Should You Link to a Competitor’s Site ?

January 24, 2013 By 24 Comments

no-dead-linksI was asked to remove a link on a client’s blog this week. I’d written a news item merely announcing that a senior member of staff was moving onto another job after eight successful years at the organization. The company the member of staff was going to had also posted an interview with her about her new position and I’d linked the two articles together so anyone interested in the community could get a more nuanced picture of events. After all, this was pretty big news for both communities.

Neither the client article or linked article was critical; in fact, both were very positive and looked to the future development of each organization.

Still, I was told to “delete the link” by the powers that be because they felt it was tantamount to an “advert”, I was told, for the other organziation.
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How Many Visitors Come to Your Site on Mobile?

November 6, 2012 By 5 Comments

Do you know how many visitors come to your website on a mobile device ?

Or maybe you’re a small business and figure it’s not important.

Maybe you figure mobile strategy is for the big guns – businesses with stacks of traffic, stacks of customers.

Work the Details

Looking at Google Analytics today I could see that the traffic to this website on a mobile device has increased by 72 percent in the last 12 months.

I’ve witnessed similar increases on clients’ sites but figured that their business was more suited to mobile, that their target audience was likely to be accessing their sites on the go.

I had fallen into the trap of thinking there wouldn’t be much interest in my business website on a mobile device. Not a business blog surely?
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Filed Under: blogging, design

How to Get to the Top of Google

October 16, 2012 By 4 Comments

The easiest way to get to the top of Google’s search results is pay.

For an advert, that is.

The other way to get there, or relatively near the top, is to blog. Even if you have a business.

A Longterm Strategy

I was doing some checking on a client account today and discovered that we’ve managed to get Internationella Engelska Gymnasiet’s website up to the fifth result in Google Sweden for “gymnasiet” (senior high school). After three wikipedia entries and Sweden’s largest portal for information about Sweden’s high schools comes Internationella Engelska Gymnasiet. In other words, IEGS, as its also known, is the first school website mentioned in Google for the Swedish equivalent to “high school”.
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Filed Under: blogging

How to Create Longterm Relevant Content for Your Business Website

September 1, 2012 By 4 Comments

The reason I would urge you to keep creating content for your website, whether it’s text, video or audio, is that it’s the gift that keeps giving!

Even if you haven’t updated your site for a week or so, something you published a month, six months, a year ago will get found by someone searching on Google and bring them to your site.

If your post genuinely answers the question or issue the person was looking to solve, your website is well on the way to generating leads and sales for you and your business.

So what’s the best strategy to adopt when planning for the long term?

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Filed Under: blogging

Web Traffic isn’t Always King

June 13, 2012 By 22 Comments

Traffic dips when I stop posting

You’ll notice that in the picture I’m showing here that there’s a dip in traffic after June 5, the last day I published a post on this blog. The other dips are on weekends, but the general trend is downward as soon as I quit posting for a few days.

The reason for this downtime isn’t just an experiment. Unfortunately (or fortunately!), I’ve been too busy with client work and travelling the last few days too get a post out.

Whenever this happens, which is pretty rare, I always get a bit stressed out.

Now whilst this graphic shows a slight downturn in traffic over the week I’ve had to prioritize with other thing, I’m not worried.

Here’s why I’m not concerned.

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Filed Under: blogging

What’s the Best Kind of Blog Post to Write?

June 4, 2012 By 1 Comment

What are you blogging about?

Perhaps the hardest thing for a new business blogger is deciding where to start. Do you write list posts? Do you write tips? Do you share your thoughts?

If you’re new to blogging or struggling to see any return of investment from your best blogging efforts, you might need to (re)focus your approach.

Here’s what I think you should be blogging about.
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Filed Under: blogging