Small Business News

June 28, 2016 By Carrie Gallagher

10 Simple Editing Hacks For DIY Bloggers

Author: Jeff Bullas

Creating content can be an ongoing challenge for startups.

Content marketing provides a platform for us to show off our expertise, but it takes a lot of time and effort to pull it off correctly.

Quality over quantity is key, but even publishing one blog post per week can be hard when there are so many other facets to running a small business.

Even if you manage to write your blog post for the week, the work doesn’t end there. The last thing you want to do is publish a blog post that has errors or doesn’t read well. Remember, your content is representative of your business!

Even though it is best practice to get another pair of eyes on your content before you hit that publish button, sometimes due to time constraints or team size, that’s just not possible. Fortunately there are some simple editing hacks that can help you eliminate, or at least minimize, errors in your content.

Don’t know where to start?

Here are some straightforward hacks to edit your own content effectively and easily.

Once you’ve finished a piece, take a break from it and do something else for a few hours. If you can sleep on it, that’s even better.

For SEO Success, Build into Core of Company

Author: Jill Kocher

Search engine optimization isn’t a project you can do once. For lasting success, SEO needs to be built into the core of how you manage your ecommerce business.

Fifteen years ago it was possible for an SEO professional to improve organic search while sitting by himself in a dark corner. He’d cram keywords into copy after it was already written, create sitemap after sitemap, and build links like crazy — on article sites, wikis, and blog comments. Not today.

Search engine optimization still includes keyword relevance and link authority. But the implementation of those important elements must be expressed in the way that the site is structured and built; in the products that are offered and how they’re named; and in the content marketing offerings on and off the site. That’s why it needs to be built into the core of your digital operations.

… SEO needs to be built into the core of how you manage your ecommerce business.

SEO professionals are, in fact, responsible for very few deliverables. Yes, SEOs need to conduct deep keyword research on an ongoing basis to inform strategy and taxonomy. We need to audit the site periodically to be certain that it continues to meet best practices and advise on optimization efforts. We need to optimize content and write metadata for new content.

Planning Your Comprehensive Local SEO Audit In 59 Minutes

Author: Vivek Patel

When consumers search for anything online, they keep their location and proximity in mind. Therefore, it is a no-brainer that local searches are gaining prominence nowadays, which is quite evident from a research conducted by Google:

4 out of 5 consumers use search engines to get local information using their mobile devices. They search for local store addresses, business hours, products in stock and directions.

Consumers who search local are also more likely to take a call-to-action. As many as 50% of smartphone users visited a store within the same day after conducting local search and 34% of computer/tablet users followed suit.

18% of local searches conducted on smartphones lead to more purchases as compared to non-local searches, which constitute to just about 7%, in a day.

These statistics point to the fact that higher local search rankings lead to an increase in traffic and revenue for businesses.

The answer to ranking high in local searches lie in local SEO audits, which make way for a successful search engine optimization campaign and fix the loopholes in the existing SEO strategies. But most importantly, businesses benefit from the influx of organic traffic, leads and ultimately, conversions.

We Just Announced 100+ INBOUND 2016 Sessions: Here Are the Top Picks For Every Kind of Marketer

Author: Elijah Clark-Ginsberg

Every fall, we gather thousands of marketers and salespeople in Boston for our annual INBOUND event — it’s where the inbound movement gathers to connect, get inspired, and learn.

Today, we added our first 100+ breakout speakers to the lineup, which already includes Alec Baldwin, Gary Vaynerchuk, and the creators of Netflix’s “Making a Murderer.”

One hundred sessions is a lot to wade through (and it’s not even half of the breakouts for INBOUND this year!), so here are some of our picks for marketers of all stripes.

See something that strikes your fancy? Come join us from November 8-11 in Boston. To celebrate all these sessions, we’re giving $200 off All-Access Passes if you registered before the end of this month. Just use the code FIRST100 when you register.

100+ INBOUND 2016 Sessions Just Announced: Picks for Every Kind of Marketer

Nancy Harhut, CCO at Wilde Agency: 10 Human Behavior Hacks That Will Change the Way You Create Email

You can follow every best practice for creating email and still not get the response you want. That’s because today there’s more to success than a targeted list, compelling offer, and perfectly executed creative.

10 Marketing Blogs All CMOs Should Read

Author: Jayson Demers

Online marketing isn’t a passive game; it demands active participation. New trends emerge quickly, and new information spreads like wildfire. You know your competition is going to be quick on the uptake, so if you want to stay ahead of them, you need an effective roster of news sources and blogs to consult.

Ideally, you’ll have a handful of “general” news providers, covering the most important developments in a number of different niches. But be sure to add in some niche providers that are more detailed about specific types of strategies.

If you’re looking for a good list to get started, here’s a lineup of 10 sources every CMO should regularly read:

Marketing Land is a dependable source of the latest news in online marketing. Covering a range of topics, from SEO and content marketing to the latest advertising platforms, Marketing Land works with a number of different guest contributors and subject matter experts to provide concise articles on the latest in the marketing world. Search Engine Land, a publication from the same company, takes a specific look at SEO issues, content marketing and paid search.