marketing is a powerful tool that can extend your reach beyond your website and create new salesopportunities. If you simply sell to customers when they happen to visit your site, you have an all-or-nothing chance of making a sale. Should they leave without making a purchase, there's no guarantee they'll return later.

But when you build an email list of current and potential customers, you can reach out repeatedly to your prospects with targeted messages.

Here are five ways to integrate email marketing into your website and stay in touch with your best prospects:

1. Build an opt-in form on your home page.
Perhaps the easiest and most common way to create a list is to integrate an email opt-in form into your home page. To get attention, place your form "above the fold," so visitors can see it immediately and don't have to scroll down.

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A Company With No Hierarchy Makes More Money Per Employee Than Google, Amazon Or Microsoft

Seattle-based game company Valve was the topic of much discussion on BoingBoing yesterday.  

The 16-year old company has no corporate hierarchy whatsoever, and yet - according to its employee manual - their profitability per employee is "higher than that of Google or Amazon or Microsoft". 

The company's team page proclaims at the top "We've been boss-free since 1996", and then proceeds to list every single employee (a bit over 100) in alphabetical order.  About the founder, Gabe Newell, the manual says, "Of all the people at this company who aren't your boss, Gabe is the MOST not your boss, if you get what we're saying."

How does this madness work?  Leaving alone the claim of incredible profitability, how do they manage to get anything done at all?  Is this not a recipe for corporate disaster? 

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How To End Up Richer Than Your Parents--Even In This Economy

There are financial pitfalls aplenty for career-building millennials--be it shoddy planning, outrageous debt, or credit card quandaries. At only 23, Zac Bissonnette has staked his young authoring career on untying his generation’s financial tangles: His second book, How To Be Richer, Smarter, and Better-Looking Than Your Parents, is out now (you can check out an excerpt here). Fast Company talked with the precocious author about financial freedom, Benjamin Franklin, and making good decisions automatic.

ZAC BISSONNETTE: I would say richer, yeah; smarter, no; better looking, maybe. You have to handicap it because my parents are 63. I would say we're even. That title I took from, there's an old Yiddish proverb, that with money in your pocket, you're handsome and wise, and you sing well too. The idea behind that is that if you have the money, if you're on top of the money thing, your life--everything else--is better. So that's really what that title's from, not so much a narcissistic comment.

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How to Deal With 4 Types of Customers http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/04/4-types-customers.html

Go Guerrilla: A DIY Guide to Product Launches

Joshua Waldman is what you might call an online-marketing machine. He knows how to build and feed social networks as a springboard to opening doors and achieving results. What's more, he's willing to share everything he knows.

When he realized that social media are the key to unlocking job opportunities, he wrote "Job Searching With Social Media for Dummies."When his book catapulted to the No. 2 position among Amazon.com business books and won features on CBS, ABC News, Mashable and mediabistro.com, as well as such publications as the Chicago Tribune and U.S. News & World Report, I asked how he did it. His answers provide a guide for anyone launching products in today's networked world.

Barbara Findlay Schenck: Every new product marketer craves media coverage. How did you get it?

Joshua Waldman: My biggest asset was a list of 500 top bloggers and media people, segmented into 11 groups, so I could send different and appropriate messages to different people.

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Inside Harvard B-school's Startup Boot Camp

With $3,000 of seed capital from Harvard Business School, around 150 MBA teams were tasked with developing their very own micro-businesses in short order. Here's what they came up with.

By John A. Byrne

(Poets&Quants) -- The idea initially came as something of a joke.

Earlier this year, a team of six Harvard Business School MBA students was brainstorming ideas for a new startup business. They came up with a peculiar takeoff on all the online dating sites: a Facebook application for Jewish mothers to set their children up with potential marriage material.

When the team shared the idea with fellow students, they heard nothing but skepticism. "They said there were a lot of barriers to entry," recalls Jyll Saskin, 24, one of the team members. "Others said they didn't think the market would be that big for it."

The feedback led to some serious rethinking. "We said, 'What if we expanded the idea to leverage the power of friend networks?' adds Saskin. "Friends could serve as yentas to recommend dates for their friends."

With $3,000 of seed capital from Harvard Business School, Yenta was launched last week along with as many as 150 other new startups in what might well be the largest single experiment in entrepreneurship ever undertaken. The so-called "micro-businesses" range from a company called Kinsey that sells "premium undergarments" for men to another called 4n Friend that is creating an online network that matches language tutors with students all over the world.

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10 Top Trends in Social Media

I visited Italy recently and as we know the Italians are a very stylish bunch. They seem to know what fashion is really about.

They can wear a scarf with fabulous flair, choose the cool hat that sets off the outfit or select a pair of sexy shoes that make them look like a fashion model and that is just the men!

The Italians have taken “style” to a level that the rest of the world can only aspire to.

Trends in Shoes

Now on the topic of shoes it appears that there is a trend that if it doesn’t stop very soon, it is going to lead to many injuries and even possible death as fashionista women fall from great heights after stumbling in their 30 centimeter high heels!

This will lend a whole new meaning to the term “Fashion Tragics“.

I have to admit though that the shoes in the windows of the fashion brand stores of Rome and Florence were not just fashion items but objects of style, art and creativity. Just not very comfortable or sensible to wear but who said that fashion should be sensible.

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