Reginald Chan

Tag: blogging tutorial

  • 5 Simple Content Marketing Strategies To Double Your Traffic

    5 Simple Content Marketing Strategies To Double Your Traffic

    Content marketing is all about putting your articles on the first page of Google search.

    Or at least, that’s one of the top three goals for many bloggers.

    I started a simple survey that comes in my newsletter. The goal was simple; Drop your request to me and I will blog it up for you. And if you have yet to participate in the survey, you can do it here – Content Survey.

    The request was made by one of my readers in Kerala, India with the question, “Anything along the lines of content marketing.”

    I hope you are reading this and here are some useful content marketing strategies which can potentially double your website traffic in a very short period of time.

    Want to save the article for later? Download the PDF copy here.

     

    Content Marketing Strategies

     

    Best content marketing tips for 2014
    How do you do content marketing for 2014?

     

    Content marketing is never easy. If it is hard last year, expect a bomb this year instead.

    If you think that content marketing is just for businesses, you are dead wrong. You need it even if you are a small time blogger.

    Want to rank on the first page of Google? You need content marketing. Period.

    While that literally answered the question on how important content marketing is in today’s world, the biggest question I am going to touch today is as below.

     

    How do you do content marketing with just 5 steps?

     

    Why is content marketing important?

    Content marketing #1 – Strategies

    In my latest blog post on professional blogging tutorial, I outlined one very important factor; having a bulletproof strategy.

    Even before you purchase a domain or pick one up for free on Blogspot, you need to consider:

    • What your blog is all about? (single vs multiple niche)
    • Who would be your readers?
    • What makes others come to your blog?
    • How to make readers come back for more?
    • What makes the blog different from the rest?

    And the list continues.

    In content marketing, you need to be absolutely sure on the path you are heading to. The goals set have to be:

    1. Achievable
    2. Logical
    3. Within a specific time frame

    When it comes to content marketing strategy, putting a high bars in the beginning of the ‘race’ would easily lead to many failures.

     

    Content marketing #2 – Headlines

     

    Magnetic headlines will increase traffic

     

    Article headlines are the first thing your readers read and therefore, it is a no brainer to put all your effort into constructing a great one.

    Headlines should be craved accordingly to:

    • Reader’s interest
    • Latest headlines
    • Mysterious
    • Delivering promises

    Let’s take for example, both of these headlines:

    5 Simple Content Marketing Strategies To Double Your Traffic

    5 Content Marketing Strategies To Build Traffic

    For starters, both the above are very close to each other but by just adding a few words, you could easily skyrocket your conversion rate; getting more readers to read your article.

    The first title is obviously a better choice because it has the word ‘simple’ and ‘double’.

    This give an impression for the readers that the 5 tips are easy to do (less time consuming) and a promise that it would increase blog traffic by at least once.

    A few other headlines that you could use are:

    • Best 10 … To …
    • A versus B
    • How to make money while you are sleeping (example for mystery headlines)

    Want to dig in more? You can check out what Brian Clark wrote here, How to write magnetic headlines.

     

    Content marketing #3 – The content itself

     

    Writing great content is important in marketing

     

    Two questions that easily pop into mind would be:

    • The length of the article
    • Creating out of this world discussion

    While there are probably hundreds of discussions in regards to this matter, I ought to differ.

    People says longer articles gets ranked better by Google and many of us are scratching our heads just to reach the 1,200 words mark.

    True?

    Honestly speaking, my case studies (unpublished yet) show that articles between 1,000 to 2,000 words would rank better but with heavy optimization; keyword density, title tags etc.

    Not only that, I have a website ranking on page two of Google without any SEO done to it and the epic part? The articles published on the site are created by a robot, has around 600 words on average per article and articles created are around 60% readable.

    Does longer articles get ranked better? Probably.

    Do you really need lengthy articles to rank well on Google now? Not really (or until Google changes its algorithm again).

    So, truth debunked? Go figure!

    And our next discussion, article creation.

    When it comes to content marketing, you need great content if you want to stand out from the crowd. If your blog posts are plain and simple, you are already losing half the battle.

    I often consider content marketing (or writing articles in this sense) as an art; The art to captivates audience.

    Take a read on what some of the professional and prominent figures in the blogging industry on their blogs and you will notice a huge difference between them. Some would simple start with a story while others, would give you bits of the story to drive you nuts.

    Either way, those are real darn good content marketing techniques.

    Moral of the story? Every single word that you use should be followed by another to make your reader NOT pressing the X button.

    If you are wondering, the below is one of the oldest tricks in blogging.

    Bribe your visitors with information they are looking for, not opposite.

     

    Content marketing #4 – The effect of images in a blog post

     

    How to increase traffic with images

     

    Okay, so you had written a super lengthy post of 2,500 words.

    Great ~ but why is your bounce rate so high? Why are readers not digging into your articles?

    Chances are you are not using images.

    A picture represents a thousand words. Same goes to blogging!

    The concept here is fairly simple. Readers (including me) will not read your article from A to Z if it is over 1,000 words. Unless you are a great writer like Brian Clark, you are probably nowhere near success.

    In content marketing, you need to make sure that you are using the power of images. You don’t need to use high resolution images for all your blog posts. Instead, choose the right one which represents the best meaning of the word/sentence.

    Have you noticed that Pinterest is one of the prominent social media platform growing in the shadows of Facebook?

    Images are getting more important and if you are losing if you are not using images.

    Blogging or content marketing as what I call is a business. If you want to start growing your ‘business’, start utilizing images for Christ’s sake.

    It probably cost you around 10 seconds to find one thanks to Google.

    So seriously, use images, slides, videos or any visual related sources to drive your website visitors crazy. Yes, make them “wow”!

     

    Content marketing #5 – Are you ‘marketing’?

     

    Content marketing with social media
    Social media is apart of the content marketing strategy

     

    You may have:

    • The best content
    • Fully optimized with on-page SEO
    • More than 2,000 words
    • Killer headlines
    • Epic images, slides and videos

    And you are popped a beer and congratulate yourself for the job well done. Well, you are nearly there … but not there yet!

    Traffic is not going to flow in just-like-that with the above optimization techniques.

    Seriously!

    If you want your content to go viral or being shared across the various social media platforms, you need to market the article to ready-listeners.

    Yes, you’re right; Those followers you have in your mailing list.

    If you do not have a mailing list yet, you can get one here for 30 days free and no credit card required.

    While you can reach hundreds or thousands of followers with the right email marketing provider, the job doesn’t stop there.

    You need to continue marketing the article as long as it is still published and this, my friend, is one of the biggest mistakes done by many content writers.

    People tend to share new articles for the first 2 to 4 weeks from the date published and after that, everything goes flat; no more marketing after reaching the 5th week mark.

    If you are writing evergreen articles, then make sure you schedule them for social media sharing at least once a month. You can easily promote these articles across various social media platforms using Buffer.

    Not sure how to use it? Check this article out – How to schedule posts using Buffer App?

     

    Do you like the content marketing tips above?

    Tell me what you think using the comment form below and if you like to throw in your request, head over to this link and drop your request there!

  • How To Avoid Google Penalization And Manual Web Spam With Guest Blogging?

    How To Avoid Google Penalization And Manual Web Spam With Guest Blogging?

    Google did that again; unleashing web spam and search ranking penalization to not one but two major websites.

    When I saw that news on Twitter, I knew that the search engine world is changing and damn, it is changing rapidly.

    Matt Cutt’s said previously that we should be careful and not abusing guest blogging. While many took that seriously, there are still some who continue doing it.

    But hey, they aren’t wrong and they are probably doing everything by the book.

    As usual, Google is known for breaking things that works and penalized two sites from the face of search engine (literally). MyBlogGuest was nowhere to be found on Google front row pages and Portent Inc. who went from page 1 of Google to page 60.

    Words from Ann Smarty on Twitter:

     

    And Ian Lurie from Portent Inc.:  


    So, what the @#$% is wrong with them or Google?

    At the moment, the only confirmed updates are MyBlogGuest is a huge guest blogging sphere while Portent Inc. is a popular marketing agency. And the only linking between both Portent Inc. and MyBlogGuest is that they (Portent Inc.) have several guest posts published on MyBlogGuest.

    Words on the street are that MyBlogGuest’s database is affected but until this get verified, it will remain as a mystery, shall we?

    We all know MyBlogGuest and it is managed by the popular Ann Smarty. For me, MyBlogGuest is a great place for knowledge and for many, it is a huge filled with knowledge.

    Another question that comes to this is that does link building is more important that content quality, length and another dozen reasons more we have always been doing?

    Yes, go figure and tell me what you think using the comment form below.

     

    The discussion about guest blogging effects
    What do you think about guest blogging?

     

    So, what is guest blogging all about?

    Guest blogging is a ‘feature’ where webmasters of certain domains would allow other bloggers to submit or publish their posts on the site. This is a win-win situation where webmasters would be able to maintain the freshness of the site while the guest bloggers would get at least one backlink to their own blogs.

    Personally, this is one of the greatest link building technique where you are able to get quality links and building your authority at the same time.

    While this is close to a completely white hat link building technique, many bloggers are (indirectly) abusing the link building cycle. This means that you can literally gain as many backlinks as possible even if your website is below par … as long as you are constantly submitting guest posts.

    Therefore, excessive guest blogging would lead to many Google penalization and as well as manual web spam.

    Ultimately, this leads to the next question.

     

    Excessive guest blogging causes Google penalty and manual web spam

     

    Question: Should you continue to submit or accept guest blogging?

    Do it if you wish ‘¦ but do it with moderation.

    Guest bloggings are meant to be quality and probably one of your best article creations with hours of hard work put in it.

    Don’t just submit your article to a dozen websites but instead, submit just a handful of articles to the right and related websites.

    1. Before submitting guest blogging (checklist and tutorial)

    If you want to submit articles to websites, make sure you are providing quality articles. Most of the time, majority of the blogger would say that they are submitting top notch quality and a simple read through will know that those are really bad.

    If you are putting a high bar and expectation on your own guest blogging, you need to raise it even higher now.

    Search engine is changing and it is getting tougher!

    2. Before accepting guest blogging

    If you happen to accept guest blogging, don’t panic. Here are things you need to do in sequence:

    • Check each articles for dead links and low quality posts
    • Contact the guest blogger and ask if he or she would like to update the post(s)
    • Repeat and rinse these steps on a monthly basis

    While this is extremely time consuming, the effort taken would benefit you in a long run; avoiding yourself from being penalized by Google.

     

     

    What to do if you found manual web spam notification on Webmaster Tool?

    If your blog is PageRank 2 and below … plus, guest blogging isn’t your main backlink method, then you should be just fine.

    However, let’s say Google really hates you and you get a manual web spam notification. On average, it would take place immediately in terms of ranking effects but I usually see them in action between 3 to 7 days.

    So, this means that you have 72 hours (minus the sleep) to rectify it immediately. It doesn’t take you long but here are the steps you need to do:

    • Use backlink checker tools such as AhRefs, MajesticSEO or SEO PowerSuite to get a list of all your backlinks
    • Export them into an excel form or format
    • Check each link that is linking back to your website and do it with cautions (this means that even a single backlink to your site should be ‘˜flagged’)
    • Copy those domains into another excel tab and check for their PageRank, Domain Authority, Page Authority and anchor texts linking to those domains
    • Separate them into three lists such as Safe, Moderate and Dangerous (if you notice any domain is at risk of being penalized, place them in the Dangerous list)
    • Contact each of the webmasters in the Dangerous list and ask for amendment in guest post or remove the links
    • You should keep an eye on those domains in the Moderate list and if there any change in ranking (weekly basis), you can decide to move them to Safe or Dangerous list respectively

     

    Help! I am lazy and I don’t have the time, but I don’t want Google to penalize my blog

    Okay, the above 7 steps are not one-time jobs. Instead, those are your daily to-do lists to be honest.

    Guess what? Among us, there would be those who have thought about going shortcut.

    Example: How about I send the full list of Dangerous to Google Disavow directly. Would that be faster?

    Honestly speaking, that would be not faster but lighting fast.

    But wait! There’s a downside of this and a huge one to be honest.

    Imagine you send the list of domains on a weekly or monthly basis to Google for disavowing. Have you ever wonder what Google will think about you?

    1. You are plain lazy
    2. You are doing black hat SEO and in a rush to clear all your bad links
    3. Trying to come clean when you are not (or even if you are)

    I would always go against using Google Disavow tool unless you have really tried to contact the webmaster of the site simply because it doesn’t matter how much white hat SEO you do, Google will still try to find your mistake (here’s my case study).

    And in most cases, Google will consider you guilty until proven otherwise. Ouch!

     

    How to solve Google web spam issue?
    Okay guys. We need a contingency plan to counter attack Google … NOW! ~ President Obama

     

    So, what’s the new SEO strategy you should be using now? Some Q’s & A’s:

    Should I be submitting my guest blogging? ~ If you are doing it heavily, cut it down or reduce the numbers.

    As I have over 100 guest posts, do I need to be worried? ~ Yes if you are submitting to random sites. No if you are selecting guest posting sites like choosing your husband or wife.

    What should I do if my blog has a lot of guest posts? ~ Start checking all your blog posts and the links in them. Remove which ever are low in quality. 

     

    What do you think the future of guest blogging?

    While I would say this event has changed everything we know about guest blogging, there is still no reason why we should doubt the ability of guest blogging.

    The problem would lies in us where we tend to abuse the search engine ecosystem and indirectly, creating a huge loophole for unnatural link building.

    Do you have any thoughts about guest blogging? Tell me what you think using the comment form below.

  • 4 Steps To Transform From A Newbie To A Professional Blogger

    4 Steps To Transform From A Newbie To A Professional Blogger

    Some call it professional blogger while others call it problogger.

    Out of every 10 bloggers I meet, 9 wish to be one. The chances of success you are asking?

    I’ll give it a 5% chance of success.

    There are tons of blogs out there but are there so less bloggers who really achieve success in this blogging industry? Is it really that tough to become a problogger?

    Have you ever wonder why there are so many bloggers fail to achieve success in blogging?

    It was lunch time and as usual, I was having my meal with the accompany of Feedly. I saw the notification bar and I had over 70 new posts to read and I thought “Okay, let’s choose 10 and that should be just nice for an hour break”.

    I ended up reading only one.

    Yes, you hear me right. Just one article.

    It was an article written by Jay Baer from Convince And Convert. You can find the article here. Basically, it was about 6 steps to build a great content marketing strategy. And heck, he is really successful (off topic).

    And this struck me like lightning bolt as I remembered a received a message on Facebook the day before from a friend asking about ‘being an problogger’.

    While Jay outlined 6 steps, mine is much more simpler with just 4.

    So, let’d dive in and get the ball rolling!

    Step by step guide to become a professional blogger
    If you want to be a problogger, you need to constantly blogging … even Gandalf does that behind the scenes!

    How do you become a problogger in just 4 steps?

    Blogging is no longer the 90’s way where backlinks and normal blogging would lead to a successful blog. Now, you need to be different and by different I mean being bold.

    Don’t just share the darn information you can find on the web but instead, share something others are not doing (at least for starters).

    Putting aside all my rant (above), here are the 4 points:

    • Goals
    • Strategies
    • Marketing
    • Measurement

     

    Step 1 – Setting actionable blogging goals

    If you are expecting blogging once a day and traffic will pour in itself, then you are dead wrong, dear friend.

    For Christ’s sake, blogging nowadays is not the same with years back. Everything is evolving!

    Setting the right goals in blogging is always simple and allow me to share my goals with you:

    • What are you good in? – Consider blogging on things you know is highly recommended
    • Who do I target? – Questions such as male, female, age and location are great starts
    • Why would people come to my site? – Ask yourself what you can offer to your visitors
    • What do you consider as success? – Realistic is the key here

    I got to admin the above has little or nothing to do with goals but those are great start to get your goals ‘moving in’.

    One important thing I would like to stress is NEVER consider these as your goals:

    • I want lots of traffic
    • I want to get PageRank 6 (or any digit)
    • I want to make thousands of dollars like Mr You Know Who

    Those hopes and dreams won’t bring you far. Sorry.

    Be realistic or else, you will forever miles away from the big boys in blogging.

     

    Step 2 – Strategies determine both success and failure in blogging

    You want to be a problogger and I get it. Now, do you have an action plan to work with?

    Today, everything in blogging is changing. For example, SEO in 2014 is different from 2013.

    The keyword in blogging is balance. Make sure you have a balance strategy which involves SEO, social media, content marketing and link building.

    Being good in one doesn’t guarantee you success in blogging.

    If your content strategy is still ‘creating tons of articles and wait for traffic to flow in’, you are in for trouble.

    A few sources to help you with blogging strategy could be:

    • Getting feedbacks from readers (I uses GetResponse for Q&A survey ~ Try it for 30 days free)
    • Social listening (check out the trending topics on Gogole, Facebook and Twitter)
    • Search engine analysis (I uses SEO PowerSuite for a comprehensive analysis ~ Free trial version)

     

    Step 3 – The viral effect of marketing

    You need to market your content. People will not magically find your content … unless you are as popular as Neil Patel, Pat Flynn or Darren Rowse.

    You should treat your blog like a product and launch them the same way you would do for a product (Jay Baer).

    One of the biggest mistake I often see on Facebook is sharing and article, tagging God knows how many people and hoping it goes viral.

    Well my friend, that is only going to land in you the spam. *Most of us hate irrelevant tagging. So please cut it off.*

    Instead, find the right group and tell them to read about it. Of course, a good way to start is by informing your mailing list and you can start one using this guide.

     

    Measuring blogging success
    Why is it important to measure blog success?

     

    Step 4 – Measuring your blogging success

    If you want to be a problogger, make sure that you are measuring your success. You don’t have to do it on a daily basis but instead, you can opt for weekly or monthly measuring.

    A few metrics that you could measure in blogging are:

    • Strategy vs Traffic
    • Conversion rate
    • New vs Returning visitors

     So, why do you need measurements in blogging?

    Measurements align you with your blogging goals (refer step #1). It gives you a complete outlook of what you come short of getting more blog traffic and of course, possible steps to start becoming a professional blogger.

    When it comes to measuring blog success, ensure that you are giving yourself goals which are achievable as raising the bar sky high would lead to much failures and a drop in motivation.

     

    Now, what do you think it takes to become a professional blogger?

    I certainly hope this short article could give you a simple outlook on becoming a problogger. Do you have any plans to strategies you would want to share with all of us?

    Use the comment form below and tell me your thoughts on this matter.

  • How To Fix Leverage Browser Caching Issue In WordPress?

    How To Fix Leverage Browser Caching Issue In WordPress?

    By now, you would probably heard about browser caching and you thought that W3 Total Cache had solved the issue for you. Heading over to GTmetrix and it shows that you have the leverage browser caching issue.

    As complicated as it may sound, the solution for this WordPress issue is actually relatively easy.

    How to fix leverage browser caching issue
    Does this looks familiar to you?

    Before we go into a solution for this WordPress issue, let’s take a quick moment to understand what is the function of browser cache feature.

    What is browser cache?

    Whenever a browser loads a webpage, it will download all the web files from the hosting server to display the page properly. This means that it includes all the related HTML, CSS, javascript and images on that page.

    Browser caching is a feature that ‘remembers’ the resources above that the browser had already loaded previously. In other words, the browser do not need to redownload these files again if your visitor decide to move from one page to another on your website.

    The end result of browser caching is your website will load much faster and in return, happier visitors.

    Why is is browser caching important?

    Browser caching helps to reduce the load on your servers and indirectly, improving the load time of the website.

    How to fix leverage browser caching issue in WordPress?

    In geeky terms, you need to edit your HTTP headers to set expiry dates on certain types of files.

    Sounds complicated? The below is the simplified version:

    It is done by adding some codes to a file called .htaccess on your website.

    There are several ways to go access your .htaccess which are through:

    • cPanel File Manager
    • FTP clients

    For most shared hostings, you can access the .htaccess directly which is much easier. For those who use premium hostings like WP Engine, you would need to use FTP clients for security reasons.

    The file, .htaccess is usually located on your /www location on your web host or File Manager page.

    Important: Remember to make a copy of the original .htaccess file before editing it.

    Open the file, add the code below and press save. You can place the code any where at the top of the file.

     

    ## EXPIRES CACHING ##
    <IfModule mod_expires.c>
    ExpiresActive On
    ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/pdf "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresDefault "access plus 2 days"
    </IfModule>
    ## EXPIRES CACHING ##

     

    While the above codes are meant to be used for general websites, you may set different expiry dates especially for files that are updated more frequently.

    The method of changing the duration is relatively easy. In the case where you would like to change the browser cache duration, select the ‘1 year’ and replace it with any duration of your choice, such as ‘1 month’.

    Additional browser cache tips

    Browser caching could affect your website loading speed in a big way and therefore, you should always be aggressive when caching static resources.

    In terms of the recommended cache duration, it would be at a minimum of one month but for the best and most optimized settings, ‘access plus 1 year’ is the best for most websites.

    Once you have done everything as the above, you should clear your browser cache and cookie before it will takes effect.

    Related read: Top 3 Content Delivery Network services that will boost your website loading speed

    Like or dislike this WordPress tutorial?

    I certainly hope this simple tutorial will help you fix the leverage browser caching issue on your WordPress. Tell me what you think about this and if you like it, please share it around too!

  • How Reliable Are Cheap Hosting Plans? 3 Important Factors To Consider!

    How Reliable Are Cheap Hosting Plans? 3 Important Factors To Consider!

    Cheap hosting plans are great especially when you are tight in budget or would want to get a blog up and fast. However, how reliable are cheap hosting plans?

    Before we dig into this post, this reminded me of my recent holiday in Taiwan.

    I wanted to go to a religious area called Lukang and it would take me around $70 NTD using the city bus. Being an adventurous person by nature, I hopped on the respective bus and started my journey. It took me a whopping 1 hour and 45 minutes to reach my destination.

    And I believe I was rather ‘stupid’ as I could easily pay a taxi $200 NTD and reach the same destination in just 20 minutes!

    The moral of the story here is clear; the destination point is the same but the route to it would be extremely different.

    So, how does this relate to choosing a web hosting service?

    For one, my daily Facebook messages would be either friends asking which is the best, affordable or cheap web hosting. By default, I would always be recommending WP Engine anytime of the day.

    Okay, I totally get it. Not many of us are willing to ditch out at least $29 per month for a single website hosting and thus, choosing a more economical hosting package would be a better and not to mention, a smarter choice.

    Putting aside the low start up cost, is there anything you should know about these cheap hosting plans?

    The answer is yes and see below.

    3 virtually important facts you should know about cheap hosting plans

    How good are cheap hosting plans?

    #1 – Web hosting security features

    There isn’t a single web hosting service out there which is bulletproof to hackers and malwares (including premium web hosting).

    Majority of these affordable web hosting companies would just provide moderate to ‘none at all’ security check.

    This means that they would most likely provide you with a tutorial on how you can protect your website and things to look out for.

    If you ever get hacked or compromised, they are not going to patch your site up unless it is clearly their fault. In most cases, they wouldn’t give a second through to upsell their so-called godly backup / security services to you.

    So, what if you have limited budget and could not afford for a better hosting plan?

    The answer is simple. Avoid the below and you would probably be on your way to a more secure website:

    1. Perform daily backup
    2. Avoid using nulled or cracked plugins and themes
    3. Do not use common login like ‘admin’ or ‘administrator’
    4. Use a stronger password

    Generally, you should be using a security plugin if security is your main concern. Lucky for you, there are many top-notch security plugins to choose from such as Better WP Security and Wordfence.

    If you can’t decide on them, here’s a side by side comparisons between both of these security plugins.

    In today’s world, it is really tough to find for a cheap and reliable web hosting provider.

    #2 – The level of web hosting support

    For one, support is extremely important and I am a superb particular customer to be honest. Web hosting support is needed especially for those who have limited knowledge in this field.

    While there are probably dozens of tutorials out there that you can find, it is always good to know that help is just a few clicks away.

    When you subscribe to a cheap hosting services, you should be ready for a moderate to a low level of support whenever you need them.

    The truth is you can still live with this downside and there is still no need to get a more expensive hosting package just for the matter. Seriously!

    All it takes a little patience and some tutorial reading.

    #3 – The real meaning of managed hosting services

    Affordable web hosting solution or service is not managed entirely; this means that you are virtually on your own once you sign up for a hosting package.

    You could probably be wondering why are there big sites which uses premium web hosting services instead of common ones that you and I see on a daily basis.

    The answer is that these hostings are fully managed. In other words, you will be treated like a baby and everything else are taken cared of … from food to diapers.

    Okay, you get the point.

    Putting aside the baby food and diapers, these services will provide you a list of unallowed plugins or guidelines for you to follow. They doesn’t only provide them but they ensure you follow those ‘rules’ closely.

    For example, both WP Engine and Synthesis provide (recommend) a list of yes-no plugins for your website which could affect either stability, website loading speed or simply, security loopholes.

    Besides that, there are support teams who are constantly on a lookout for your website in case of any intrusion and hacking.

    Compared to cheaper hosting plans, you will not be spoon fed with these mouth-watering features and you would probably be left alone licking on your wounds if your website get hacked.

    Of course, you can easily solve this if you have perform daily backups on the site.

    Personally, cheap hosting isn’t bad but are subpar when it comes to managing a hosting plan. Most of the time, they are just providing tips on website maintenance and nothing else in between.

    So, is cheap hosting plans really worth it?

    Can you trust these cheap hosting plans?

    From my perspective, yes. While many people, bloggers and affiliate marketers (including me) would say a big no-no to cheap hosting plans, I would say go for it if you have budget constraints.

    Cheap web hosting packages are dangerous if you do not use them correctly. If you know the basic security features and tasks to perform, you should be well on your way to save some serious money in your pocket.

    Disclaimer: My meaning of cheap hosting plans is not free web hosting services

    Recommended hosting packages for bloggers with budget issues

    Let’s say you wouldn’t want burn a hole in your pocket and you just want to be still enjoy a reliable web hosting. Look no further as SiteGround is here for you.

    SiteGround brings a whole different meaning when it comes to affordable shared hosting.

    It starts at $3.95 per month for a single site hosting (StartUp plan) and the usual freebies provided would be free domain name, free site transfer and free daily backup services.

    If you are geeky and looking for a staging area feature (but cannot afford WP Engine), then you can opt for higher plans which are GrowBig plan at $10.95 per month or GoGeek plan at $14.95 per month.

    I have several sites hosted at SiteGround and trust me, their customer support is tip top. What I really love about them is that they provide ‘patch-up’ for any flaws or malware detected in your blogging platform while waiting for the official patch to go live.

    This, my friends, is one hell of a security feature I would die for any time of the day.

    Okay, let’s say you are really that stingy and about to click on a new tab to find for SiteGround discount coupon. Don’t even bother doing it as I am giving you one right now as we speak.

    Thanks to SiteGround, all of you will enjoy special discounts using the special link below:

    [sociallocker]

    Special SiteGround discount for all my readers

    • StartUp plan – $0.83 per month
    • GrowBig plan – $4.95 per month
    • GoGeek plan – $10.95 per month

    [/sociallocker]

     

    So, how about those geeky, premium web hosting packages?

    If you are looking for a premium web hosting package, there is no other than the all-time-famous WP Engine. What makes WP Engine special are:

    • In-built cache service and therefore, no cache plugin ever needed
    • Daily backup and if your site ever get hack, they fix the site for you for free
    • Super fast customer support (around 5-10 minutes email reply or near-to-instant live chat)
    • Every staff of theirs know about WordPress (so, you are in good hands)

    Click on the following links to read my review on WP Engine and comparison between WP Engine and Synthesis.

    Would you use cheap web hosting services?

    In a nutshell, choosing a cheap web hosting plan is fine as long as you know absolutely what to expect from them. The biggest issue is usually not about the hosting company but the users themselves.

    If you are paying less than $5 per month, chances are very real that you would not get a complete hosting service especially when it comes to support.

    These type of web hostings are good especially when you are running multiple websites, domain parkings and even niche blogging. If the hosting plan is for your main site, I would always recommend you to get a better company to go with.

    Resources:

    What do you think? Do you have any experience with cheap hosting plans, services or companies? Tell me using the comment form below.

  • Top 10 SEO Tools And Plugins You Will Ever Need In 2014

    Top 10 SEO Tools And Plugins You Will Ever Need In 2014

    There are a lot of tools in the SEO industry and over the years, we had learned that these SEO tools are used more than just increase website ranking; majority of us use these SEO tools for analytics and data collection.

    Last year itself, we seen the departure of specific data which we use dearly for ranking a website and this made us extremely vulnerable when it comes to planning our godly SEO strategies.

    SEO in 2014 would be slightly different from previous years as we will be facing extra challenges … which is collecting the right data. This is why it is important use the best search engine optimization tools to get the job done.

    A quick rundown on Google and you may find dozens of tools out there but just like a majority of us, you will most likely puzzled and wondering which is best and of course, save you the most money (a.k.a. easy on your wallet).

    This post is long and thus, bookmark this for future reference. By the way, have you checked out 2014 SEO tips from 21 industry experts?

    You could easy get your hands on free SEO tools (and plugins) like Yoast SEO for free or premium ones that could easily cost hundreds of dollars monthly.

    Either way, you need to find the best combination for all your SEO needs and honestly speaking, free online tools doesn’t always make the cut.

    There is nothing called as the best SEO tools. The best are always the tools which best fit into your SEO strategy.

    In this article, I will be sharing my search engine optimization strategy using various free and paid SEO tools which are divided into several categories:

    1. General research
    2. Competitor research
    3. Keyword research
    4. On-page SEO
    5. Rank tracking

    I got to admit that the above might sound a little challenging especially if you are just a novice blogger. As much as I recommend you to have a list of tools at your own disposal, make sure you are financially ready as some of these tools are really costly.

    Top 10 SEO tools for 2014

    Top 10 SEO tools for 2014

    1. General research tools

    • Google Webmaster Tool
    • Google Analytics

    The above are my first go-to tools when it comes to SEO planning especially when I am doing SEO services for my client.

    These are tools which gives you the first sugar coating for your SEO strategy. Consider it as the base of your project.

    Google Webmaster Tool

    Google Webmaster Tool is one of the best and free SEO tools 2014

    Powered by Google, you must be out of your mind if this is not one of your SEO tools for 2014!

    Google Webmaster Tool gives you an idea on:

    • HTML improvements
    • Search queries
    • External backlinks
    • Manual spam action
    • Crawl error

    Under 30 minutes, you would be able to determine factors affecting your website ranking and possibly keywords which your website are ranking on search engine.

    One of the best SEO tips is to ensure your website is SEO-ready even before you start engaging in any projects.

    A huge part of Google Webmaster Tools are focused on on-page SEO and thus, it is always good to ensure your site is physically ready for any SEO plans.

    Read more about On-Page and Off-Page SEO

    Google Analytics

    Google Analytics is one of the most important tools when it comes to SEO analysis

    Another power SEO tool which is powered by Google and is in fact, one of the best tools out there when it comes to providing analytics data.

    Google Analytics (some call it GA) offers truck load of stats and data for your ‘digestion’. GA fit nicely into my best SEO tools 2014 with the Search Engine Optimization feature (Acquisition > Search Engine Optimization).

    In this category, you will be spoilt with not one but three important stats which are Queries, Landing Pages and Geographical Summary.

    Geographical Summary is only useful if you are running SEO campaigns based on locations.

    While Google is fond of removing even more data from various tools, both Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools are still able to provide sufficient information which will affect your overall SEO strategy.

    2. Competitor research tools

    • Ahrefs
    • Majestic SEO

    If you are thinking of ranking your website, it is a no brainer that you need to know who are your competitors. A friend of mine did told me that ranking the website is easy; All you need is to do ‘that’ slightly better than your competitor and you have the edge already.

    Competitor research tools are used to understand how your competitors get their ranking and reverse engineer it until certain extend. This means that forget about copying exactly but instead, focus in building something better or more explosive than theirs.

    Ahrefs

    Why is Ahrefs used by dozens of SEO experts?

    My personal favorite due to looks and user interface. Seriously.

    Ahrefs provides better analytics data especially when it comes to finding external and internal backlinks. As much as Ahrefs is great for checking on your own site, I uses it to check on my competitor.

    My overused features would be anchor text, domains and top pages.

    With just the above 3 information, I could easily determine (roughly) what are my competitor’s SEO strategy and how it is working out for them.

    The only issue with Ahrefs is that the free account comes with limited SEO requests and reports. To solve this, you may opt for the premium plan which starts at $79 per month.

    If you are running an SEO agency, Ahrefs is one SEO tool you must have in your arsenal.

    Try Ahrefs for free today.

    Majestic SEO

    Majestic SEO is one of the most popular tools when it comes to SEO

    The direct competitor to Ahrefs and I had used Majestic SEO for over 2 years now.

    Data from Ahrefs itself is not enough and thus, I merge them (on Excel) with the data collected from Majestic SEO.

    Basically, Majestic SEO offers pretty much as what Ahrefs (and a dozen more SEO tools out there) in terms of features. However, since Majestic SEO and Ahrefs use different methods to measure the data, it is a great move to have a wider data.

    Just like its competitor, Majestic SEO offers free accounts and premium ones would start from $42 per month.

    Create a free account with Majestic SEO.

    3. Keyword research tools

    • Google Keyword Planner
    • Long Tail Pro

    Debate all you want; keyword research is still important when it comes to SEO.

    My keyword research strategy lies in several phrases and tools such as general keywords and specific, long tail keywords.

    While choosing the right keyword is one thing, using the keyword(s) is another important task as well. This is probably why I uses not one but two SEO tools just for keyword research.

    Google Keyword Planner

    Find the ebst keywords using Google Keyword Planner

    Every keyword research strategy starts from here. Google Keyword Planner or GKP in short provides a list of keywords which we can use to rank our website.

    Not only that, you can also use GKP to search for keywords your competitors are trying to rank as well. You may refer to this article which I wrote about Google Keyword Tool but the concept is very similar to the current Google Keyword Planner.

    All you need is Excel and copy-pasting all the information into the list and sort them out. After sorting, you would have around 500 relevant keywords to kick start your SEO campaign.

    For bloggers or content writers who are tight in budget, GKP is free and thus, is definitely the top 5 SEO tool for majority of us.

    Related article: Step by step guide to use Google Keyword Planner

    Long Tail Pro

    Long Tail Pro is an important SEO tool for keyword research

    Personally, I consider Long Tail Pro or LTP as an advance version of Google Keyword Planner. You can search up to 10 keywords at one time and check for the competition level.

    Long Tail Pro is a great SEO tool as you can easily save hours in keyword research. With data collected from Google Keyword Planner, you can easily minimize the list into several high value keyword groups to increase the chances of ranking.

    This is easily done by Long Tail Pro as it provides competition analysis and keyword ranking as well. With a one time fee of $97, this is an absolute must for bloggers and niche writers.

    You may refer to my Long Tail Pro review or jump directly into the official website for more information.

    4. On-page SEO tools

    • Scribe SEO
    • SEOPressor

    One of the SEO best practices is to ensure your website is optimized for SEO.

    Ring any bells? This is what we call on-page SEO, folks.

    While having SEO agencies or consultants might be not an advisable plan for startups and small time bloggers,  there are two tools which I would highly recommend when it comes to on-page SEO.

    So, what is on-page SEO means?

    Basically, it means using the right keyword density, utilizing the correct markup and to get some serious love from search engine bots.

    Scribe SEO

    Scribe Content takes on-page SEO analysis to the next level

    If you think that my keyword research stops after using Long Tail Pro, you are absolutely wrong.

    Scribe SEO is my next go-to SEO tool for composing blog posts. Basically, Scribe SEO provides a comprehensive research and analytics for you.

    It works in a 4- steps procedure:

    1. Checking the chance of ranking for that specific keyword (competition analysis)
    2. Upon completion of blog post, it will analyze the keyword density by comparing not only that blog post but as well as the whole website to determine the chance of ranking on search engine
    3. Provide a list of recommended tags to use
    4. Recommending a list of external and internal links to build backlinks

    Once you have completed the steps above, your blog post would be nearly to perfect in terms of keyword density and indirectly, improving the chance to rank on search engine.

    Scribe SEO (some call it Scribe Content) price starts at $88 per month and this is a must-have SEO tool in 2014 if you are serious in dominating the SERPs.

    Did I mentioned that this is managed by the guys from StudioPress?

    Take Scribe SEO for a 30-days trial run or grab your free SEO report here.

    SEOPressor

    SEOPressor is the most affrodable SEO tool for bloggers

    One of the biggest issue with keyword research tools like Scribe Content is that they are pricey. Therefore, say hello to SEOPressor.

    SEOPressor is one of the most popular SEO plugin for WordPress users simply because it provides features such as:

    • On-page SEO analysis
    • Keyword suggestions
    • Over optimization check
    • Rich snippet
    • LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) suggestions
    • Social SEO
    • Automatic internal linking
    • Video embedded suggestion

    With pricing starts from $47, there is absolutely no reason for you to complaint that it is expensive or you are not affordable for it.

    Personally, SEOPressor is a great alternative to Scribe SEO as it provides great value and SEO features with a one-time payment.

    Double your traffic under 14 days using SEOPressor or money back guarantee!

    5. Rank Tracking tool

    • SEMrush

    When it comes to SEO planning and strategy, tracking and monitoring keywords play vital roles.

    Blogging is always a business and you need to think like an SEO strategist to compete with your competitors. This means that you need to plan not one but multiple SEO marketing strategies to achieve results.

    Tracking tools are extremely important when it comes to SEO keyword strategy. Looking at the above, you will notice that a huge chunk of your time are used to find quality keywords for your site.

    And the next step is to ensure your hardwork pays off.

    So, if you are not tracking your keywords now, you better do it right now!

    SEMrush

    SEMrush is a great SEO tracking tool

    I got to admit; SEMrush isn’t the best tool for tracking keywords. The main purpose of SEMrush is to track Google Adwords keywords.

    However, you can actually use this to your advantage … yes, by tracking related keywords on your blog.

    On a free account, you can create up to 10 keywords for tracking. I usually set up long tail keywords. Choice of keywords can be taken from Google Analytics, Google Keyword Planner, Google Webmaster Tools or any research tools of your choice.

    SEMrush will then populate the keywords which you are planning to rank and the stats will be updated once every day.

    And you might be wondering, “Okay, I am lost. How can SEMrush possibly be one of the best SEO tools available to mankind?”

    Allow me explain a little more in detail.

    SEMrush is one of the SEO tools for 2014 as I consider it as an all-in-one SEO software that monitors nearly everything. For example, it offers:

    • Organic research
    • Backlink checker
    • Keyword research
    • Position tracking
    • Domain vs domain
    • Rankings

    I do know a few serious (and experienced) bloggers who use SEMrush to cater for all their SEO needs but personally, I use it for organic research and position tracking only.

    You can sign up for a free SEMrush account here. Paid accounts start from $69.95 per month.

     

    All in one SEO tool – SEO PowerSuite

    SEO PowerSuite is a very powerful tool for SEO research and monitoring

    When it comes to search engine optimization, it is really hard to find a good SEO tool that does everything for you. As a matter of fact, I used to think that it never exist.

    With so many SEO tools out there for us to choose, we are often wondering which is the best and worth our money.

    Sounds familiar?

    I bet it does.Okay, I admit it. Call me a plugin or SEO tool freak. My love for them will never fade.

    Introducing the almighty, SEO PowerSuite.

    SEO PowerSuite (some call it SEO PS) is probably the most expensive single piece of SEO tool I ever bought in my life.

    So, is SEO PowerSuite worth it?

    While SEO PowerSuite is just one piece of SEO tool, it actually consists of several parts (or features):

    1. Rank Tracker
    2. Website Auditor
    3. SEO Spyglass
    4. Link Assistant

    Yes, 4 features which can skyrocket your SEO campaigns in 2014.

    Rank Tracker

    One of the top 3 ranking tools I ever use. Extremely useful (and fast) when it comes to following up on your keywords rankings. If you are planning to do mass keyword ranking check or multiple domains, it is best to use private proxies to avoid temporary ban from Google.

    While it offers a whopping keyword ranking check on over 346 search engines, I only check on Google, Bing and Yahoo for obvious reasons.

    Website Auditor

    When a client of mine ask for SEO services, this is the number one tool I use to check for on-page SEO. If you want to check ever corner, worm hole and tiny 404 errors, this is one tool you need to use.

    Trust me when I tell you this is one of the best website auditing tool I ever … ever used!

    • Want to check if your robot.txt is working? Done!
    • Want to build robot.text but no idea how? Do it with Website Auditor!
    • Want to check if your website have crawl issues? Done!

    Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to hard sell Website Auditor (okay, maybe a little) but seriously, this is seriously one bad-a*s tool to use.

    The only issue you may face is that when you are generating a report for every tiny bit of problem with your site, it could take hours. My longest experience was 18 hours.

    Go figure!

    SEO Spyglass

    If you want to know what your competitor is doing, what keywords are they trying to rank for or even, anchor texts they are using, this tool will tell you everything you need to know.

    SEO Spyglass = Backlink checker. Period!

    Link Assistant

    Link Assistant is a powerful … and not so powerful tool.

    If you are using it correctly, you can easily turn Link Assistant into a Virtual Assistant that does all your link building works, emailing etc.

    And of course, if you have no idea what it is all about, then you are probably not going far with this tool.

    In short, Link Assistant is a management tool that helps you to:

    1. Store data (all your links) in a bullet proof, nuclear resistance ‘space’
    2. Tool to verify backlinks
    3. Reach out to webmasters for link building opportunities

    SEO PowerSuite comes in three plans:

    • Free
    • Professional
    • Enterprise

    For me, I am using Enterprise version as I need to export data for further usage.

    Free SEO PowerSuite trial download | Buy SEO PowerSuite

    What is your favorite tool when it comes to search engine optimization?

    Always remember that one of the best SEO tips for 2014 is to use the right tool for the right job. There is absolutely no point using a specific tool if you have no idea how to utilize it.

    So, what is your go-to SEO tools that you must use in 2014? Tell me using the comment form below!